7 Nutritional Thanksgiving Tips
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | STITCHER
Thanksgiving is THIS week, how crazy is that?! I know this week can cause some anxiety for some of you as you want to enjoy all the thanksgiving foods but you also want to enjoy it moderation so you continue to feel good and continue to work towards your goals. That’s why in this episode of Embrace Your Real, I share 7 tips that will help you stick closer to your macros on Thanksgiving.
Full disclosure here: I do NOT think you should obsess over your macros on thanksgiving. I think you should be mindful about how much you are eating but I do not think you need to hit your macros perfectly on the holiday, heck i don’t even advise you to count your macros on thanksgiving. If you decide to, that is 100% your choice. This episode is just meant to help you not go way overboard and to help ensure you feel good at the end of the day, and wake up the next day feeling good! So, whatever you decide to do is completely up to you and you can do what you want with the information I’m about to share.
What I discussed:
Limit the appetizers.
Load up on turkey.
Carb down when possible.
Do dairy-free with some ingredients.
Low fat/sugar free.
Don’t forget about left overs.
Eat to the point where you feel good.
Link mentioned in this episode:
Episode 78: 11 ways to Avoid Overeating This Holiday Season
If you want more from me, be sure to check out:
Instagram: @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Transcript:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. A podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I issue a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get hugs, girl.
Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Embrace your podcast Thanksgiving is this week. How crazy is that? Now I know that this week can cause some anxiety for some as you want to continue to enjoy all the Thanksgiving foods, but you also want to do so in moderation so that you can feel good and continue to work towards your goals. But maybe you're a little bit confused as to what to prioritize. So in this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you seven tips that I think will be helpful for you as you navigate this holiday week and just this holiday season in general.
Now, full disclosure here, I'm going to be talking about kind of sticking to your overall nutritional goals, but I personally do not think that you should obsess over your macros on Thanksgiving. I think that you should be mindful about how much you are eating, but I personally don't think that you need to hit your macros perfectly on the holiday, nor do I even advise you to count your macros during the Thanksgiving Day. You know, Christmas Day, if you decide to, that's 100% your choice. But this episode is just meant to help you kind of not go way overboard to ensure that you feel good at the end of the day and wake up the next day feeling good, because we all know that Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday, but typically you're enjoying all of the delicious foods, especially leftovers and all of that throughout the weekend. And so I just want to give you some helpful tips.
Again, whatever you decide to do is completely up to you. I just want to give you some good information to share and you can take it or leave it. But I personally have found that not counting my macros, not obsessing about, you know, hitting every Macronutrient on Thanksgiving or on the holidays, that's not realistic for me. But I'm so grateful that I've learned so much from that tool that I can go into the holiday season and, you know, the day of Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. I can go into those days feeling educated and knowing how to properly feel my body, just being mindful. So wanted to give that disclosure before we dove in. But before we do, I wanted to also share this review. It comes from Nikki May. She gave a five serving and said, Let's get it, let's go. Julie's God led advice for nourishing and honoring your body is a great reminder for every woman that she is worthy of being confident in herself and stewarding her body the way that God calls her, too. Each episode is a chock full of insight and real talk that we all desire. If you need a kick in the pants from a loving sister friend embrace a real is the podcast for you. I love this so much. Thank you so much, Nikki May for this review. I just echo all of this. I think that it's so important that we continue to educate ourselves and empower ourselves so that we can continue being the best stewards of our bodies, and so we can do all the things that God calls us to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. And we can also just feel comfortable and confident in our skin so that we can be the best version of ourselves. So grateful for you. Thank you for taking time out of your day to lead this review.
