Thanksgiving!!!
 

I love, love, loovvveee, Thanksgiving. It's a bigger deal in our family than Christmas. Christmas around here is usually pretty quiet after all the toys are unwrapped we have a quiet dinner, no company very low pressure. Thanksgiving on the other hand everyone comes to eat at our house and it's so much fun!
I've been so worried about it all month. How to stay on plan, what to cook, what to eat ugh! A friend of mine forwarded me an article yesterday and it said the typical person consumes more calories on Thanksgiving than they burn in a week! CRAZY!
So what I ultimately decided is that I'm going to try and tweak certain recipes as much as I can without making them unenjoyable for everyone else & I'm just going to eat like a normal person eats at a normal meal. Buttttt the days leading up to I'm planning to exercise like crazy I'm thinking the treadmill in the morning, the bike at night or some kickboxing and really clean eating leading up to and tons of water.
Hope everyone has a safe and sane Thanksgiving!

Same here, I love Thanksgiving...just the anticipation of the "season" and everything, by christmas we are so wiped out its a much quieter (after gifts are unwrapped anyway ) day.

I am definitely making mashed cauliflower. I will serve mashed potatoes for the others but I have no problem skipping the white potatoes. If you like sweet potatoes you should definitely try something with that...Im going to be using cinnamon and agave and bake in the oven. Tons of veggies to fill up on, brussel sprouts to. We are Italian American and my guests are going to expect to have something with sauce to start out with (which is crazy i know but i will serve it a bit before dinner). Im going to make mannicotti by making crepes with almond flour instead of the pasta. I have done this before and everyone loves them. Even my stuffing will be made with whole wheat bread....season it right and they will love it! :)

I think thats our ticket, make a lot of nice veggie dishes. No white flour to thicken the gravy and just a touch on the turkey if needed. Thank god I dont have a real big sweet tooth so the pies and cakes arent an issue for me :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sounds normal to me :) I love the manicotti idea. I will have to try that when we are back to normal fat consumption.

I was just thinking about this yesterday, so we are having stuffed chicken breasts, sweet potatoes, green beans, cauliflower and a small pie for dessert. That should work for us.

I found out last year that after being married for 19 years, DH doesn't even really like turkey, esp leftover, go figure!

Sounds like everyone has a plan, and after all it is Thanksgiving and we have to eat.

I always go out to dinner with friends, and will do so this week as well. We're going to a steak place which has a wonderful filet mignon, so that will be my anchor. They serve side dishes with the meal, family style, and I don't know what those will be.

I've had to go back to the drawing board and start planning from scratch. I have a standard vegetarian, reasonably low carb dinner we usually have but now that DW is on mandatory super low fat through the holiday changes are needed. So far I'm planning a Quorn roast (tofurky is too high fat :( ); mashed cauliflower; roasted beets, carrots & turnips with garlic cloves, rosemary and just a quick spray of EVOO; cranberry salsa from Kalyn; a mock cake with stuffing seasonings, and something with pumpkin and Greek yogurt for dessert. I don't know how people who aren't used to tracking manage this stuff!

There are a few occasions during the year when I allow myself to go off-plan for a day, and Thanksgiving is one of them. We're having the whole family over, which is A LOT of people, and everyone is contributing a dish, but I don't expect to go way overboard. There will be the traditional fare, and I'm making a Quorn roast, too, Cyndi! :) I don't care for mashed potatoes, and the stuffing doesn't tempt me, but I will have a serving of the sweet potato souffle, and I know there will be plenty of vegetable side dishes. And, yes, I absolutely DO plan to have a piece of my mother's famous pumpkin pie, and enjoy every last crumb.
Come Friday, I'll be ready to hop back on board the wagon with a satisfied sigh. :)

I too LOVE Thanksgiving and strive to plan and create the best meal each year. I think I will truly scale down the BUTTER and see if anyone notices. Portion control is the route I plan to take and not deprive myself of all the goodness. I will PREVAIL! :D

I will be skipping alot of items on the Thanksgiving table this year. I plan on having a small sweet pot. w/just cinnamon, turkey sans the gravy, loads of veggies ... a little spoonful of stuffing, a little spoonful of homemade cranberries. A sliver of pie. My mom cooks and it is HUGE deal with all my relatives. Everyone expects my mom to cook a certain way, so I'm not going to ruin everyone else's dishes, I'm just going to be very careful and still try to enjoy my self a little. :) And yes ... portion control big time. (fingers crossed it goes well! a week's worth of calorie burning ... that is scary and will def'tly be in my head!)

Would love to see how everyone does at the end of the week. Jennsey you definately got the right idea.
With exercise in mind, I think we will all turn out OK.

I'm a little bit worried because I've only recently been able to get back on track with SBD. I'm definitely making cauliflower mash because that tastes just like the real thing and potatoes are my downfall! I'm gonna try making some of the recipes that Kalyn suggests as well. I *may* allow myself a tiny sliver of pie but I need to keep reminding myself that I can handle this, and I've also got Christmas to look forward to in just a month's time. I really don't want to derail again over one day.

Gotta love it! The whole thing will be absolutely out of my control as I am going to be with Cottage and her great family for the Day. I will definitely try Quorn turkey and other goodies and am looking forward to a small piece of her mother's famous apple pie.

I am so excited. I found a pumpkin pie recipe at fat free vegan. I'm going to change the sweetener to stevia and use brown rice flour. Hope it works :)

I did it! I survived Pre-Thanksgiving dinner!

Lats night we did a big Thanksgiving dinner with friends, and I will probably have the same things on Thursday. Turkey, Cauliflower au gratin, homemade from scratch green bean casserole, and green salad. Finished the night off with a sugar free pumpkin pie/cheesecake with almond meal crust. It was more indulgent than normal, and I was up a little bit this morning (certainly wasn't as good with portions as I should have been, won't skip lunch first next time!) But, it was still a great holiday meal, without the guilt, or being overstuffed or sick afterwards. There was a little bit of white flour in the casserole and the gravy, and higher in fat than normal, but it hasn't caused me any cravings or anything.

Overall, fantastic. I'm going to make sure to eat better on Thursday morning than I did yesterday (oddly enough, dinner was 99%OP and breakfast was 90%off) and I'll add in a sugar free apple crisp. But, I feel prepared. And pretty darn positive.

We just went food shopping and while there will be lots of tempting treats, I don't plan on going off plan at all. Allowing myself a "cheat" here and there spirals. I can't contain it. So my menu will be:

green beans and almonds
mashed sweet potatoes
turkey breast
rutabega
roasted butternut squash
OP Carrot Cake cupcakes for dessert