How To Eat Whatever You Want On Thanksgiving Without Getting Fat

I’m aware that I sound like I am selling a magic diet pill or something, but I’m not. I’m not selling anything but common sense. However, rarely, if ever, is common sense common practice.

Think about it, no one ever got fat on one day. It’s a really poor lifestyle that makes people fat. Its eating junk and sitting on your ass (or doing aerobics) all year long that makes people fat. If you are on point and live a great lifestyle 361 days out of the year, you can take off Thanksgiving, your birthday, X-mass (or Chanukah), and New Year’s and be fine.

Conversely if you try to be “good” on those holidays, but you suck the rest of the year the only thing you will accomplish is:

#1. Being a pain in the ass to your family: Don’t be the person at Thanksgiving who makes mom cook broiled white fish and steamed spinach when she is up to her elbows in turkey giblets.

#2. Being miserable: Eating your “health” food while everyone else has stuffing with gravy is not likely to put you in the best of spirits.

#3. Remain fat: Holidays “on” and the rest of the year “off” is bass-akwards. That’s spelled right:-).

#4. Reinforce the completely ERRONEOUS notion that “being fit is miserable”: People are just big versions of Pavlov’s dogs. Giving yourself pain for trying to do the right things does not reinforce the right behavior and will undermine your progress over the long haul.

The whole key is: Enjoy The Holidays On the Actual Holiday, then get back to a normal and healthy lifestyle. (Or, if you are in the process of losing body fat, take the holiday off and get back on your plan the next day.)

Don’t be one of those people who thinks they can use this blog post to try and “get over” on nature. You know, the people who will be thinking, “well, Josef said I can eat whatever I want on Thanksgiving and I won’t get fat. So, its OK for me to cheat when ever I want.”

No, no, no. You can fool yourself with such thinking, but at the end of the year you cannot fool nature. Thermodynamics and biochemistry determine what your body will look and feel like. You will be pudgy and tired if you do the wrong things, regardless of the rationalizations you make up in your head.

Keys To Success:

#1. Only Take Home Turkey: Don’t take home leftovers. Or, send away or give away all of your leftovers. Taking home half a pie is the same as inserting that pie into your fat cells manually. You had your pie on Thanksgiving and that is that. If you take it home it will end up in your mouth.

I know some of you think this is tantamount to wasting food. If you can’t give it away to someone else, then maybe it is. But, don’t you think that your body has better things to do than be a junk food trashcan?

It all depends on your values – is saving $3 worth of pie more important than having a million bucks worth of health, fitness, energy and sexiness? If you go with the $3, then I really can’t help you because you won’t even do the bare minimum to help yourself.

#2. Enjoy Thanksgiving ON Thanksgiving: I just want to reiterate the main point of this post.

• Wednesday the 26th – eat right.
• Thursday the 27th – do whatever you want (but do notice how lousy you feel afterwards as this will help reinforce why you WANT to eat right and be healthy the rest of the time).
• Friday the 28th – get back on point and notice how crappy you feel when you wake up, and how much your energy improves when you take great care of yourself.

Have a warm, wonderful and loving holiday.

And thank you so much to all the wonderful people who donated to the DC Basket Brigade. We raise 90% MORE money than last year. What recession?

“The media has correctly predicted 10 out of the last 2 recessions.”
-Zig Zigglar

Josef Brandenburg is also the author of The Body You Want, and a Washington, DC based nominee for 2009 Personal Trainer of the Year from Personal Fitness Professional Magazine. Click here to find out more.