Let's dove in to the seven Tips for Thanksgiving. Number one, be mindful of appetizers. Now it's super easy while cooking or while waiting for the turkey to load up on the appetizers. And I'm not telling you to not eat the appetizers. I personally love them, but I'm also mindful of how many I'm eating, how much I'm eating, because I don't want to eat so many that I'm already full by the time the main meal comes around. Right? So I tend to just have a one plate like, okay, I'm just going to load up on my favorite appetizers that fit on this plate and leave it at that. Like, I get to sample everything, I get to enjoy things, but I still leave a lot of room in my belly for the real meal. And so I want to challenge you to just be mindful of what you're eating like when you're standing at the countertop, chit chatting, all of those things. Those are it. That's typically the time that we tend to mindlessly eat. And so if you can, you know, grab that plate and say, okay, I'm going to put whatever I want on here, I'm going to fit it on to this plate. But this is going to be my one plate of appetizers so that you have room in your stomach for more and also make sure you have water nearby. And this is something that I have to be very intentional about, especially on, you know, the holiday meals. It's kind of chaotic. You might be cooking, you might be hosting, you might be coming over.
And so if you know, if you are coming over to a person's house, obviously everyone's going to have water. I personally am kind of a water snob. I need to have like filtered water. And so I just bring my own water and I don't rely on people giving me, you know, I especially like if I'm going to be drinking a decent amount of water, I just personally bring my water. So I would encourage you to bring a water bottle. So that way, you know, you'll be intentional about your water intake. Water really is so important, especially in the holidays, because oftentimes we think that we're hungry, but we're mistaking it for being, you know, dehydrated. And when we drink water and we're intentional about drinking that 12 to 18 ounces of water waiting, you know, ten, 15, 20 minutes, you'll realize, oh, dang, I'm actually not as hungry as I thought I was. I maybe was just thirsty number to load up on the turkey.
Eat your protein first. First of all, protein is always the hardest macronutrient to hit and just be consistent with on a regular basis, especially when Thanksgiving is full of. Delicious carb and fat heavy foods. Also, remember that protein is important because it's the most filling and satiating of the three macronutrients. So because it's super filling, it actually is going to be harder for you to overeat if you are being super intentional about loading up on that turkey. So if you make appetizers, try to think of some appetizers that are more protein rich like shrimp cocktail or bacon wrapped chestnuts or turkey Cranberry Roll-Ups. Like there's tons of options, honestly, if you just type in to Pinterest like protein appetizers or protein Thanksgiving appetizers, there's tons I mean, I just did like a small search as I was getting ready for this podcast and I was like, Dang, there are so many delicious recipes out there for specific appetizers that are just healthier options that are going to ensure that you feel your best number three carb down when possible. So with mashed potatoes, roll, stuffing pies, I mean, it's pretty much all carbs. It's carbs and carbs and carbs, which is why I loved it.
What carbs do you need to have? Like ask yourself like what carbs do you need to have and what carbs do not care that much about, right? Whichever ones you are particularly attached to try to swap them out if you can. And this really kind of goes to the people that are hosting or creating and making recipes for Thanksgiving. If you're making some of the food, a popular swap that I've seen people make is mashed potatoes for mashed cauliflower rice. So if you blend mashed cauliflower with regular or dairy free cream cheese, I've heard it's super creamy and delicious. Unfortunately, I can't have cauliflower and mashed potatoes. That's like I want that on Thanksgiving, but pick and choose your you know, for me, I'm not really like a corn person.
The two main carbs that I care about on Thanksgiving are stuffing, number one, and some sort of mashed potatoes like those two are like my Thanksgiving meal. I could go without a roll. I could go without the corn, I can go without some of the other things. And so just kind of ask yourself, like, what do I really want to enjoy on this? And if it's everything, that's great, just do it all in moderation. Another popular swap that I've seen people do is grain free stuffing. If you've never tried it before, I've actually tried it and it's really, really delicious. I didn't even know that I was missing out on the carbs and I didn't even know that it was grain free, which is awesome.
