Healthy Thanksgiving Eating
Hi, I’m Dr. Craig Primack from Scottsdale Weight Loss Center. Today, I’m going to talk about a safe and healthy way to eat in the holidays. I give this recommendation every year. The holidays are a time, unfortunately, that many people do tend to gain weight. My recommendations go back many years, but they’re good and reasonable and I think doable recommendations.
The Eating Season
The first thing, remember, the eating season started at Halloween, when the candy that you were going to give out didn’t get given out.It stayed in your home, and it lasts all the way through the new year. This is a time we really want to be diligent about trying to eat healthy.
On Thanksgiving:
Onto Thanksgiving Day itself, I recommend eating normally leading up to your Thanksgiving meal. Don’t skip a meal, because I don’t want you to go into that meal, extra hungry. If you’re the host, it’s nice because you can have a lot of healthy things there, but also there’s benefits to being the guest because the leftovers stay in the home.
Here’s the recommendation for the meal itself. Eat what I call the three healthy foods. Number one healthy is turkey or whatever protein that your family is serving. Have about six ounces. Let’s say actually four to six ounces. How do we measure that? The easiest way is to use your hand. If this is the hand, my recommendation is that four ounces is the size of your palm and the thickness of your palm, and six ounces gets half of your fingers also, so this much.
Protein First
Eat your protein first, also have vegetables. And any vegetable is good if it’s not corn, beans, or potatoes, we’ll come back to potatoes, and salad, and any of the healthy things like that. Those are the three staples in your meal. And then I do think you should go through all the different foods you have and say, “What is my favorite Thanksgiving treat?” For some, it is pumpkin pie. For me, and I’ll talk about that, it is sweet potatoes. Maybe, it’s stuffing or something like that.
Let’s go to one day a year when I do have sweet potatoes with brown sugar and butter.
Absolutely delicious. I look forward to it every year. I will have that as my treat for the day. I’m not going to have just a small little tiny one bite of it, but I’m also not going to have a plate full either. I’ll have a reasonable amount that says to me, “This was Thanksgiving. I got my fill.” And luckily for me, this is a food that we don’t make or eat usually any other day of the year, at least in my family.
Its a One Day Holiday
And then the other secret is get your weakness foods out of the house. If you’re the host, during one of your trips to the grocery store and you may be making many to get the different foods you need, because we always forget something, pick up some disposable Tupperware containers. That package of four or six different size containers. And anything that’s a weakness food for you, packaged up as your guests are getting ready to leave. Give them a container full of your weakness foods.
It doesn’t matter if it’s the rest of the family. If this is a weakness food for you, we have to get it out of the house, and say these words exactly like this, “Please take this home, or I have to throw it away.” If you just say take it home, most people say, “No. You know what? Keep it for you. You’ll have it for lunch tomorrow and the next day.” And say, “No, I’m going to have to throw it away. Please take it.” And with that, more often than not, they will take it.
But if they don’t take it, take your container and actually throw it right away. Walk it out to the garbage can. Remember, one meal, Thursday of Thanksgiving, has never ruined anybody’s diet. If you make this a four-day eating extravaganza, a four-day weekend holiday of eating, when it gets to Monday, it’s going to be very hard to stop. When it gets to Tuesday, it’s going to be very hard to stop. And now we’ve done many, many, potentially thousands of calories, over our limits, and we have set ourselves up for potential more weight gain during the holidays.
If You Are Not Perfect…
Even if you aren’t perfect this year, remember, there will be another Thanksgiving next year. Remember how you did it last year? Do it a little better this year. Do it a little better next year and a little bit better after that.
Thanks for being here today. Hope you enjoyed this medical minute. If you can, please subscribe to my channel above. Thanks and I’ll see you next week.
