The Ultimate (Simple) Holiday Eating Guide to match your goals

Thanksgiving tables are full of great food, you might as well use it effectively.

The holiday season often brings a mix of joy and stress, especially when it comes to food. Thanksgiving meals, Christmas dinners, and all the candies that accompany them can be derailing for many people. In fact, it is estimated that Americans entire yearly weight gain occurs in the months of November and December, and then is maintained throughout the other ten months. So how should we handle this time if we have strength and fitness goals?

Eating for your Goals in 5 Steps

We are all in different positions relative to what we want to accomplish. Some of us want to lose weight, some want to get stronger, and many want to generally improve their physique. Each of these people will approach the holiday season a bit differently, but there are some guiding principles.

First and foremost, it is a good practice to make holiday eating just for the holidays themselves. Too often, Thanksgiving and Christmas turn into weeks of overeating. Extra snacks, treats, and sweets creep into our diets without really being accounted for. In the end, Thanksgiving and Christmas are just two days out of 365. You may have a few extra Christmas parties here and there, but that also adds up to only a few days out of your year. Don't allow a pattern of overeating or eating slop to develop over the course of months, because of a few special days.

Outside of avoiding those weeks, here's 5 things you can actually do the day of:

1. Have a plan. Don't just show up hoping to rely on willpower in the moment. Plan out what you want to eat, how much you'll have, and stick to it. Don't plan to be super restrictive, but have an "acceptable leeway" mindset. Every bit of food you want beyond that, pack up as leftovers! You can eat it the next day and space out the calories more effectively.

2. Focus on eating large doses of protein (Turkey, ham, etc. ) to fill you up and help you get more protein into your diet. Regardless of goals, more protein helps you recover from workouts, stay leaner, and have improve. Even if your goal is to gain weight, eating a higher percentage of protein will help make your gains more about muscle and less about fat.

3. Eat your vegetables! There will be plenty of temptations around the table that are short on actual nutrition, even if not short on calories. Vegetables are full of essential nutrients that help your body operate, so make sure they get their due on your plate.

4. Drink water (and avoid alcohol). This "one simple trick" is sure to make your outcomes much better. It will prevent you from bad overeating decisions, hangovers, dehydration and help you be more effective.

5. Train heavy around the meals. This means in the day leading up to and the day following, heavy strength training will help you utilize the extra calories to build muscle mass —which always looks and performs well! Note: this isn't "exercise to punish yourself" or burn off calories. Don't use cardio as a way to get rid of whatever you just ate. Use what you ate to fuel big gains!

Lastly, I'd just like to say: it's not that serious. Enjoy the time with family more than you think about any of this. At the end of our lives, we don't wish we put back that extra roll that one time, we think about the people we shared the meal with. Don't lose sight of the bigger picture here.

Enjoy and God Bless.