Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and there are a few options for what you can do when surrounded with food:
Option 1: Stick to your diet and avoid most of the food Obviously, this option is very restrictive and would NOT be my first choice. Sure, you can feel good about staying strong while everyone else is eating crap, BUT it's not going to be good for you mentally in the long run. Think, you're going to be surrounded by all of this delicious-smelling food, that you KNOW tastes amazing, and by friends and family EATING and ENJOYING it. Not only does this put a huge damper on the holiday season, but it's also going to give you cravings. Whether you fill those cravings tomorrow, when you say "screw it" or you fill them over the next few weeks, in then end, you'll probably give in and feel awful about going off of your diet (I know I would). So let's move on to the next option. Option 2: IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) You guys probably know by now how much I LOVE IIFYM. You can work in all of your favorite foods without the stress or the guilt. But here's the thing. This works great on regular occasions, when you're trying to fit in one meal or snack here and there, but it probably doesn't work as well on a day like tomorrow. To fit more than a normal day's worth of calories into a single meal, you'd need to do A LOT of extra cardio. But wait, then your macros are still off. So you'd need to also eat quite a bit of extra protein in order to still follow your daily macronutrient percentage ranges. Which means even MORE calories and MORE cardio! That's really just not feasible all for one day when you're already probably busy and trying to enjoy yourself. You could eat lower calories on the surrounding days, do the cardio a little bit at a time throughout the week, and eat a higher protein percentage during the rest of your meals, and that works, for sure. It's still quite a bit of work and makes the holiday much less enjoyable, but it is do-able if you space it out and plan. But for a one-day, high-calorie day like Thanksgiving, it's still not my first choice. Option 3: Just enjoy and don't worry about it The third option, and the one that I am going with, is to just ENJOY. No matter what I do, I'm going to be doing a lot of guesstimating. And if I want to have a good day with my family, I don't want to stress. This happens once a year, so really, it's not going to affect me in the long run. Of course, you still don't want to say "Well, since I don't care what I eat today, I might as well eat more than I would on a normal Thanksgiving and completely go all out"—you still want to be somewhat cognizant—but strictly watching every calorie is just going to make the holiday unenjoyable. Your physical health is important, but so is your mental health, and one should not be sacrificed for the other, which is why for days like these, I like to follow option 3. I made myself a promise today to just ENJOY. I don’t need to stress about overeating, especially not if I’m going to overeat no matter what. So, yes, I “entered my food,” but I entered it as “thanksgiving crap” to just encompass the whole load. One day won’t kill me, especially not if it spikes my metabolism and my mood. Plus, I'll a GREAT, long, heavy lifting session tomorrow to make good use of (some of) the extra calories. So LIVE A LITTLE and enjoy your thanksgiving because a HAPPY thanksgiving is a HEALTHY thanksgiving! -Hannah :)
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AuthorMy name is Hannah Lehrfeld and I am a high school student with a strong passion for fitness. Archives
January 2019
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