Thanksgiving Day Cheat Sheet & Tips

With six days to go before Thanksgiving and with an influx of interest from social media, I am going to share the Weight Watchers Turkey Day Cheat Sheet that I have been handing out to my meetings over the past several days. I also added a few Hanukkah items on there as well at the bottom. Obviously it doesn’t have every candy available on there, but I think I covered the most popular items.

Feel free to click on the above list and print out your own copy

*Points values taken from WW eTools.

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Here are some of the tips to navigate the dreaded the HoliDAY that my members came up with this week:

My #1 recommendation is to wear clothes that fit!! That's right friends - keep the sweatpants at home. I don't want to see anyone pulling a Joey from Friends and borrowing maternity pants from a friend for the day. ;)

*Ask yourself before each food or beverage choice: "Is it worth it?"

*Start the day right by eating a healthy breakfast.

*Use recipe builder to figure out Points values of homemade dishes!

*Eat something BEFORE you head to the event itself. Does it ever work out well when we try to "hoard" our Points until the event begins? Has showing up to an event ravenous ever ended well?

*Bring a "safe" dish, which will help set your space up for success.

*Get moving and earn those Activity Points - bank some before, earn some during and do damage control after the day!! Go for a walk or do a Turkey Trot the day of with friends and/or family.

*Allocate your 49 weekly points for those "must-have" holiday favorites.

*Keep the Weight Watchers Portion Estimator Quick Guide handy!! View it here!

*Do a drive-by of the food before filling your plate so you can devise a game plan.

*Load up half your plate with fruits/veggies.

• When wanting blueberry pie, load up a bowl with fresh blueberries and a tiny piece/bite of the actual blueberry pie.

*Leftovers. If you are hosting, load up on tupperware containers and send the food home with your guests. If you are a guest, politely decline the leftovers or take the healthier items home.

*Drink lots of water. If you need to make it more appealing, you can:

• Put it in a wine glass or a pint glass.
• Add a strawberry, mint leaf or a lime as a garnish.

*TRACK TRACK TRACK!

• Experiment with pre-tracking. Many holidays have many dishes you can expect to encounter so pre-tracking may help with temptations.
• Use the mobile app. Excuse yourself to go to the bathroom if you want to try to Track in privacy. ;)
• If you are unable to use your phone, snag a paper tracker from your meeting or use any scrap of paper to jot down the food as you go.
• Utilize the Snap&Track feature on your mobile app. So many people take pictures of their food and Instagram it anyway - you won't look out of place. :)

---If tracking seems overwhelming on Thanksgiving or just not something you will do, pick it up on Friday - make it mandatory on that day to get back on track!

*2 fun mantras that came out of some meetings:

• "Nobody ever died because they didn't have a dinner roll."
• "Did they really bring over mashed potatoes on the Mayflower? No? Then you can probably have those next week."

And last but certainly not least - remember the Weight Watchers BLTs!! For every Bite ... Lick ... or Taste, mark down 1 pt. Would having to do that stop some of the mindless snacking or unnecessary tasting while cooking?

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If the day gets away from you then start fresh on Friday!! Each day is a new beginning.

Have a Happy Thanksgving! And remember:

"It's called THANKSgiving not EATgiving" - Melanie, WW Leader

Tedy’s Team Group Run – 10 Miles

A word to you all - check your training schedules. :P Okay this is really a note to me.

I knew that on Saturday we would be running 10 miles.

But where those 10 miles would be ... I did not know.

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On Friday, I ended up running 9.3 miles total (a 6.2 mile in the morning and a 3.1 mile run in the afternoon). I only had the 3 mile run on the schedule, but since I slept through the 6 mile run on tap for Thursday I had to do some make-up work.

The average speed on both was 8:22. Crazy that both ended up at the same exact pace. Well, I think the torrential downpour helped that happen. The weather was atrocious and it was wicked tough to enjoy either run, but they were done and that was more important.

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Now I don't normally run that much the day before a long run, but I needed to get some frustrations out and thought running would be the best way, but it ended up working out to the opposite with the rain, technical difficulties and other such things.

I ended up yelling most of the run - yelling at the rain and wind and my random stuff - and couldn't hear any of my music over the wind/hail that was coming sideways.

But Friday night, I got some sad family news and it all seemed trivial. It reminded me that there was more to life and a good or bad run.

So I got up ready on Saturday morning to enjoy my Tedy's Team 10-mile group run.

Thankfully my teammate Meg and her husband Josh picked me up again and we headed to FitCorp on Beacon Street.

It was in the car that I learned we would actually be running 10 miles on the Boston Marathon course itself including...

HEARTBREAK HILL

Ahhh, I was actually - finally - going to run Heartbreak Hill.

Woo hoo!

I was psyched ... yet also frightened from all the stories! But mostly excited. :)

I had decided to bring some Holiday Cheer to the group run so I broke out some Christmas favorites:

Thanks Sparkly Soul for adding some sparkle to my run!

We all headed to the train. Instead of running an out and back 10-mile loop we were taking the train to Newton and running the final 10 miles of the Boston Marathon course. :)

Thankfully Meg has run the Boston Marathon with Tedy's Team before so she was giving me the lowdown on Heartbreak Hill as we started running as soon as we got off the train.

We ran a few hundred yards ... and BAM ... there was the start of Heartbreak Hill. :P

I expected it to just be one large hill, but it is actually a series of smaller hills followed by a large hill (which Meg forgot to mention to me ;)). She had just told me about the rolling hills at the beginning.

But it was a great accomplishment to conquer it for the first time.

Heartbreak Hill is at Mile 16 of the marathon. My legs were feeling tired from the previous day's run so I kinda felt like I did at Mile 16 of the Savannah Marathon. :)

Instead of popping in my headphones 2 miles into the 10 mile run, I decided to just enjoy the sights and sounds around me - see what I will be enjoying on April 15.

Plus I was really just so thankful to be healthy, alive and running that I didn't want any technical difficulties messing up my run.

The first 5 miles of the run were new to me so it was wicked nice to just take in the lovely houses of Newton.

And seeing all the other runners and running groups out working on Heartbreak Hill and training.

I even saw a woman who had more Holiday cheer on than I did. ;)

We had water stops 4.6 miles in and 7.3 miles in to the run.

Meg flew in front of me for the final part of Heartbreak Hill so we ended up catching up at the final water stop and running the final 3 miles together.

It was great chatting and getting to know my teammate better.

Then it was time for the final hill of every week - Beacon Street heading up to the Massachusetts State House.

Ugh.

Neither of us were looking forward to it so it was time to dig deep and power through.

I turned to Meg and said "Today this is our marathon."

Yes, overdramatic, but we both needed it.

And it worked.

We both pushed our way up the hill - which is the longest 0.3 miles ever - and finished the run strong.

That run felt great. It was also the exact same average speed as the previous week's 10-miler.

It's great having FitCorp available after the run to stretch and foam roll! :)

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I also owe a big thanks to my friends at Samuel Adams for giving me one of the 26.2 mugs from earlier this year.

It will come in handy after these long runs. :)

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I can't wait for next week's 12-miler!

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I appreciate all the support!