HareWatch - Week 7: Thanksgiving

[jakebe]

Thanksgiving is culturally known as the day that we stuff our faces until we pass out. It's a distinctly American culinary tradition, which all tend towards eating intense amounts of the worst food possible. Buffets are the same kind of thing, though not nearly as fun; you have to pay through the nose, for one, and all the food has been drying under a heat lamp for who knows how long. With Thanksgiving, the food's a lot fresher and you get to stuff your face with people you know and (presumably, anyway) love.

This holiday is murder for people who are trying to watch their weight, like me. I spent most of the week anticipating/dreading the wonderful food that was in store for me. There'd be a huge turkey, of course, and mashed potatoes fluffed with butter and cheese. There's also pot roast, string beans, stuffing, like, four different kinds of pie, cheese, bread, and a never-ending flow of wine. Really, there wasn't a bad thing in the house, and I ended up having more than my fill of it.

For the occasion I made a butterscotch crumb apple pie (which was a big hit) and an herb salad with feta and cranberry (which wasn't); I think it might have been the placement of the salad that lead no one to eat it, or it might be the sacriligeous suggestion that we all waste our team eating uncooked leafy greens on Thanksgiving. :) Nonetheless, I'll be thinking of another dish to bring for next year; maybe I could stand to bake another pie, or maybe even some carrot cake.

I stuffed myself, but it's times like these that it really hits home just how much less stuff 'stuffing myself' involves. Maybe I'm just used to smaller meal sizes, or I've gotten into the habit of browsing, but it's gotten to the point where I just can't eat big meals any more. When I try, I feel uncomfortably heavy and a little sick. I really like this development, needless to say, though it hasn't really lead to weight loss as consistently as I'd like it to. This is probably because my 'small meals' and snacks frequently include cookies and things with baked apple, butter and icing. :9

Now we're into the thick of the holiday season, which is a minefield of eggnog, candy canes, chocolates, cookies and party snacks. It'll be increasingly more difficult to be good as the month rolls on, and it'll be a miracle if I'm not pushing 200 pounds by the time the Christmas crescendo comes around. I'm playing around with the idea of being *very* strict about my diet for six days out of the week, and letting myself have anything I want one of those days. This'll allow me to head to a party and partake of things more or less guilt-free, and I'm assuming that my planned binges will be less and less damaging as time goes by.

I didn't believe this before, but really, slowly and surely cutting out the worst offenders from your diet is the way to go. If you can't imagine what it'd be like without having McDonald's three times a week, resolve to go twice a week, and then once, and then twice a month, and then once a month, etc. etc. It takes a lot of willpower, but eventually there does come a day where the cravings stop, or when you indulge them at least you feel how heavily the food sits inside your stomach. I never thought I'd say this again, but I think I might be all right never eating a cheeseburger again.

And now that I've jinxed myself, excuse me while I go chow down at Burger King for the next two weeks.