I'm attending a Thanksgiving luncheon at my church tomorrow and I really don't need two feasts in one week! Just posting this for a little accountability, hope that's OK.

Plan: Eat a good breakfast so I'm not famished after service. Have some salad, cooked veggies, and turkey sans gravy. Remind myself that I'm having a healthy lunch, not Thanksgiving dinner.

I've been baking buttermilk cornbread muffins for the luncheon all evening and ate 1.5 muffins (1 muffin with dinner and a couple bites from a batch that I wasn't sure about). They're delicious, but very heavy so I'm feeling like I just ate my weight in cornbread. Don't think I'll have to worry about them being a temptation tomorrow, at least.

Will report back tomorrow with the outcome, I'm so thankful to have this board here for support.

Best of luck, sounds like you have a good plan

There are at least four approaches I use in situations like these.

The first is your one and a good one. Eat a good meal beforehand to eat less at the event. I did this last week.

Secondly, you could eat much less/abstain from breakfast and dinner and just enjoy the lunch. That has worked for me as well.

Thirdly, you could just eat it but exercise extra hard the next day. That depends on if you work out.

Fourthly, you could just call it life. Every now and again, life throws a curve ball for lunch or dinner and you just need to roll with it. I always make exceptions for good company or occassions. And I do this because it's not what I ate at Thanksgiving or in a high end restaurant that made me fat. It was what I ate at home in front of the TV or at work in front of my computer the 99% rest of the time that piled on those pounds.

So well played on having a plan!

Your plan sounds good.

If it were me, I would splurge on whichever Thanksgiving feast is going to be the better one. If tomorrow will be better than Thursday then I would splurge tomorrow & give thanks for the abundance of food that's available to you. If Thursday will be the better feast then I would stick to your plan for tomorrow.

Good luck!

Thank you guys for your support and suggestions. I checked this thread before leaving this morning and kept it in mind. Happy to report that I had a slice of turkey and sampled all of the different salads and that was it. I had lots of protein with breakfast so I wasn't ravenous by the luncheon and was so busy chatting that I really didn't miss the other goodies. I let the toddlers at the table sample all of the desserts and they let me know which ones were "yummy." Good enough for me.

Ian, thank you for your tips on handling these situations. They all sound good and I'm going to keep them in mind. I try to handle each situation individually and decide what plan will fit best.

Toodles, that was my thought too! I prefer my family's traditional dishes and like to relax when we all get together so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal to skip the good stuff today knowing that I can go nuts on Thursday.