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!

Turkey Day Tip Number TWO!

This always freaks me out.
This is just WRONG!

Here's the thing - one day of overeating is not going to wreck much of anything. You'll feel like crap and retain a lot of water, but if that's okay with you then put on your stretchy pants and worship at your food altar on Thursday.  I'll wait.


But four days of overeating is another story. The average Thanksgiving meal is about 3,500 calories, equal to a pound of fat. If you're on a sensible weight-loss plan, that is about one week's worth of hard work. That may be a bargain for you, I don't know. I have to practically chop off a limb to lose a pound so it is not worth it for me.

Just so we're on the same page, you won't actually gain a pound unless you eat like 5,000 calories, because your body is still going to burn about 2,000 just laying around watching football.  But still.  Be reasonable.


So if you do that on Thursday, and then eat the leftovers on Friday, and then get the Christmas baking started on Saturday, and then figure by Sunday that you're so far in the hole that the diet will start over on Monday, its not unrealistic to think that by that point you may have sacrified a full week of hard work because you "deserve it." I'm just sayin', it's science.


SO! If you want to avoid that, make a plan. It should look something like this:


1. On Thursday, be sensible. Enjoy your favorite Thanksgiving foods and counteract the calories with some exercise and lots of water. A Thanksgiving walk is a great family tradition to start!


2. On Friday, go back to your normal routine. Give away the leftovers or make less food on Thanksgiving so you don't have as much left over. Eat normally, exercise a little extra, and be thankful for how great you feel as a result.


You do not have to give into the Thanksgiving gluttony hype!  I promise, there is no winner. 

It's not too late to register for your local Turkey Trot!

Tomorrow, one last Turkey Day Tip!  

Turkey Day Tip Numero Uno

This is one of those weeks when I am not very popular.  The nutritional finger-wagging routine doesn't have many fans in a week that has an entire day dedicated to eating.  I'm not sure that it really has many fans in a normal week, either, but I do it anyway. 

BUT!  I would be a completely useless Healthy Heather if I did not implore you to remember that you CAN celebrate Thanksgiving without taking a step back in your fitness goals.  It's what I do.  If I didn't say this, I honestly would not be able to sleep at night.  Well eventually I would but it would not be quality sleep and I value my sleep so listen up! 

I am only going to say this 15 million times between now and the end of the year.

Check out this Thanksgiving Meal Calories Calculator to give yourself an idea of what you're looking at...and then decide how much of your hard work you're willing to throw away.

Tomorrow, making a Turkey Day Survival Plan.  For the calories, just so we're clear. I can't do anything about your family.

Good day! :)

Underdog? Think again, sucka!

There are these two guys I see running when I am on my way home from work. They are pretty young, maybe college-aged, and they are obviously training for something.  One seems to be the more experienced and athletic of the two, and the other looks like his protege: a little slower, a little less conditioned, a little less athletic.  Anyway, they run down the road and I watch them from my car like some kind of freaky workout stalker. 

Well I saw them again last night, and wow!  The teacher has become the student, my friends.  That little guy who a few weeks ago was struggling to keep up with his buff buddy was like a different runner. It's clear he has been putting in the work, and it showed.  I wanted to roll down my window and cheer him on, but I thought that might be a little weird.  So I cheered for him in my car - woo hoo little runner guy, go on with your bad self.

I love to cheer for the underdog.  Heck I love to cheer for anyone out there working hard to do something!  My football enthusiast friends laugh at me for my practice of rooting for both teams in a game - I just love seeing people accomplish what they work for.  So it made me really happy to see that guy kicking ass on that run. He was LOVING it, too.  He was like a dog with its head sticking out of a car window:

"THIS IS FREAKIN' AWESOME!"

I hope you have a freakin' awesome workout this weekend, the kind that makes whoever has been secretly watching you from their car really, really proud.

Good day!

A Giveaway!

The Giving Tree has been placed in my office's lobby, and the wish list of the families we have adopted for the holidays has been sent out.  Which means that for me, 'tis the season to be crying.

 

Each year my heart aches for the children who have items like coats, pajamas, or food on their Christmas wish lists.  I go through Target with my buggy, loading it up with diapers and tiny little jammies and shoes, fighting back the tears because I am completely overwhelmed by the amount of need just in my little community.  And for good measure, I throw in a completely whimiscal and unnecessary toy or two because everyone deserves something completely whimsical and unnecessary on Christmas. 

Even the grown-up kids!

Anyway, this post is more about emotional wellness than physical. I hope you can find a way to give of your time, talents, and if you have them, your resources to help make the holidays emotionally healthier for your community than it may be otherwise.  We all know the toll that stress can take on our health all year round, and the holidays have a way of mixing stress, guilt, and pressure to live beyond our financial (and caloric) means into a recipe for disaster.  Even just a few of us can help alleviate that stress through the simplest of healthy actions:

• Donate blood and literally give the gift of health. Find your local blood center here.
• Contribute to a local charitable organization that provides health services to needy folks, like this one in New Jersey. There may be one in your community. 
• Give to families whose children are dealing with life-threatening illnesses. You can find a link for how to locate a Children's Miracle Network hospital in your area here.