So if you're interested in trying that out, Google Grain Free stuffing, you'll get tons of recipes out there. The one that I tried was that was really good. I think it was made made with eggs, almond flour, carrots, celery, parsnips and seasonings, I think. But it is delicious. I guarantee you will likely love it and you will be amazed at how much carbs you'll be saving just from that swap alone. And another option that I've heard people do. I've never tried this, but I've heard it's kind of a genius. Option is for your pie. You can swap out flour crust for a nut crust so crushed walnuts can make a great crust, which that's pretty awesome.
Again, Google it. You'll find tons of recipes, whether it's on Google or Pinterest. Just kind of get creative. And if you want to try it ahead of time before you have your guest, try it out. You know, Monday, Tuesday is a great time for you to try these things out and just see, like, is this something that, you know, I'll make for my guess? But even if you're not hosting Thanksgiving, but maybe you want to try some of these dishes on your own again, I encourage you to just kind of get creative here. Number four, try some dairy free ingredients. So Thanksgiving tends to be dairy heavy. And let me tell you, I have nothing wrong with dairy. In fact, it is a staple in my daily food intake. But let's be real. Like every single dish on Thanksgiving seems to be filled with dairy, and dairy can be really heavy in some people stomach. So I find that if you kind of swap things out and make some things dairy free when applicable, it can make things feel a little bit less heavy at the end of the day. And you can kind of substitute something. So maybe opt out for some dairy free sour cream or butter or cheese or milk.
Again, some people will will hear this and they're like, absolutely not. Give me everything. DAIRY Totally fine. But I'm just kind of throwing out some options there for you guys. And I've seen people swap things out for dairy free and not say anything to their guests and people not even knowing. So again, don't completely write things off until you try it. But dairy free, I've heard and I've tried some really yummy dairy free dishes and I can tell you that they are a lot less heavy than some of their really, really dense dairy dishes. Number five, low fat or lower sugar. So when you're kind of at the store shopping for ingredients, keep an eye out for lower sugar or lower fat options. Not always the case. Sometimes the lower fat or the lower sugar options are just filled with tons of unnecessary ingredients.
And in that, if that's the case, I mean, I would say go with the regular and just be like really be intentional about moderation. But there are some things that I have found that are delicious and they don't taste weird. You know, some of the low sugar, low fat things can taste kind. Weird and sometimes it's totally fine. But sugar-free whipped cream. I've seen low fat or sugar or fat free ice cream, things like that. You could also swap out trivia for sugar that can really save you a ton of calories. Or there's even like trivia brown sugar, which is really good and that could be really good to swap out for just regular brown sugar if you're doing that in like a sweet potato or a yam dish. So definitely just look into that. Some other lower fat options, you know, could be a butter substitute.
There's so many things that you can substitute real butter with something else that, again, I have nothing wrong with real butter, but even if you are lessening what the recipe calls for, I found a lot of times that I can like cut it in half oftentimes, if not even more just, you know, if you are using regular butter and it calls for an entire stick, only using like a half a stick or a third of a stick. And I personally haven't found a big difference. So just being intentional about that, another food that is very popular for Thanksgiving is cranberry. Cranberry tends to have a lot of unnecessary sugar, but they actually do sell like a third of the sugar, whether it's dried cranberries or regular cranberries, or you can just get unsweetened cranberry like there's tons of different options there. So definitely check out that. And then the last suggestion on this is sugar free wine. I know that sounds kind of crazy. I know you might be skeptical, but you can Google sugar free wines and you can try those. I personally have not tried them, but one of my friends tried it and she was like, This is so good. I didn't even know that it was sugar free. So again, not something that I've tried, but something that I've heard. And from a trusted friend and a trusted source, they said it was pretty dang good. So definitely something to look out for there.
