Healthy Thanksgiving Dinner? Does it exist? YES!

What are the worst culprits on thanksgiving dinner? Desserts, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, some weird dish that has marshmallow fluff in it? (I have never had it, but apparently it is popular?)

So when I look at a ‘typical’ thanksgiving dinner I see: Saturated Fat, loads of sugar, more fat, sodium, trans fats, more sugar, and gross bird wings (ew).

Roasting turkey is great, turkey itself is low fat and nutritious, it is all the additives (stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce) that make it “bad”.

Save your waistline this year with these tips:

Roast your Turkey, and don’t eat the skin, have white meat

Have roasted potatoes (toss them in a little oil, add spice of your choice, spread them out on a pan, and add fresh rosemary and pepper, bake)

No cranberry sauce (unless you know how to make your own with a healthier sweetener like honey and fresh fruit juice, I do not, so let me know if you do)

Have steamed veggies not green bean casserole

No gravy, unless you want to make one that doesn’t “look” like gravy. Sauté 1 chopped onion and a little bit of celery (1/2 stalk) with pepper, sea salt, and your regular thanksgiving gravy spices, then mix it in a blender with some chicken stock (low sodium & fat, from a box) use as much stock as you need to get the “gravy” the consistency you want it, add it back to the pan to cook and sprinkle a little whole wheat flour in it, let it simmer and it will get thicker, and... voila! You have some “gravy” that slightly resembles baby puke.  But taste good!

No smushy white buns with butter, have whole grain rolls with mushed roasted garlic cloves

Dessert, god...where to start? Baked apples with cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, & raisins is a good start!

Alcohol. None, woah woah woah, just kidding, most of us need alcohol to get through the holidays. Isn’t it easier to tolerate drunk uncle Bob’s stories about when he was in high school driving his trans-am and was totally cool?

Or you could just go out for sushi and not have to cook or clean! 

Most people are going to cheat sometime over Thanksgiving, use your ‘cheat’ wisely and make sure to keep working out!