Autumn Calabrese (speaker) presents a short YouTube tutorial on surviving Thanksgiving while following the 21 Day Fix program. She first shows a "typical" Thanksgiving plate—turkey, stuffing, gravy, green beans, potatoes, cranberry sauce and a large glass of wine—and critiques it for oversized portions, excess gravy/oil and likely excess carbs and alcohol. She says she will next show a 21 Day Fix–approved plate and recommends having a strategy when attending holiday meals you didn't prepare.
Happy Thanksgiving. The holiday season is here, and I'm showing you how to survive the Thanksgiving feast.
First, I'm going to show you guys what a typical plate looks like on Thanksgiving. And then I'm going to show you how to make it 21 day. Fix approved. Let's start with the turkey. All right, there's our turkey. At least the first round of it anyways. Right? So moving right along to stuffing. Do you normally put one scoop or do you do this? Most people I see do this. Gravy. We don't want to skip that.
Green beans, potatoes. Yes.
Cranberry sauce. We don't want to skip that. What's Thanksgiving without a little bit of vino?
Okay, so this is usually what the first plate looks like, right? And you're always going to come back for seconds. Let's talk about what's wrong with this first. We've got a ton of turkey on the plate, smothered in gravy, massive amounts of stuffing and potatoes and cranberry. So you have a lot of protein, a lot of carbs, probably a lot of oil teaspoons in here because I'm not even exactly sure what went into the stuffing or the gravy. And then obviously I poured myself a hefty glass of wine. But is anybody really pouring that much, which is what it should be? No, you're pouring a big glass. You're gonna sit around the table and have great conversation. You're gonna probably eat this meal mindlessly. You're gonna go through it, eat it all, clean the plate. You're probably gonna feel full and you're gonna say, that was so good and it's Thanksgiving and I'm gonna go back for round two. Ah. Now I wanna show you what a 21 day fix approved plate looks like, and then we'll compare the two. You should have a strategy when you go to a Thanksgiving dinner, especially if you're not the one who's prepared it. You don't know exactly what is.
But what I want you to see when you see Thanksgiving dinner is a lot of yellow containers, a lot of teaspoons, a lot of orange, and a lot of blue. So when we plate our food, we want to keep that in mind. These are the containers. Okay. Look at the sizes, know what they are. Use those containers throughout the week so that you have that visual when you start plating your food. This is actually how I would do it at Thanksgiving dinner. I'm going to start with the turkey. Turkey is protein instead of two slices. I'm going with One. That's one red container right there. I'm going to do a tiny little bit of stuffing on my plate. Green beans, one big scoop. That's probably about a green. However, there are almond slices and there is oil. If your green beans are swimming in oil, you need to be aware of that. Okay, I'm actually coming down to the salad first place. Plate your veggies first. That's key because there's not going to be as much room on your plate for the other stuff. You see how much room just the two vegetables took up on the plate. Now I'm going to come back. Cranberry sauce. I'm going to do a tiny little bit. I like the flavor, but I don't need to smother my turkey in it. I'm skipping the gravy altogether. I don't need gravy on it. I actually like the turkey, like the cranberry. I love sweet potato casserole. There's not as many marshmallows on this one as I've seen, so that's a good thing. But nonetheless, I don't need a whole bunch because you know what? I want pumpkin pie at the end of this. And yes, I will have wine because it's a holiday and we're celebrating. Here is my much healthier 21 day fix approved plate. So what we have here, one red, two greens, one yellow. Between the stuffing, the sweet potato and the cranberry, I'm getting the flavor of it. I'm gonna enjoy it, but I'm not gonna cram myself to the point feel like I'm gonna burst and I'm gonna enjoy my wine, which is also another yellow. This one is gonna weigh you down and put you in that Thanksgiving coma. And this one is gonna leave you feeling really good and not beating yourself up the next day. Couple of tips when it comes to your wine, when it comes to your pumpkin pie, and another general way of attacking this meal. Just think about little ways that you can save yourself those calories. If you're having cranberry sauce, skip the gravy. Or vice versa. If you're having the gravy, maybe you skip the cranberry sauce. Another tip you can do, skip a yellow and a purple the day before. Skip a yellow and a purple the day after. It'll kind of balance you out for all the extra carbs that you are going to have on this day. Alright, there it is. Those are my tips for how to survive the Thanksgiving feast. For healthier recipes of all of this food, be sure to check the blog links in the description below. Thank you for joining me guys. Be sure to subscribe. Happy Holidays. Bye.
