Tactics

Tomorrow is the day.  At my house, we’re starting with cheeses and crackers and accompaniments.  Dinner will include:  turkey, giblet gravy, sausage stuffing with fennel and golden raisins, (vegetarian) cheddar squash bread pudding, (vegetarian) mushroom gravy made with homemade mushroom stock, mashed potato casserole, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows (traditional!), corn, Hawaiian rolls, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie (with either Grand Marnier whipped cream or Cool Whip, depending on personal preference), and lemon meringue pie (because my younger son generally dislikes pie but tolerates this kind).  Clearly, we are all going to starve.

So really, what we need is a strategy to avoid the food coma.  Here is a news flash:  not everyone likes all the foods we’re having.  This is true for most big occasion dinners.  The first easy thing to do is:  skip the stuff we don’t like.

Easy is a relative term.  Sometimes relatives make it hard (heh!).  Maybe your grandmother makes turnips—mine didn’t, but my great-grandmother apparently did for every Thanksgiving.  Maybe you hate turnips, but she will be crushed if you don’t have some.  Do you disappoint her?  Not knowing your grandmother, I can’t say.  If she’s a lovely person and you want to make her happy, you might eat a bite.  If she’s evil and you’d like to hasten her into her grave, you can tell her exactly what to do with her root vegetables—stomping off mad does burn calories and does keep you from eating All The Pie.  My point is that I can’t say what the right choice is, but thinking about what the choices might be in advance can help.

The second tactic that is useful is taking just a taste of everything.  Often that’s enough.  Once that plate is empty, we have more choices.  We can embrace the laziness and refuse to get up to get seconds (doesn’t work if your family puts everything on the table) or we can win points with whoever is cooking by leaping at the chance to clear plates and begin on the dishes.  Again, the idea is to plan.

No matter what happens, Thanksgiving is just one day, one big feast.  No one day is going to make or break us.  Sure, we will probably feel better if we avoid the worst excesses of the day in food, drink, and arguments, but we have all the other days following to do better if we blow it.  We do all the work of fitness to enjoy our lives and if that means two slices of pie on Thanksgiving, that is just fine.