Eat Big Before Turkey Day - and other healthy tips for Thanksgiving

Tips for a Healthy Thanksgiving. Heard Them All, Have You?

A Google search of "Healthy Thanksgiving Tips" will pull up roughly 144,000,000 results in a matter of 0.17 seconds. It's safe to say there's a hellova lot out there for making Turkey Day both satisfying and slimming. But those tips are all the same; seriously, go look at them: Ease off the butter; skip the stuffing; rethink going for thirds; each glass of wine is an extra 100 calories... Makes you less and less thankful the more you read about it. So, here are some tips for a healthy Thanksgiving that you won't find on the first page of Google (hey, no one reads past the first page anyway. True story.) and that won't have you holding off on that next glass of wine. (What the hell kind of advice was that anyway, Health Living!) 

1. Pre-game Properly 

Right, we're into the final countdown. These next two days are your warm up. Eat up. A lot. No, seriously, dig in –just do so healthily. Cut out big, high-saturated-fat meals at nighttime, and replace them with smaller, nutrient-dense dinners. It won't kill you to eat a salad two nights in a row. Your body does a fair bit of metabolizing at night, might as well let it absorb a lot of vitamins and minerals that will get you functioning properly.  

Will you be hungrier in the morning? Probably. So have a big, wholesome breakfast. Hey! Put down the pancake mix! I meant a healthy, wholesome breakfast. Aim for a big egg-white omelet, which harbors ample protein but is devoid of fat and cholesterol. Load it with veggies and peppers, and try to avoid the cheese (that kind of detracts from the no-sat-fats idea). Or, have some Greek yogurt (real Greek yogurt) with some fresh fruit and low-sugar granola. Let your sugars come from bananas and berries. Come Thanksgiving dinner, after eating a lot of good food, your stomach will be big enough to put down all the extra helpings you want – without showing it before hand.

2. Cut Out the Carbs 

Saw this one coming from a mile away, didn't ya? But, it's true. Your body can actually function just fine without carbohydrates; it makes it's own. Fruit, obviously, has carbs (sugar), but they're generally fast-acting, complex carbohydrates, which you body burns through pretty quickly. Stay away from pasta for a while. C'mon, three days of no Ragu-smothered cannelloni will let you dig in heartier on the big day.
Unfortunately, this, is where it wouldn't hurt to cut out the wine, beer and liquor. Especially if you're prone to a few glasses of the good stuff each night, giving your body a rest from alcohol will work to your benefit in at least three ways:

1) Self control. Even two days off drinking (not just prior to a holiday, but in general) will do your body more good than you may realize. 

2) It'll help you maintain or lose weight heading into Thanksgiving Day. 

3) Your tolerance will be slightly lower – off its game, so to speak. This is a good thing, because now you might actually get buzzed even after four helpings of mash potatoes, gravy, turkey, and stuffing. 

The most important thing to remember here is not to substitute your afternoon ease with some synthetic soda, which is way worse than a glass of wine.

3. Power Up 

With your metabolism already in gear, it will be a lot easier to burn off all those good-eats than if you try to start your engine cold in the days after Thanksgiving. Chances are, if you're reading this, you've blown through more than a few "Healthy Thanksgiving Tips" articles, so it couldn't hurt to do some sit-ups. Or go for a job, or pump some iron, or – heck – get out in the backyard and let your kids exhaust you with a few hours of bouncing on the trampoline (great core work, incidentally). Whatever you do, shoot for a bare minimum of 30 minutes of good, solid exercise every day; and try not to stop after the holidays.

Oh, and as you're burning through fat with awesome exercises, don't forget about Tip 1. Eat. Just shoot for high-protein, low-sat-fat meals like chicken or fish that will repair and grow muscle without growing your waistline. Vegetarian? Hell yeah – high five! Then you already know red/black beans and rice is a great combo. (I know, rice is a carb. But brown rice activates the proteins in beans and supplies you with all the essential amino acids.)

So there you have it. Now go eat up all the pumpkin pie and cranberry sauce you can. You earned it. (Granted, you'll have to keep earning it after Thursday, too.) Try to leave some leftovers. Have a Happy Thanksgiving. Oh, and don't forget to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on ABC tomorrow at 8:00 EST.