Do You Have A Plan?

The holidays are coming and for many of us that means eating!! I grew up in a family that was very into Holiday Food! My Grandmother would cook for days and we in turn would eat for days. Sometimes I would consider holiday meals the last big feast I would enjoy before I started my diet. Seven years ago that changed for me, I decide that I would start a lifestyle change right before the holidays. It was in November in fact, so right around this time of the year.

What I found was that I had to make better choices about my holiday meal. I had no control over what others prepared but I did have control over I consumed. I made a realistic goal for my day considering that there would be tons of great food.

1. I only eat one dinner, one time, that day. So I could not attend several different places for a sit down dinner. I explained ahead of time to hosts that I would love to visits but that I had some new goals in my life. Everyone understood and some even offered to create veggie platters for me, so that if I needed to snack there was a healthy alternative.

2.Eat serving sizes and make sure that my plate was not a platter.

3.Eat breakfast and lunch the day of the meal.

4.Have desert but have only a serving of desert. ( find out what a serving size looks like)

5.Don’t take home left over’s!!!!

Now that I cook my own Thanksgiving meal for my family, we do things a bit differently. My children are fairly young and their appetites are in line with their age. I make enough food for one meal; I try and find the smallest turkey I can. I make a starch, vegetable and a meat. I only make one dessert and it is enough for one meal.That way we move on from that meal and everyone still gets to enjoy the Holiday!!