If history and the flood of grocery store ads filling our mailboxes are any indication, a couple of days from now, we'll once again gather with family and friends to celebrate another Thanksgiving. We've started our holiday celebration a little early this year, so we're leaving you all with a reprise of the In the Loop guide to Thanksgiving we put together in 2012 to make sure your holiday meal runs smoothly from start to finish. Happy eating!
Putting it together
Thanksgiving dinner can add up to 4,500 calories worth of enjoyment, according to the calorie counters. That's as much as most of us should eat in two days. So if you're looking for a strategy other than not eating the rest of the day or working it off afterward (more on that later), consider the advice of Mayo dietitian Katherine Zeratsky. In a blog post titled "Thanksgiving Dinner – Focus on quality, not quantity," she shares what traditional Thanksgiving fare is actually good for you and some tweaks you can make to the menu (and your techniques) that might make you feel a little better about indulging.
You also can find a bountiful selection of healthy recipes for thanksgiving on MayoClinic.org -- from pumpkin soup to wild rice stuffing, from sweet carrots to rustic apple-cranberry tart. All of the taste, but less fat, calories and sodium. The "less filling" part is up to you.
Getting it done
Mayo came out big on the preparation front with a video featuring [former] Mayo Clinic Chef Richard Johnson, who shows us how to take our turkey from the grocery store to the table, including how to properly select, thaw, prepare, roast and serve a turkey. Here are some of his tips for knocking this year's bird out of the park:
The rest is in your hands. May the force be with you.
Working it off
If your pants survive Thanksgiving, you may want to fit into them again some day. So, let's say you went traditional, put on the feedbag, and need to burn off an extra 2,000 calories. We're no math whizzes, but here are some estimated exercise times to get you there:
For more calorie-burning inspiration, see the exercise for weight loss chart on MayoClinic.org. You're welcome.
Happy Thanksgiving from the whole team at In the Loop. We'll see you at the gym. In the meantime, share your Thanksgiving survival tips and share this story on the In the Loop blog.
Tags: Community, Healthy eating, Katherine Zeratsky, Richard Johnson