How To Survive The Turkey Day Food Coma

Thanksgiving Turkey (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The big day is approaching. Thanksgiving is a wonderful day filled with family, friends, celebrations and giving thanks to the many blessings we have in our lives. Most of this celebrating comes with what seems like a never-ending feast. This is just the beginning of feasting, drinking, partying, etc.. It marks the beginning of the “holiday” season, so before you begin to gobble down your first feast, here are a few bits of info and tips that may help you and your waistline survive the season.

According to the American Council on Exercise, the average Thanksgiving meal consists of 3000 calories. Keep in mind many of us begin the glorious day by snacking and indulging in the vino, whiskey, beer, soda pop, or sweet tea while sitting watching the exciting parades and ballgames. Combine this pre-feast ritual with the actual meal and it can easily take it up to 4500 calories with 229 grams of fat. Wowza!

Now, we all have heard that turkey contains the essential amino acid tryptophan which has a sedating effect right? The truth is that the “food coma” you experience is actually a result of your poor little body working overtime to digest all that fatty food 🙂 It takes a lot of energy to digest a large meal. The body redirects blood to your digestive system to tackle the big job. Since you have less blood flow elsewhere, you may feel the need for nap time after the feast, so it is not really the little Butterballs fault after all.

Oh, and don’t forget, the holiday cocktails (remember alcohol is a central nervous system depressant) play a role in the desire for nap time too.

Tips To Help Your Waist Survive The Holiday

1. Make up for the feast (we are all going to indulge, I sure will) by choosing low-fat and low-sugar meals (we should be doing this anyway) for the week leading up to and after the big day. Never skip meals, just choose your foods wisely.
2. Make physical activity a regular habit. Exercise not only burns calories, it is important for good health, stress management, and overall well-being.
3. Be consistent with your workouts. It increases your metabolism which will help assist your calorie burn when you binge on that big day.
4. Before you leave for your feast, try having a small salad, light soup, fruit or veges. This will help you feel a little full and you may feel less likely to “oink out”.
5. When you prepare your Turkey Day plate, it should not topple over on your way to your seat. Practice patience and portion control 🙂

I have many things to be thankful for. I have been blessed and I will, just like many, indulge a bit to celebrate. I have a weakness for pecan pie so I am going to do many burpees this week! Video coming soon. I am thankful for pie and for burpees too.

What is your favorite Turkey Day dish? What is your favorite part of the holiday? Happy Early Thanksgiving!

I Will Not Fear The Holidays! New Goals, No Meat, Running 200 Miles, Firefly and Scorpion

Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Feasting will begin, then on to Holiday parties with more feasting. Blah! I love the holidays with all of the decorations, festivities, meaning, family, friends etc. I do not love the shopping and the excessive amounts of food that always seem to tempt me. I think now is a great time to set new health and fitness goals. Why wait around for the New Year? I will go ahead and work on myself now. Setting new goals will help me become disciplined during these tempting times. So here is what I have been pondering.

I finally watched Food, Inc.  It was eye-opening. I knew what it was about, but I never took the time to sit down and watch. The Husband and I have been talking here and there about cutting back on meat over the past couple of years. I cook a fair amount of vegetarian dishes anyway, so after watching the documentary I thought now would be a great time to challenge myself, however, The Supermodel Piper may not enjoy those 17 days. Let me make this clear, I am not converting to be a vegetarian, I am just going to challenge myself to go meat free for a period of time and get creative with plant-based meals. It will be very interesting to see how I feel after this challenge is over. This is how this goal will go down. I will not eat beef, pork, or poultry for 17 days beginning on October 31, 2012. Why 17 days you might ask? Well, my first Thanksgiving feast will be held at my Dad’s on November 17th and I am sure beef, pork, or poultry could be involved. I would not want to offend the cook. 🙂

Remember at the beginning of the Workout Warrior Challenge when I said “If you state to someone your goal you will probably become more accountable and disciplined to reach your goal? Well anyway, this is my new fitness goal. I will run a total of 200 miles between November 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012. Sounds exciting, does it not? I will tell you that I have not been running distance mileage since 2010. All of my runs have been usually 2.5 to 4 miles each. I have no desire to run distance so all of my 200 miles will be a compilation of short runs. I will just have to do bunches of them which will be the fun part; short and sweet.

Now I think you all may know I love to practice yoga. I confess I have not been practicing as much as I would like to, so my new yoga goal is to conquer a couple of poses I have said before I wanted to learn but never really followed through with. I will conquer the Firefly and Scorpion yoga poses by December 31, 2012. Whew! I am scared now. This is good though. I believe the way to change and grow, mentally and physically, is to challenge yourself. I will definitely be leaving my comfort zone but I think that is the only way to reach my goals.

Now, how am I going to go about reaching these goals? First, not eating pork and poultry will be easy, but beef is tasty. I will be strong and come up with some delicious plant-based dishes. I may not even miss it at all. I will be glad to share my exciting new meals. Second, if I run 3 miles every day until December 31st that will total 183 miles. Looks like I will have to up some mileage. Now I am not going to run every single day but I will do a few 4-5 milers and probably some short two-a-days:) Note: I do not run on the treadmill, so all of my running will be outdoors. Another note: I hate cold weather so I sure hope we have a mild November and December. Now I am more scared of this than I am of attempting Scorpion! Challenge to Change, Challenge to Change. Now for Firefly and Scorpion (pics are below so you will know what I am talking about). I have to step it up on my practice. I teach yoga 2 times per week now. I am going to practice 3 more days on my own, specifically poses to prepare me for these two challenge poses. I am tired thinking of this, but it is exciting all at the same time.

Some of you may think I am nuts for thinking this is exciting. It is exciting to me because I know the sense of accomplishment and growth I will feel at the end, which will be worth the effort that will go into getting there. I will also take a before picture of myself and document the whole journey to see what happens to me mentally and physically during the next 2 months. Follow my little journey, it may give you a giggle or two.

I had to find pics because I can’t do these yet. The first picture is Firefly. I took the picture from www.yogajournal.com  Credit to David Martinez. The second picture is from www.about.comCredit to Barry Stone. Looks like fun 🙂

Do you make New Year Fitness Resolutions? Are you going to wait or make it happen now?