Number six, do not forget about the leftovers. Now, I'm not telling you to not go for seconds because I definitely will. But I am telling you that you don't need to eat as much as you can to the total max capacity where you're just feeling sick because you can absolutely and should eat leftovers the next day, the next day and the next day. Like, you don't need to cram all this food into one day to the point where you physically feel sick. At the end of the day, I don't want that for you. If you're worried about some food not being left over, you can literally just secretly scoop some into a Tupperware where wherever you know, when you're getting seconds and you'll have some save for the next day. So just be sneaky about it if you are scared that there's not going to be enough, you know, if you're at somebody else's house and I am telling you that you will be able to have this food again, just really remember that as you kind of see all of these foods and see the spreads, just remember like I think sometimes we get into this mentality where like, oh my gosh, we're not going to see this again until next year. I'm just going to eat as much as possible. And I just want you to be mindful. You can have why not have one or two or one and a half servings of it for the next three days instead of having like five servings on one day? You know what I'm talking about?
And number seven, eat to the point where you feel good. I don't know about you, but I've had years on Thanksgiving where I ate so much that I physically felt ill. And that is no way to live Thanksgiving. That is no way to be around friends and family and enjoy the day. I remember I would eat so much that I was tired, I was uncomfortable, and it really did hold me back from enjoying that precious time with friends and family. And so for me, I personally, I eat to the point where I feel good, satisfied, like my belly is like that was delicious, but I'm not completely overly stuffed. And something else that really helps is drinking a full glass of water in between your first plate. In your second plate for sure. Because oftentimes, like, you'll finish your first plate and then immediately start thinking like, dang, that stuffing was good or Dang, I want some more of that. And again, nothing wrong with that, but just be mindful. I would encourage you to drink 10 to 12 ounces of water, wait 20, 25 minutes and see how you feel before getting your second plate. And then for me personally, I like to get up. I like to walk around in between my meal and dessert. I like to at least get my body like an hour to 2 hours so that I can actually, like, enjoy dessert. And it's not just like I'm stuffing more food in my face. So really spacing out the servings do help me realize how hungry I actually am or how not hungry I am, depending on how I'm feeling. So that's definitely a tip that has really helped me. And I want to challenge you to keep this in mind as you're enjoying the holidays with your families. So there you have it.
Those are my seven tips for Thanksgiving. Let me recap that. Number one, be mindful of the appetizers. And number two, be intentional and load up on that turkey. Number three, carb down when possible. Again, nothing wrong with carbs, but if there are specific dishes that you're like, Mia, you know, I could go without that or I could, you know, make a sub. To do it. Get creative. Number four, do dairy free with some ingredients. Again, this is a take it or leave it advice. I know some people, they are so set on dairy, everything, and that's great. If that's you, that's totally fine. Just a suggestion. Number five, low fat, sugar free. If that's again, another option, or at the very least, just reducing the actual serving size that the recipes call for. Number six, don't forget that you will be able to have leftovers if not sneak the leftovers into a Tupperware when you're getting your second plate and you can do that secretly. And number seven, eat to the point where you feel good. So there you have it. Those are the seven tips. I hope that you found some of these helpful. Maybe you'll implement them. I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I do have another episode that I think will help you. And it's more tips on Thanksgiving and dish nutritional tips. And that is episode 78. It's called 11 Ways to Avoid Overeating This Holiday Season. I've linked it in the show notes that you can easily go listen to it next. If you are looking for kind of nutritional advice and wanting to know how to properly feel your body so that you can educate yourself, so you can feel really good in these situations of learning how to eat in moderation, I want to encourage you to download my free e-book. You can go to www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook.
I will also link it in the show notes that you can easily go download that now it's over 40 plus pages. It's super informative. It just kind of shares my story when it comes to nutrition as well as we share a step by step calculation so that you can figure out how to properly fuel your body based on where you're at and what your goals are. And then over the course of five days, we really give you tons of free tips and tricks and guide you in this process so that you can feel empowered and educated around nutrition. So again, www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook. I will link that in the show notes below.
That is all that I have for today's episode. Thank you so much for tuning in. I love you so dang much. If I don't talk to you before, I hope you have a very, very happy Thanksgiving and just know that I am eternally grateful for this community. Love you see in the next episode. All right, sister, that's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, Julie. A lot better. Yes, it's with an A in the middle where that daily posts are about real talk, healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember, that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.