Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I love spending time in the kitchen cooking my favorite meal of the year. Here’s what I plan on making:
A 16 pound spatchcocked turkey dry brined in kosher salt and covered in a garlic herb butter
Steakhouse creamed spinach
Sweet potato casserole
Savory sausage and cornbread stuffing
Sweet and sour cranberries with orange and ginger
homemade New York cheese cake for dessert
But wait! How in the world am I going to enjoy all of this food (and many days of leftovers) without gaining weight?
Easy. Follow me, A Chicago In Home Personal Trainer, as I share my plan to avoid weight gain throughout Thanksgiving and the rest of the holiday season, and maybe add a little weight loss to the menu if we’re feeling extra saucy!
THANKSGIVING DAY WEIGH IN
Remember how I always say weight loss is math? Well, it still is and we still need to collect data. On thanksgiving morning, I’m going to wake up, use the bathroom, strip naked, and step on the scale. This is will give me an idea of my starting weight and where I’d like to stay after indulging in some of my favorite foods of the year.
My advice? Don’t be afraid of the scale! I know it’s usually everyone’s worst enemy but we’re going to get through this JUDGEMENT FREE!
For the sake of this article, I’ll say that I expect to clock in around 158 pounds, give or take a few decimal points. Let’s take that hypothetical weight and carry it into part two!
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THANKSGIVING DINNER
A little backstory on me. Throughout 2024, I have had red meat exactly once. It was Pilsen’s Craftburger and it was amazing. I’ve also only had alcohol once this year … A glass of whiskey on the rocks at a wedding back in February.
For Thanksgiving, I plan on avoiding both red meat AND alcohol. If this isn’t for you, that’s fine. I get it. A little bubbly on the holidays is perfectly fine, but it will make our process a little more difficult.
That said, we soldier on. WE EAT. We enjoy the foods we love and fill up a plate of our Thanksgiving finest. We even have a little cheesecake to finish the night with our sweet tooth satisfied.
Now that the damage is done, we move on to the next five days.
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THE NEXT DAY AND ON
For the love of all things good, do NOT weigh yourself after Thanksgiving. Just use the Thanksgiving Day Weight to calculate your maintenance calories. Here’s an example:
158 pounds x 15 (the calories needed to sustain 1 pound of body mass) = 2370
2370 - 500 = 1870 calories per day.
By creating a 500 calorie deficit and eating roughly 1870 calories per day for the next week, I will lose the 1 pound of weight I hypothetically gained enjoying Thanksgiving dinner. That should definitely be enough to offset the indulging.
Feeling a little extra guilty? Aim for a deficit closer 750 calories.
By creating a 500-750 calorie daily deficit, that would equal a weekly deficit between 3500-5250 calories, or roughly 1 to 1.5 pounds lost in a week.
As stated above, it’s easier to lose any weight gained by avoiding the alcohol that will halt your weight loss, but I leave that up to you the responsible adult.
If you want to learn more about how to calculate a weight loss diet, or why it’s important to strength train while in a diet phase, shoot me a message or Book A Free Consultation using the link below.
Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!
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