Fab Fit Squad

The average American will consume up to 3,000 calories during the Thanksgiving weekend. You don’t need to be a statistic. Here are a few weeks to beat the Thanksgiving weight gain. Here are few tips to help you stay on track.

• Instead of using the ladle to put gravy on your plate, using a soup spoon instead
• Hold the stuffing and you’ll save over 200 calories.
• Watch your sugar intake this means baked goods,  both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks
• If someone asks you to bring something how about you bring some nice healthy veggies — sauteed green beans
• Slow down and eat! Eating too fast doesn’t give your brain a chance to register that you are eating.
• Fulling full? Take dessert to go or have it late night — give yourself time to digest.

Don’t let this or any holiday be your “exception”. I’m not saying don’t enjoy yourself, but make sure you keeping your eye on your long term goal weight loss.  Having a big meal can easily derail your hard fought progress.

Need some more tips — check out my posts from the last few years.

Did you know that the average American will consume 3,000 calories and 229 grams of fat on Thanksgiving Day? That can really derail your nutrition and workout plan. Here are the Top 5 Reasons to workout rather than doing typical Thanksgiving activities. (more…)

This year my husband and I are cooking Thanksgiving for his family. As I perpetual planner, I needed to get the menu all straight in my head. This is the only way that I can relax and ease into the holiday.  I spent the weekend scouring my cookbooks and old Cooking Light magazines and this is what I’ve come up with.

We are going to deep fry a turkey, I know I said FRIED. Well surprisingly deep fried turkey has only 25 more calories in 3.5 ounces than traditional roasted turkey and only 4 more grams of fat. Instead on focusing on those small caloric difference, I focusing on how much it’s going to free up my oven and not make my house feel like a sauna.  (more…)

Last week I ran my 1st Turkey Trot, just 4 miles through a neighboring town on Thanksgiving. For Thanksgiving it was a nice day here in New England. I typically run mid morning, so this was my first early run, so I was testing what to eat. I decided on having a banana and a cup of coffee. Come on. I can’t leave the house without coffee, so it a must have! I ate it 1 hour prior to the race so that I plenty of time to digest it right!

Well at mile 4 I get sharp stabbing pains in my back, but I didn’t STOP I

kept going and finished the race in 39 min. My goal to run less than 10 min/mile and I did despite the stabbing pains in my back and having to pee. Yes, at mile 2 the coffee that I had to have needed to make an exit. So.. I guess my motivation to run a fast as I could was there.

Lesson learned for the Miami 1/2 Marathon — figure out my food and pee management.

.

So, my first week went well..and the second week is going well. I just need to complete my last long run 5 miles for the week.

Now you may want to know what one of my interval cycles looks like.

• 2 minute warm up
• 1 1/2 min sprint
• 30 sec rest
• 2 1/2 min sprint
• 1 1/2 min rest

Repeat 5 times (should take you 30 minutes.
This can easily be done on any piece of cardio equipment, I did this on an elliptical.

Now here’s the plan for my third week  — November 22.

Monday — intervals and strength
Tuesday — 3.5 miles
Wednesday — rest
Thursday — Turkey Trot (4miles)
Friday — rest
Saturday 6 miles

Okay so today your headed to grandma’s house or Aunt Susy’s and they make the best (insert the food or dessert) Now you think the best strategy is to starve yourself all day so that you can get your grub on at Thanksgiving dinner.

WRONGO BADONGO!

Trust me, my Grandma is the best cook, she can make brown rice take like a treat.  Sorry, I digress.  When you starve yourself you body goes into starvation mode and thinks no food is coming an actually holds on to all the food that you eat.  So when you think you are saving calories and not eating you are actually doing a disservice to your body and all the extra food that you consume because you are hungry will turn to wait for it.. FAT!!!  So the moral of this story!!

Severely restricting your calorie intake will not work!  So are are asking, what should I do to serve a day of eating!

• eat small meals throughout the day
• drink water so that you stay hydrated
• pick your battles, select 2 high fat/caloric items and you are done
• lose the dark meat — white meat has less calories and fat

Good luck out there!! We can survive the holiday without gaining much weight.

1. Don’t want your turkey to dry out try rubbing olive oil mixed with herbs and garlic.
2. Avoid the skin and dark meat  — you’ll save tons of calories
3. When your stuffing recipe calls for butter try using chicken broth.
4. Decide the few thing that you are going to splurge on before you go.
5. Go for a pre-Thanksgiving Day walk, or try a turkey trot to help burn off some calories
6. Watch what you drink, because liquid calories do count
7. Don’t starve yourself all day, make sure you eat sensibly during the day
8. Replace some of the sugar in your baked good with applesauce
9. Use light varieties of sour cream, cream cheese or butter
10. Be friendly, get up a talk with friends and family away from the food table so you won’t endulge in mindless eating