Turkey Day Tip #3

Wait!  There is still time to be healthy on Thanksgiving! 

Here's how:

1. Exercise, fool! Many many many cities in this great country host Turkey Trots every Thanksgiving morning, and I am willing to bet good money that they are still taking registrations. Starting the day off with a run, or even just a brisk walk, is a great way to kickstart your metabolism plus put you in a healthy mood.  Exercise helps you eat less and feel happier about it, just sayin'. You can find a turkey trot near you!

2. Slim down your favorites. Look, I love sweet potato casserole just as much as you do. But I love feeling healthy and strong all day long more than the 10 seconds it takes to eat it.  Even if you're not a sadist like me, you can at least slim down your holiday favorites with some simple substitutions.  My friend Tiffany at The Gracious Pantry has some great holiday recipes that will make you feel like you're splurging without actually doing it.  Check them out!

3. Remember the REAL reason for Thanksgiving. My friend Ellen sent this article to me the other day because she knew I would dig it - it's not only chock full of my favorite historical demographic - naughty Puritans - but it's also about how Thanksgiving was intended to be a day of meditation and reverence, not gluttony and consumerism. Its a nice reminder to make family the focus of the day, not a personal challenge to eat everything you passed up the other 10 months of the year.

My Thanksgiving day plans? The Turkey Trot 15k, making mimosas and some whole-wheat clean eating cinnamon rolls for breakfast, watching the parade and complaining about all of the product placement, baking my healthy pumpkin pie (recipe below) with my munchkin, and having a delicious Thanksgiving-themed salad full of spinach, home-dried (AKA unsweetened) cranberries, toasted walnuts, and yes, TURKEY. Then a whole lotta rest so I can be ready for my post-Thanksgiving workout at Boot Camps to Go.

And now for the recipe...keep in mind I cook for fuel (which is to say I am not a chef!)

Healthy Heather's Pumpkin Pie


Ingredients:
• 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin
• 8 ounces almond milk
• 3 egg whites
• 1 ½ cups crushed whole wheat graham cracker crumbs (I use Mi-Del)
• 2 tbsp melted butter
• pumpkin pie spice
• 2 egg whites, for the crust


Directions:


1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

2. Make graham cracker crust: combine 1 ½ cups crushed whole wheat graham crackers with about 2 tbsp melted butter and press into a greased pie plate. To make to crust less soggy, brush egg whites over it and bake at 350°F for about 5 minutes before adding the pie filling.

3. Mix pumpkin, milk, and egg whites until smooth.

4. Add the pumpkin pie spice

5. Pour into crust and spread evenly. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes then reduce the temperature to 350°F and bake for another 45 minutes (may vary depending on ovens).


Have a WONFERFUL Thanksgiving...see you soon!

Clean Eating, and what it is NOT (this got long)

Thanks to my friend Tiffany at The Gracious Pantry (@GraciousPantry on Twitter), a recipe website chock-full of great clean-eating ideas, for sending me the link to this article. At least....I think thanks are in order.  The article pissed me off so much that I honestly needed to walk away from my computer and do a little internal screaming.  But it was an interesting perspective to read and one that I definitely feel needs a rebuttal.

The writer contends that clean eating, the practice of avoiding processed foods and eating clean and natural foods from the Earth, is a scam and should be abandoned because it is too rigorous and leads to disordered eating patterns.  And as he tells his story, I can see why.  Anything taken to an extreme - which it appears that he did - can be destructive.  I've been there too; I've been burned by my own extreme behavior and have learned from those mistakes.

But just because you went on a crash diet that someone sold you as "clean eating" does not mean that an entire philosophy, one that is not about weight loss or sports nutrition or strategic body manipulation, is flawed. 

In the article he maintains that people who engage in clean eating are purists who would not, for example, eat pizza...but would eat the individual ingredients in pizza.  Clean eaters, he says, would not eat fried rice, but would eat rice, egg whites, vegetables, and other components of the food they shun.  He eschews the lack of socialization that clean eaters have in recreational eating events, such as traveling or going out to dinner with friends.  His personal experience with clean eating was bad, that much is clear.  But please remember these important lessons from his experience:

1. Clean eating is a personal journey.  I know clean eaters who eat things I don't, and I eat some things that other clean eaters won't eat.  I see recipes in Clean Eating that I would never make because they include artificial sweeteners, which I do not consider to be "clean."  It's about setting personal boundaries for what you want to use as fuel for your body.  The only real qualifier in my mind is that the food be un-fooled-around with, simple in its ingredients, and actually healthy. A quick look at the list of ingredients on a food should clear that up right away (hint: it should be short and composed of actual foods).

2. Clean does not automatically equal healthy, and clean does not mean you can eat unlimited quantities of food.  Even healthy food has calories, and they add up.  Even clean food can have unhealthy attiributes (beef, for example, can be perfectly "clean" but still has a lot of saturated fat).  Just because something is natural does not mean it is good for you.  Use your noggin, people!

3. Anything taken to an extreme is going to bite back.  He complains that he was eating clean and working out...and that when his "best body competition" was over and he went to Denny's and binged on an enormous meal of processed meats, pastries, and other food he was dismayed that he had seemingly undone his hard work.  Clean eating did not do that to him.  His binge did that to him, and people can binge after any extreme behavior, not just clean eating.

In short, I can tell that this guy feels cheated and angry because the diet he went on betrayed him in the end.  I have to believe, however, that clean eating is about more than dieting yourself down to win a bodybuilding contest (which he does admit, he placed second in thanks to his clean eating).  As you've heard time and time again, being healthy is a lifestyle, not just something you do on the weekends.  Eating clean is a mindset, a commitment to yourself, and a plain and simple way to fuel yourself every day, not just when you're wanting to shed a few pounds.

If you want to eat clean to lose weight, go ahead, but if you treat clean eating like a diet, it will act like one.  Instead, eat clean because it is a smart way to eat. 

And by the way, this clean eater eats pizza

at least twice a week.  So there! :)

If you have clean eating questions, let me know and I would be glad to discuss with you.  And if you want to see how some real clean eaters cook and eat real food, visit the Gracious Pantry for oodles of recipes!

Good day!