Thanksgiving in the United States is a day that celebrates gluttony.
Turkey, potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, corn, pumpkin and pecan pies, cranberry sauce. One helping is not enough on Thanksgiving Day. Gotta go back for seconds, thirds. Gotta have a slice or two of all the pies and other desserts, too.
Why?
It would be one thing if we ate healthy the rest of the year, but then on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, we chose to blow it out. I could buy that.
But that’s not the case, is it? We don’t deprive ourselves every other day of the year. We tend to indulge — overindulge — ourselves on a regular basis. Like five-year-olds in a candy store, we have no self-control.
Pecan pie is soooooo good!
Sausage stuffing is soooooo good!
[Insert your favorite food here] is soooooo good!
Well, sure those things taste good. Tell me something I don’t know.
But, you know what? I’m not five-years-old anymore. I have the ability to control myself both in the candy store and at the Thanksgiving feast.
Eating right is all about self-control, and not giving in to our inner urges is one thing, but we also often get off track by giving control to someone else.
“My wife will be offended if I don’t eat an extra spoonful of her special dressing.”
“My dad will be offended if I don’t have a second slice of his strawberry-rhubarb pie.”
If people choose to be offended because we are trying to be fit, then so be it. That’s on them, not us.
Do yourself a favor this Thanksgiving and try not gorging yourself.
Sure, go ahead and have some of everything you like, but skip the seconds (and the thirds, although if you skipped seconds, I guess you would never get to thirds. Skipping seconds would make thirds the seconds. I think I just blew my mind. How do I get onto these sidetracks?).
After dessert, when you see that last piece of pumpkin pie sitting on the counter — you know, the one that you always heap with Cool Whip and eat right out of the pan? — leave it for someone else.
Don’t succumb to guilt trips from others, and don’t let your inner child convince you that you should eat more, more, more, just because it tastes good.
We’re adults, let’s act like it and take control of our own lives, be responsible for our own fitness, by not overeating — or, if that’s too much to ask, at least try overeating less — on Thanksgiving.