Did you know that, on average, most people consume between 5,000 and 7,000 calories on Thanksgiving Day? Some of you may be shocked by this fact and some of you may simply not want to think about it.

For many, eating veggies and salad is not exactly a priority on Thanksgiving Day. Every year we look forward to mom’s traditional cornbread dressing, our grandmother’s famous casserole/dish or our aunt’s prize winning pumpkin pie. It’s tradition after all!

But our thanksgiving tradition doesn’t have to mean stuffing ourselves with 5,000 – 7,000 calorie meals, which in turn means:

Overloading and taxing our liver, pancreas and digestive tract, expanding our stomach so that we will be hungrier in the days to follow, (which means easy added pounds) feeling bloated and yucky.

I believe we can have our Thanksgiving tradition without derailing our health and fat loss goals. So here are a few tips to help you get through your Thanksgiving Day without gaining weight or feeling terrible.

Certain studies show that the more variety we have in front of us, the more we’re likely to eat. This is certainly proven true during Thanksgiving when we have anywhere from 7-20 different food options at the table.

The scene usually looks something like this:

You load up on everything; you clean your plate, no matter how much food is on it, or how good or bad the food tastes (for fear of hurting anyone’s feelings). Then you go back and load up on a second helping of your favorites. Sound familiar?

You can turn this scene around without depriving yourself of any of those tasty traditional treats!

Think polka dot sampler plate

Make a sampler style meal and create a polka dot pattern of food dollops on your plate, leaving plenty of space in between each dollop. You can taste a bit of everything on the menu without feeling deprived or guilty simply by following this sampler plate technique of putting tiny (keyword is tiny) piles of different foods on your plate.

Be a food snob

This is the only time I would ever encourage anyone to be a snob. This technique really works for me so I encourage you to try it. If a food item does not taste absolutely amazing, then don’t finish it. If you go back for a second helping of tiny dots of food, don’t put anything on your plate that isn’t stupendously good. And before you do go back for seconds, ask yourself “I am really hungry?”

Relax, enjoy and remember to chew your food

Before I learned to slow down and chew my food, if I ate something I felt was unhealthy, I would gulp down my food as fast as I could. I unconsciously felt so guilty and stressed out about eating it that I wanted to hurry through it.

There are several issues with gulping down your food and not slowing down long enough to thoroughly masticate, but one to note is that eating this way doesn’t allow your brain to catch up with your stomach. It takes your stomach about 20 minutes to tell your brain that it is full. If you rush through your meal you will likely eat more food than you need and consequently end up having those 5,000 – 7,000 calories, along with gas and indigestion as added bonuses.

Stressful eating causes all kinds of havoc on the body, including weight gain. So slow down and relax about your meal. This is the time to enjoy all the love and goodness that has gone into the preparation of the meal and to enjoy the company of your family and friends. Be in the moment and enjoy every bite! I’m not encouraging or approving of a socially sanctioned binge here however, far from it. Simply put, relaxing, slowing down and chewing your food will go a long way toward good health.

Try having a chewing contest with yourself this Thanksgiving. See if you can chew your food 20 times before you swallow. This will mean you have to take smaller spoonfuls. So you’ll eat all your favorite foods, but eat a lot less.

Release the meal

Remember when you were a child and the food at Thanksgiving was of little interest to you? You wanted to run and play outside with your cousins and the neighborhood kids. Your parents practically had to threaten you to sit at the table and eat. Your plate was still half full of food when you’d proclaim you were done and dash out to play some more. Take a lesson from children and enjoy this time with friends and family. After the meal, release it. This is a concept by Marc David, author of the book Nourishing Wisdom. Releasing the meal simply means that once you have finished your meal, you let it go.

Don’t think about the fat or carbohydrate content of the meal or how many calories you have consumed. This kind of stress and guilt can easily trigger a binging episode and secret rendezvous with the refrigerator.

After your meal, move on to something enjoyable that has nothing to do with eating. Some ideas include cards games, board games, charades, karaoke or any other good-old fashion family fun.

Bring the whole family together for some fun exercise. Go for a walk with the kids in the park, have a family game of tag football or some other sport, walk through the local Christmas tree farm and pick out your tree. Exercise will help the blood start pumping again and deter a possible turkey coma, as well as burn calories and help the digestive tract.

Drink lots of water

Don’t drink your calories. Skip the festive drinks or follow the sampler plate principle and have only a taste, then drink lots of water. Drink at least 2 glasses of water
before your meal and keep drinking lots of water after your meal. This will help flush the toxins out of your system and also keep you full and less hungry.

Give away your leftovers

You know that family member that insists on giving you lots of leftovers to take home? This year, gladly accept those leftovers and then go out that same day and give all your leftovers away to people without food. All it takes is making a few phone calls to shelters or half-way houses and you can make a difference in the life of someone less fortunate than you this holiday season. This way you can accept your family’s offers for leftovers and everyone wins.

