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Is anyone else struggling to eat clean (minimally-processed) food? Halloween was a crap-shoot and now Thanksgiving & Christmas are coming up. Normally, I eat healthy (vegan two days per week, vegetarian for four, and one day with either seafood/poultry; fruits & veggies, no white sugar or flour). That said, I love to cook/bake for others and I'm a closet-foodie. Is it even possible to maintain a "clean" diet during the Holidays or is it better just to resume it after?
To me eating clean is easy during the holidays, I am home cooking both meals. Turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans..... none of it is processed.
It's clean, but not vegetarian or vegan.
I can't see the harm with indulging in a little pie now and then.
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Honestly, no. I don't like sweets, so cookies, cakes and pies aren't much of a temptation. I'm allergic to dairy, so I use it to prepare anything I "shouldnt" eat, unless I'm willing to die for it. All of my snacks and appetizers are heavy on veggies. So long as I have my Tofurky and a good Pilsner, I'm happy.
What I did was fill up on healthy low cal food like veggies and home made soups. Don't skip meal times let yourself get too hungry that is when you will be weak and give in to unhealthy high calorie meal. Co-workers love to bring in cakes, and all kinds of goodies leave laying on tables during the holidays it starts with Halloween candy and runs though January. If you do end up at a Thanksgiving holiday family meal adjust your meal so the food is lower carb foods more turkey less mash potato's. I also try to bring a low carb vegetable dish to thanksgiving so I can eat that instead of big plate of baked yams with brown sugar powered over it.
I don't even attempt to "eat clean" for holidays. It is what it is. I do continue to exercise, though. Not to stave off holiday pounds but to keep my body in gear. In fact, I've reduced my "cheat days" from two per week to one to accommodate holiday weight gain.
The key is to minimize most carbs for let's say 5 days a week, and then on the other 2 days do a carb 'refeed' where you load up on the carbs.
I believe this is called carb cycling, and one way of doing a modified low carb diet that is not totally keto.
So on those 2 days, you'd eat a lot more carbs than normal, perfect if you time it for something like Thanksgiving.
Also, on those days you carb up, you work out a lot to deplete your muscle glycogen stores like lifting weights and cardio.
And by carbing up I'm not necessarily saying to go hog wild on cookies, candies, pies, ice cream, etc. Things like mashed potatoes are good carb sources, lots of good carbs to be found in Thanksgiving type dinners.
The key is to minimize most carbs for let's say 5 days a week, and then on the other 2 days do a carb 'refeed' where you load up on the carbs.
I believe this is called carb cycling, and one way of doing a modified low carb diet that is not totally keto.
So on those 2 days, you'd eat a lot more carbs than normal, perfect if you time it for something like Thanksgiving.
Also, on those days you carb up, you work out a lot to deplete your muscle glycogen stores like lifting weights and cardio.
And by carbing up I'm not necessarily saying to go hog wild on cookies, candies, pies, ice cream, etc. Things like mashed potatoes are good carb sources, lots of good carbs to be found in Thanksgiving type dinners.
I have tried that but found I gained weight or just didn't lose any could be my body my A1C is pre-diabetic type 2 have a family history of it could be the way my body burns. I have to be very careful with carbs and sugars even fruits like banana's or strawberry's I stop losing weight maybe when I get to my goal lean body.
I will remain low carb/ketogenic throughout the holidays and beyond.
I'm in charge of the appetizers for Thanksgiving, so those will all be low carb. I know I will be able to eat those, plus turkey. Christmas is at my house, and I have always had low carb options. The kids are all grown and gone, so no more Christmas baking to tempt.
That hardest part of eating clean isn't the food, it's the people associated with the food.
You know the ones: family, friends and co workers who insist that it's not a big deal to 'binge' every so often. ::::eyeball:::: Yeah, it's not hard for me because I can take two bites and walk away...they can't...they eat the whole portion and then some and then complain about how sick they feel, how fat they are and just can't imagine how they got that way. Sigh.
I too will be doing the majority of the cooking and yes, I will make my family their favorites...and will I eat some? Yes, I will. I will eat a few bites of each, not a huge monster size portion that leaves me feeling bloated, sick and ready to pop!!
To me eating clean is easy during the holidays, I am home cooking both meals. Turkey, sweet potatoes, green beans..... none of it is processed.
It's clean, but not vegetarian or vegan.
I can't see the harm with indulging in a little pie now and then.
Similar to what our small first Thanksgiving is. Add in some stuffed squash (mushrooms, quinoa, Parmesan). Parmesan is processed. But then I have zero irrational fear of processed foods. The problem with potato chips isn't that they're processed. It's that they're made out of fried potatoes covered in salt. Ingredients matter. Whether you bought them processed or process them yourself really is meaningless, just need to watch ingredients.
For the next person, clean is no vegan. For another person it's low carb. For another person it's low fat. Personally, as long as I stay away from (or at least moderate) the deserts and don't load up on TOO many mashed potatoes (mine our heavy on butter, sour cream, Parmesan, sometimes even cream cheese) so they're saturated fat bombs of awesome there's nothing that I wouldn't eat the rest of the year during the holidays. It's the quantity, not the substance, that's the issue. I don't practice portion control beyond not eating so much I feel physically sick, so depending how many holiday dinners there are I always do put on a few pounds between Thanks Giving and New Year. If I didn't practice portion control, I'd blow up like a balloon on "clean" (no matter whose definition we're talking about) foods. Assuming you know how to cook, clean doesn't mean disgusting and there's just not enough food I don't enjoy eating for that to work for me. There's vegetarian and vegan dishes at every second (larger) Thanks Giving and Christmas that if I had access to them throughout the year and didn't control portions, I'd be a whale. A calorie doesn't care if it came from turkey or a hostess cupcake. It's still a calorie.
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