Setting a New Normal for the Thanksgiving Feast
By Dr. Yakov Aidlin
Anyone can avoid gaining weight at Thanksgiving – all you have to do is grab a small salad, a bottle of water, and lock yourself in the upstairs bedroom until everyone has left. But you’ll be unhappy.
The point of a holiday is to feel joyful. In fact, the point of life is to feel joyful – energized and fully present in whatever you’re doing. Any approach to life, any regimen or system or discipline, in which you are primarily feeling deprived is by definition a failure. This is especially true with eating. Many of us – especially those of us who tend to overeat – have learned since childhood to look to food as a source of emotional comfort as well as physical nourishment. Someone who is sitting through a Thanksgiving meal keeping away from all of the things he or she wants is going to feel deprived both of the food itself and of the social
connections that come with it – and is far more likely to end up binging on leftover pecan pie later on.
So we’re looking for a smart way to really enjoy Thanksgiving. So let’s first spend a moment reminding ourselves of what is, and isn’t, pleasurable:
Tasting good food is a pleasure; ignoring it isn’t.
If you are a normal busy American, chances are you’ve wolfed down a meal or two in the rush between work, errands, kids, the gym. You’ve probably had the experience where you can barely remember what you ate, let alone how it tasted. Was it good? Was it bad? Who knows?
Feeling energized is a pleasure; feeling bloated isn’t.
Let’s be honest: do you really want to feel bloated? If so, please, go ahead. But there’s no need to convince yourself that you it’s “fun” to feel like your skin doesn’t fit and that even a game of Scrabble is too energetic.Being satisfied is a pleasure; being frustrated isn’t.
If you’ve been on diets before, you’ve had a lot of experience saying “no,” and maybe have tried to convince yourself that you were fine with that. It probably didn’t work.Is it possible to make Thanksgiving a pleasure without overdoing things? Absolutely – and here are three simple guidelines:
1) Take the time to discover your food.
The single most important piece of advice I can give to anyone who wants to take control of their eating is to pay attention to your food. This isn’t a discipline – it’s a privilege. This is how kings and queens once ate, it is how gourmets eat today. Try a piece of the turkey. Pay attention as you do. Even as you’re aware of the texture, try to notice the flavor. Does it taste the same as last year’s turkey? Can you tell the difference between white meat and dark with your eyes closed? Now the gravy – can you make out the turkey flavor underneath all the salt? What else can you notice? Many of the foods on the table will have more than one flavor going on: behind the tart and the sweet of the cranberry sauce is the cranberry itself, and maybe a little orange or mint. If the salad has more than Iceberg lettuce you’ll notice that each kind of green tastes a little bit different from the others.
If you allow yourself to really focus on the food, you’ll find that you’re enjoying it more while eating less. That’s not only because you’re slowing down; you’re eating less because you’re enjoying it more: you’re getting so much stimulation by paying attention to what you’re eating that you won’t feel the same need to put more food in your mouth.
But you don’t have to eat it. Just as you paid attention to the food, pay attention to yourself, and if you find that you’re not that hungry, give your fork a rest. You don’t need to leave the table, you don’t even need to push your plate away. Just take a break for a little while. If you find that you’re hungry again, the food will still be there. I promise.
Turkey. Your body can turn fat, and even protein, into carbohydrates, but it can only get protein from protein and turkey is a great form of protein. Even turkey fat – and there’s not a lot of that – is one of the healthiest forms of fat, so you can enjoy that crispy turkey skin with a clear conscience.
Salad. Raw, green leafy vegetables have vitamins and fiber, and their slightly bitter taste provides a great counterbalance to the turkey. A dressing of extra-virgin olive oil with a little salt, herbs, and red-wine vinegar is the perfect (and perfectly healthy) compliment.
Red wine. A glass of dry red wine will not only reinforce your experience of eating like nobility, it provides a powerful anti-oxidant punch.
Roast turkey, fresh salad, a fine red wine: an ideal meal. Take the time to savor it, and don’t eat more than you really want, and you’ll find that you’ve enjoyed your Thanksgiving feast more, and felt better afterwards, than you can remember doing before. A meal that’s more enjoyable and healthier? That’s something to be thankful for.
If you allow yourself to really focus on the food, you’ll find that you’re enjoying it more while eating less. That’s not only because you’re slowing down; you’re eating less because you’re enjoying it more: you’re getting so much stimulation by paying attention to what you’re eating that you won’t feel the same need to put more food in your mouth.
2) Don’t eat more than you want
For a lot of us, that sounds odd. Who eats more than they want? But many of us eat not because we’re hungry or really want to taste something, but for other reasons: it gives us something to do with our hands, it’s an excuse to stay at the table, it’s a way to avoid talking, or it’s just because the food is there. And at Thanksgiving, there’s a lot of food there.But you don’t have to eat it. Just as you paid attention to the food, pay attention to yourself, and if you find that you’re not that hungry, give your fork a rest. You don’t need to leave the table, you don’t even need to push your plate away. Just take a break for a little while. If you find that you’re hungry again, the food will still be there. I promise.
3) Pick wisely.
On Thanksgiving, if there is something on the table that you really want to try, go ahead and try it (taking the time, of course, to really get to know its taste). There are some foods, though, that are healthier than others, and so you want to have those as the core of your meal:Turkey. Your body can turn fat, and even protein, into carbohydrates, but it can only get protein from protein and turkey is a great form of protein. Even turkey fat – and there’s not a lot of that – is one of the healthiest forms of fat, so you can enjoy that crispy turkey skin with a clear conscience.
Salad. Raw, green leafy vegetables have vitamins and fiber, and their slightly bitter taste provides a great counterbalance to the turkey. A dressing of extra-virgin olive oil with a little salt, herbs, and red-wine vinegar is the perfect (and perfectly healthy) compliment.
Red wine. A glass of dry red wine will not only reinforce your experience of eating like nobility, it provides a powerful anti-oxidant punch.
Roast turkey, fresh salad, a fine red wine: an ideal meal. Take the time to savor it, and don’t eat more than you really want, and you’ll find that you’ve enjoyed your Thanksgiving feast more, and felt better afterwards, than you can remember doing before. A meal that’s more enjoyable and healthier? That’s something to be thankful for.
Dr. Yakov Aidlin is a Russian-trained psychiatrist specializing in food addiction issues. He currently heads the Aidlin Institute, an education center focused exclusively on helping audiences improve their relationship with food. Over 19,000 people have attended his courses, with over than 90% successfully losing weight and maintaining that loss for five years. He can be reached at center@aidlin.com