An attitude of gratitude

With all the stress and focus on food during this holiday it’s easy to forget to be grateful. Take a moment to reflect and give thanks for all of the gifts and loved ones in your life.

Whatever our circumstances may be, there is always something to be grateful for. Having gratitude will make you feel more content, less stressed and more optimistic.

Get back on track

Use the same principle of “release the meal” to release the day all together. The next day get right back on track with your regular eating plan. Don’t try to starve yourself or eat less than usual. Just get back on track.

Wishing you and yours a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

Which one of these Holiday tips will you try this week? CLICK HERE scroll down to the bottom of the page to leave your comments and questions now!

Alicia Castellano, CHHC, AADP

Alicia is a Certified Holistic Health Counselor with a passion for helping others transition into a healthy lifestyle and create extraordinary lives for themselves. She lives in Houston,Texas where she runs a private practice. Alicia loves to dance, loves music and has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and learning.

Visit Alicia and add her as a friend on TWITTER | FACEBOOK | MYSPACE

Last week I wrote about weight gain season and I promised I would share some tips on how you can have a joyous holiday season without gaining weight. So, today I share with you tip #1 but first I have a confession to make.

If you have read my story, you know that transitioning to a healthy lifestyle has not been easy for me. My biggest challenge on this journey has been learning how to consistently incorporate some physical activity into my life.

To say that I was not athletically inclined as a child is an understatement. I was the kid that couldn’t climb the rope (P.E. in the good old days), couldn’t do more than 10 sit-ups and was last to finish a race. Unfortunately, I was not taught that given enough time and proper instruction, I could improve my fitness level. If I had, I have no doubt I could have climbed that rope!

As a result, I entered adulthood attempting one diet gimmick after another, simply to circumvent having to exercise at all. I will confess that once upon a time, these negative words often fell from my lips – I hate to exercise. This attitude, of course, only served to make matters worse.

I’m getting to the holiday tip, I promise.

It wasn’t until I started learning about holistic health and addressing the body as a whole that I really began to understand the importance of moving my body. I learned that we were meant to move our bodies. Moving your body helps to lower your body fat, strengthens your lungs, heart and cardiovascular system, increases bone density and so much more. Most importantly, moving your body is the only way your lymphatic system can do its job of removing pollutants from the body. Unlike the circulatory system that comes equipped with a pump (the heart), the lymphatic system does not. The more you move your body, the more your body moves your lymph. Not moving your body causes waste to accumulate, creating a blockage in the lymph, and this allows for illness to set in.

This education went a long way in helping me adjust my attitude toward exercise but let’s be real, we all lead busy lives. After a long day filled with obligations including work, children, chores and errands, usually it’s only the natural born athletes that are eager to exercise. For them, exercise relieves stress and is relaxing. Uh… Me? I want to curl up on the couch and relax.

Now that we are in weight gain season, our days are shorter and colder. This adds to the challenge of moving our bodies enough to give our lymph and heart a good workout, which brings me to my holiday tip #1!

By the way, it can also be just fine to gain weight during this season. I’ll share more on that in a future post.

Lately I’ve been researching fitness routines that are simple but efficient. I was reminded of this holiday tip while doing my research and reading through some fitness blogs. Scott Colby of www.theabsexpert.com has a goal of doing 100 consecutive pushups by Thanksgiving, he started at 20 pushups. Having a very specific performance or fitness goal is a great tool for creating a healthy lifestyle and it is an especially powerful tool during the holiday season. This simple tool will keep you on track and boost your mood. Accomplishing a fitness goal, is incredibly empowering and exciting!

You want to approach this in a slow and steady fashion if you’re currently sedentary. If you can’t do a push up, you could set a goal to do at least 1 or more by Christmas. Sign up for a 5K-10K walk, run or ride, or a dance competition and train for it everyday. There are an unlimited number of fitness goals you could incorporate. All you have to do is pick ONE that is appropriate for your fitness level, one that really excites you, and stick with it this holiday season. It doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming, just pick ONE!

On Monday, I’ll show you how you can enjoy your Thanksgiving feast without guilt and without adding on any extra pounds. Stay tuned!

What’s your fitness or performance goal this season? Do you need some help finding one? CLICK HERE scroll down to the bottom of the page to leave your comments and questions now!

Alicia Castellano, CHHC, AADP

Alicia is a Certified Holistic Health Counselor with a passion for helping others transition into a healthy lifestyle and create extraordinary lives for themselves. She lives in Houston,Texas where she runs a private practice. Alicia loves to dance, loves music and has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and learning.

Visit Alicia and add her as a friend on TWITTER | FACEBOOK | MYSPACE