Day Eighty-Two - If You Fail to Plan, You Plan to Fail

So tonight I'm just going to share a few brief thoughts on the upcoming holiday and maybe a few ideas to avoid a setback (this will probably be geared mainly towards those of you who's goal is weight related).  We all know how easy it is to get off track when Thanksgiving rolls around.  The large amounts of food and fellowship have a way of affecting our ability to control the amount of food we take in.  Kind of like the judgement you neglected to use when you agreed to go out with that one person in high school you've always regretted going out with.  You know who I mean... Janey who didn't stop asking if you wanted to see her retainer collection or Steve who didn't stop talking about your best friend Sally the whole date?  So how do we practice good judgement this Thanksgiving?

I would start by recommending that you prepare ahead of time.  Maybe go ahead and track how much of each type of food you will be eating so that you know exactly how much to take.  This will help avoid taking too much and then finding out you ate too much when you track it after the meal.  If you are going somewhere with a Pot Luck or you just don't know what types of food there are going to be (Turkey... there's going to be a lot of turkey), I would suggest asking your spouse or a family member to fix your plate.  This will allow you to eat what they provide and then head back out to the living room avoiding being tempted to get seconds.  Exercise in the morning and the evening.  This will allow you to burn more of the abnormally large number of calories you will take in this Thursday.  My final suggestion is to pay close attention to the number of calories you take in outside of the Thanksgiving meal.  Eat a lower calorie breakfast or lunch (or dinner if your "big" meal is for lunch). Just make sure you track what you are eating.  Don't give yourself an "off day."  For me, an off day turns into an off week and then off month before I can realize what happened.  I'm preparing now so that I don't get surprised this Thursday.  I'm not going to stop losing my butter half.

Great day for calorie intake and exercise.  Bekah made a Cap'n Crunch Baked Chicken for dinner that was really delicious.  I never would have thought of breading chicken tenders with Cap'n Crunch (Tip: if you do this, buy the regular Cap'n Crunch not the Crunch Berry version.  At least E had fun sorting all the Crunch Berries out!)