Thanksgiving Diets

Meal Planning

Pumpkin is a healthy super food.pile of pumpkins image by Kate Jones from Fotolia.com

Thanksgiving cooks don't need to worry about serving dull and tasteless Thanksgiving fare. With planning, you can prepare a feast to satisfy diet-conscious family and friends. Make your favorite recipes diet-friendly by using heart-smart butter substitutes and olive oil to baste the bird and in stuffing recipes. Substitute applesauce for oil in homemade baked goods. (See Resources.) Use fresh ingredients whenever possible. Make fresh cranberry sauce, for example, for a delicious super-food traditional Thanksgiving side dish. The Harvard Health website recommends a list of "super" Thanksgiving foods, such as sweet potatoes, pumpkin and pecans.

A table laden with Thanksgiving bounty seems to invite overindulgence. Stay with a diet or just eat sensibly by controlling how much food you put on your plate. Regulate servings and resist seconds -- and thirds. Build a plate of food with the right proportions of food groups. Serve yourself a portion of turkey about the size of a deck of cards or three to four ounces. Place a cup or so of potatoes or dressing on your plate. You should have about half the plate filled. Fill the remainder of the plate with vegetables and fruit, which may include cranberries, green beans and salad. But keep in mind that even the tartest cranberry sauce usually is made with a lot of refined sugar.

Different approaches to the Thanksgiving dinner table may help you keep eating reasonably. Eat a few bites of every dish including desserts, suggests an MSNBC article, "Avoid Blowing Your Diet at Thanksgiving," to feel less deprived. You can have a taste of foods only served on Thanksgiving, such as cranberries, pumpkin pie, stuffing and green-bean casserole -- but keep in mind how much fat and sugar you're putting into your body. Eat salad and vegetables before eating a drumstick and helpings of mashed and candied sweet potatoes.

Admit to yourself that with all your good intentions, you probably will overeat on Thanksgiving day. Give yourself permission to enjoy more than you might normally eat. This approach can be useful if you normally eat a healthy diet the rest of the year. Save yourself for the Thanksgiving table, limiting or avoiding snacks and appetizers before the meal. One of the psychological benefits of a healthy eating lifestyle can be a guilt-free Thanksgiving dinner.