Thanksgiving Mayhem!

Thanksgiving Day can get more decadent than you expected. Let’s face it: Everyone blows his or her calorie budget every now and then. Do you need to worry? Is that old dieter’s saying, “a moment on the lips, forever on the hips” really true? And what should you do next.

The good news is, one meal is not going to ruin you if you eat sensibly and exercise regularly the rest of the time and get back to your routine. You need to eat 3,500 calories to gain one pound of body fat, so it’s unlikely that a single overindulgence will show up on the scale.

No one is perfect in their eating habits. What we have to learn is that we are giving ourselves permission to do this, and as soon as it’s over, we should go back to the eating plan we normally follow. This does not give us permission to continue to overeat and binge.

The problem is, overeating is not a one-time affair for most people. Most people overeat somewhere between 500 and 1,500 calories every single day. The trick is to allow yourself a splurge day and then get back to your goals. Too many dieters throw in the towel after a splurge. You may feel defeated and say, ‘Oh I blew my diet, and I’ll just eat the whole Christmas season and the heck with it. When you do overindulge, get back on track again. Be more conscious of portion sizes the next day.

It’s typical to eat more sensibly during the week and take in more calories on the weekend. So if you eat more calories than you should at a party on a week night consider that one of your “weekend” days and compensate for it accordingly. In other words, you had a party on a Tuesday, and that party was quite fun and it almost became like a Saturday, just make sure that the days that come after that festive occasion reflect more of the structured Monday-through-Thursday eating pattern, rather than the weekend.