How To Stay Slim This Thanksgiving (Part 2)

November 21, 2018 Ashley 0 Comments

Okay, so we’ve covered some fabulous tips on how to win at weight loss this Thanksgiving.

All the tricks to use when you sit down at a table whose plates have got more butter than actual food.

But what if the problem’s that you don’t trust yourself?

Well, then, follow the same advice guys give each other before going on a date: don’t go in hungry. Take care of business in the bathroom before. Or, for a less crude analogy, make like Odysseus when he’s about to pass the sirens. Tie yourself up so that you’re unlikely to want the bad stuff. Busy your tummy with a light bite beforehand so you won’t stuff yourself when you get there. (Although, technically, I suppose that second analogy would mean sewing your mouth closed or becoming too physically ill to eat ’cause you ate that E. Coli salad that’s been trending all over Facebook.)

(“Lettuce give thanks.”)

Anyway, as a piggyback to that, hydration is huge in preventing excess eating. Drink at least a liter of water before dinner and you’ll be far less likely to overdo it. You’ve probably heard that one before. But what you may not have heard is to take a break half way into your munchery for another glass of water. Half the time when we overeat, it’s not because we’re still hungry. It’s not even always because it tastes amazing. Rather, we’ve worked up a thirst from the high sodium levels, and we’ve entered that tricky territory of confusing thirst for hunger.

But let’s say you are doing the cooking this year.

The obvious tips are going to be stuff like “cook with coconut oil instead of butter” or “sub in cauliflower for mashed potatoes”. (Obviously, if you control the cooking, you can make it healthier.) But that’s not the problem, is it? I mean, really, we’re talking about one day. Why would anyone worry about gaining weight on one day? I don’t. I go all out for “Faturday” on a weekly basis and I’m back to my usual weight by Wednesday. In fact, if you’re not worried about one day setting off a domino effect of bad habits, you could ignore every other tip on this two page list except the one I’m about to give you.

And it starts with a rhetorical question: when it comes to Thanksgiving…. it’s not just one day, is it? It’s days, plural. Thanksgiving is about an abundant feast of food, a mere quarter of which everyone collectively finishes on the day it’s made, after which there’s a cavalcade of carby, calorie ridden leftovers we feel compelled to complete before they spoil in a week. Otherwise you’re wasting food. So, that’s seven days of continued bad eating. That’s a new bad habit. And it becomes a bad habit baton that gets passed onto the next feast, not four weeks later. The fix? Send that shiz home. Someone else’s home, that is. Have the Tupperware ready to go and fill cousin Clara’s purse with those sides and rolls before they turn into rolls on your sides. If it’s not in your house, you can’t eat it. And if you’ve given it to someone else, you aren’t wasting it.

That’s all I’ve got, loves.

Now, off to the gym to create a calorie deficit for the 24 hour gastric apocalypse I’m about to commit…

#NoRegerts