My long answer thanksgiving advice is to change the way you feel about food. Holidays and special occasions are not an excuse to give into gluttony.
My short answer thanksgiving advice is to skip all meals except for the big one.
My long term advice for people who don’t want to train consistently is to either swing a KB or to get a heavy implement and farmer carry it.
I had my dad do this a few months ago and he swears it’s been the best thing for him from a motivation, weight loss and strength standpoint. As he approaches 70, he’s been anything from way overweight to 6pack lean and back to overweight. The last three months, he’s made the fastest and most steady progress I’ve witnessed. Every morning he grabs the trapbar I gave him and loads weight on it (currently at 115lbs) and walks the .25 up and down his driveway.
Assuming you’re resigned to eating more than normal, at least make it count. If you absolutely love pumpkin pie (gross, but everyone’s different) then have some. But don’t load up on sides that you don’t really like just because they’re there.
But my main advice: Avoid mindless snacking all day just hanging out. Save your calories and splurges for the actual dinner, and not on pretzels and crackers and breads throughout the day
I feel you and @dchris may have taken this assignment too literally, haha.
Because, you know, “it’s easy for you. I can’t do that kind of stuff.” Legit quote from someone who asked me for advice.
I despise this so much. I always like to point out that it wasn’t until I trained for 15 years that I started getting accused of having superior genetics, haha.
I had my dad do this a few months ago and he swears it’s been the best thing for him from a motivation, weight loss and strength standpoint. As he approaches 70, he’s been anything from way overweight to 6pack lean and back to overweight. The last three months, he’s made the fastest and most steady progress I’ve witnessed. Every morning he grabs the trapbar I gave him and loads weight on it (currently at 115lbs) and walks the .25 up and down his driveway.
That’s so outstanding to hear. Swings and carries are invaluable. The original “enter the KB” was supposed to be just swings and get ups, and I can see a lot of value in that.
I’m right there with you! When I used to go out I would get hit on by a lot of women. Like, way more women than men. So I might as well be able to lift things and look good in a tank top.
I’ve actually started replying with a simple, " I work really hard for this." My nephew is a bodybuilder. He was talking to my sister one day and she made some comment about my weight loss and my commitment and he looked at her and said “she worked really hard for that.” It stuck with me and now I own that. As well I should.
I love that the universal theme is about incremental habits: we’ll progressively overload our productive behaviors!
To the point about genetics vs work: anyone remember how many former athletes were on “Biggest Loser”? Good genetics can hurt the other way when you never had to learn these habits and now you’re 40 with a job and family. At some point, everyone (well, 99%) has to put the work in.
That observation is huge. The Mrs and I BOTH weren’t “blessed athletes”, and since our teenage years have always had to put in about twice as much as our peers to get the same results. But we’re now seeing that change course, and our peers are suddenly rapidly declining while we’re still holding strong.
But I’m also covetously observing my own child who recently was informed by their doctor that they need to gain more weight for their height and I’m thinking “I’ve never had a doctor tell me that in my life…”
Good for the kiddo in a world gone diabetically mad!
It’s like the threads with folks that can’t eat enough to gain: I can’t relate, but I know it’s real.
My wife is fond of saying, “the grass might be greener, but it took a lot of manure to get there.”
To bring it back to the topic, I think I’m standing firm in the “what are you doing now?” approach. Even if the answer is just take a step, I want to know where you are to tell you which direction (plus it’s still more about the self awareness).
I’ve thought about me saying “eat less, move more” and your admonition that it’s bad advice and we should eat more to move more. I agree with the actual behavior recommendation, but couldn’t see myself actually thinking I’d advise my sister at Thanksgiving dinner to do so… but couldn’t tell you why. I now think it comes down to presumption.
If I tell you to eat more and move more, I have to have two baseline assumptions:
You’ll actually do both
You’ll eat more of things somewhere in the realm of sanity
With eat less, move more, my two assumptions are:
You’ll do, at best, one of those
You’ve not developed eating behaviors I’d want you to increase
In that, though, I realize I’m not setting the person up for success: I’m giving you two things you have to do, rather than the progressive approach we all agreed upon. I’m making it more likely you’ll do neither thing than choose one.
It’s also not reasonable to think a person with a poor food relationship can eat less. We see over and over that exchanges are likelier to stick. It’s not about eating less pizza, it’s about eating more protein or fruit… then you’re just less likely to have room for the pizza (or think about it/ the deprivation).
So… for our hypothetical Thanksgiving consultation, I think I rescind both quips. I ask “what are you doing now?” and then suggest a single step… likely a walk after dinner or adding 2 eggs to breakfast.
I have conversations about this stuff all the time because of my job, and I agree with this, but I go one step further back, to tell them how GOOD it feels and how very doable it is to start, because where they’re at generally is a place of fear and intimidation. So depending where they are I talk about exercise snacks to become more generally active and inform about highly processed vs single ingredient foods. If they’re already active, but more in the tradition of diet food and cardio, I talk about protein and strength in terms of updated research on the benefits (“the bodybuilders were right all along!”). But mostly I testify. It’s the fountain of youth. It only takes a couple of weeks to start feeling sexier/more confident and to notice better posture - LONG before your body changes visibly. Stuff like that.
People are terrified of looking foolish (when they fail) and have no belief that they can actually make what seems like an impossible change. I acknowledge that it often feels overwhelming to get out of bed and get started, but that I find workouts enjoyable once I get started, and even more so in the rearview mirror, so I remind myself “I’ll be so glad I did it.” My husband has said I’m happier when I’m on track and he’s right, so I share that. The things that make it seem maybe doable.
I think where we differ is that I’m happy to share high level advice if asked, even get in to nitty gritty details if somebody is interested, but I’m not going to invest emotionally in somebody’s decision. I don’t have the time or energy.