It's easy to give during the holidays because we are in a giving mood, but need exists for families around us all year long.  Don't stop on December 24 - please, give. Give and give and give and give! 

And then give some more.

It's good for your heart. :)

Talkin' Turkey

There are two things I have in common with Marty McFly:

I love time travel and aviator sunglasses.

But really, who doesn't?

Okay if I am being completely honest, there are three things I have in common with Marty McFly: I love time travel, aviator sunglasses, and I can't turn down a dare.

Nobody calls me chicken.

So when I first met David, a new guy at my gym, I thought, "oh this will be eaaaasy!"  Easy to mess with, that is.  A ready smile, a self-deprecating humor, a feigned hopelessness...he had all of the ingredients of someone who will engage in the kind of friendly smack talk that makes morning workouts so much fun.  But then he threw me a major curve ball:

this dude knows how to heckle.

Holy crap!  I am used to being the MESSER, not the mess-ee!  But David doesn't play that way.  Oh no, he calls me OUT.  I was totally not prepared.  But now that I know that he's not asleep at the wheel, it is so on.

So last week at our gym we had body composition assessments, and I got all picky about mine and did the electronic impedence and calipers first thing in the morning so I could compare and contrast.  And then I had my big boo-hoo post of how irked I was at the change in the past few months.  And then David accused me of being a chicken by not sharing what the results were.

But nobody calls me chicken.

So this chicken is going to talk turkey.  Yeah, I'm a sucker for a dare, everyone knows it. I'm easily manipulated that way.

Here's the thing - I work my butt off at the gym, and I eat really really healthy.  So when I see a body fat percentage of 28%, I get annoyed.  For a girl who is 34 years old, 5'4" of medium build, and regularly running endurance races plus eating clean and who has done all of that for eons and who is tracking it all with a GoWearFit, I really feel like my body fat should be lower.  Here's a chart to give you some perspective:


This chart is based on guidelines by the
American College of Sports Medicine and the
National Institute of Health.

You can probably guess which category I want to be in. 

So there are two ways I can look at this data: either I can say, "eh, I love my training, I am well-conditioned, and I eat healthy. I'm going to chalk this up to genetics and keep doing what I love," or I can say, "HELL NO! NO FAIR!  GIMME ANOTHER CHANCE!  I KNOW I CAN DO BETTER!  THIS IS SO BOGUS!" and assess how I moved from "fit" to "healthy" and make a plan to get back to where I feel I deserve to be.

I've done a little of both.  Some soul-searching, some pragmatic reality checks (*ahem* I am not getting any younger, FYI), and some strategizing of goals, nutrition, and training.  I feel really good about where I am going and how I'm getting there. 

So. There.  I did it.  Happy now? :)  I am, and I can't wait to give everyone around me a big high-five at the finish line.

Will you be there, Mr. Smarty Pants?

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

Do you believe in signs?  You know, those seemingly random events that seem to confirm a decision that you knew you wanted to make but didn't know you knew?
I do. I leave a lot of stuff up to gut instinct to lead me in the direction I should go.  I rely on signs to give me that extra confidence of "yep, I made the right decision!"  So naturally, I'm the kind of person who thinks everything is a sign.

When I see people running down the sidewalk in the mornings, I see a sign to reconnect with my own fitness goals.  On days when I've had a good workout , I feel a real sense of community with these people, like we're in a secret club together.  And on days when I want to go to Starbucks and get a big frosted pumpkin scone, I seem to see those people more often.  I think its a sign, reminding me of my bigger goal.  Which, if you're not following, is to NOT eat big frosted pumpkin scones from Starbucks.

They had some samples of those out one day and I tasted a tiny little sliver of one and...yeah....I don't need to eat that. 

The other day I kinda wanted a few more almonds, but I knew my body didn't need them...and at that moment I reached over to get something and bumped my gym bag, which is next to my desk. An upper-body weight workout I had jotted down on an index card fell out of a pocket on my bag, reminding me of my goal to increase my muscle strength.  I chuckled to myself; it was a sign that gave me the extra oomph I needed to put those almonds out of my mind.  And I did.

Yesterday, in church, my son snuggled up next to me and I smiled and reveled in our cozy little moment.  Then he said, loud and clear for all to hear, "mommy, your tummy makes such a nice pillow."

That was definitely a sign.

Well here's another one:  today I am celebrating two straight weeks of a 3,500 calorie deficit, representing two pounds lost! Woot woot! I said I was back and I meant it - I am excelling in every single area of my plan, and I am soooo glad I paid attention to those signs.  My tummy has turned into a bit of a pillow lately...and I'm sad to tell my kiddo not to get too comfortable on it.

Have I lost my mojo? Hell no! I've got it in droves! 


Tomorrow's Blog Preview: What do I have in common with Marty McFly?  See you soon!