Dear Wrestlers and Friends,
We would like to wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving. We know with the start of the wrestling season navigating the holidays and managing your weight can be very difficult. This year we are expanding our survival guide with even more tips, food facts, substitutions to make your holiday dinner healthier and a recipe for a healthy Turkey Chili to make with leftovers.
Tips to help you stay on track with your nutrition plan during the holidays:
1) Follow your regular plan up until your Thanksgiving meal. That means: eat breakfast, your morning snack, and lunch of the lowest calorie day in your meal plan.
2) For appetizers, choose vegetables and low-fat dip over higher calorie foods. Low fat chips and salsa are good as well as some low fat cheese for appetizers.
3) 2 hours before your Thanksgiving meal, do some kind of aerobic exercise for 30 minutes. Some options can be a short run, jumping rope, throwing a football, jumping jacks, even play tag or football with your family or friends. The goal is to get your heart rate up to about 160 for 20 minutes to burn some calories, not to sweat off weight.
4) 30 minutes before everyone is going to eat: eat either a bowl of salad or a plate of vegetables. That will fill you up a little, so you eat less of the higher calorie and higher fat foods.
5) Use a smaller plate for dinner. A full plate helps you feel satisfied, and a smaller plate gives you the full plate feeling with a little less food.
6) Eat a lot of vegetables, a lot of turkey, and a little bit of everything else.
7) Save your desert for a later snack. Try to choose fruit over pie and cake, or have some fruit and a smaller piece of cake or pie.
8) If you eat early and want a snack later, consider a sugar free jell-o. If you want to have some leftovers, eat more meat and vegetables, and less of potatoes, stuffing, and rolls.
9) Stay hydrated. Make sure you are drinking your full amount of water, and even a little more. Many Thanksgiving foods have a high salt content the water will help drive this out of your body. Being hydrated will help you feel more full as well.
Don’t be upset if your weight is up a little the next day; that is to be expected. Just get back on your plan, and add some extra cardio to burn some more calories over the next few days.
Any questions, problems or concerns, don’t hesitate to call / text / or email. We are here to help you at all times. And remember its never to late to get onto a Wrestler Nutrition Meal Plan. We can help you make weight safely, increase your endurance, reduce recovery time and help you compete more confidently. Contact us for more information!
- Skip full-fat dips and eat yogurt dips instead. To put things in perspective, 1oz of sour cream has 60 calories and 1oz of greek yogurt only has 10-15 calories. The savings of even a few small scoops add up quick!
- Try roasted sweet potatoes instead of candied yams. 3/4 of a cup of yams has approximately 215 calories vs the 100 calories in the same portion of sweet potatoes.
- Eat white meat instead of dark. 3.5oz of dark meat is approximately 230 calories vs 160 for white meat, that’s a savings of 70 calories for each serving!
- Skip the casserole and eat fresh green beans and save 90-130 calories per 3/4 cup serving.
- Try mashed cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes. There are plenty of easy to find recipes online. Mashed potatoes contain 2 grams of fiber and 113 calories vs the 3 grams of fiber and 25 calories in cauliflower.
- Turkey will deliver you about 20 g of protein and is also low in carbs and fats. Besides a nice dose of protein, turkey also provides good sources of vitamin B6, B12, and minerals iron, phosphorus, potassium, zinc and selenium.
- If your Thanksgiving Meal consisted of Turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, a dinner roll, cranberry sauce, green beans and a slice of pumpkin pie you would need to run between 13-15 miles to burn off all of the calories.
- While it Is true that tryptophan makes people drowsy, turkey doesn’t contain enough of it to be the cause of post-feast sleepiness. There is a sufficient amount of energy producing protein and iron in turkey to negate any effects of tryptophan. The real reason people feel sleepy after dinner is because of overeating. The more you eat, the more blood that has to travel to the digestive system to help process the food, which takes blood away from the brain and other extremities.
Here is a great recipe for athletes that takes advantage of the Thanksgiving leftovers. Please note that you if you need more seasoning we recommend black pepper or a little tabasco sauce.Serving size: 1 cup, Serves 6INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup ONION, RAW1 cup KIDNEY BEAN, RAW1 cup PINTO BEAN, RAW2 cups WATER1 tbsp CHILI POWDER1 can TOMATO, RED, RIPE, WHOLE, NO SALT1 lb TURKEY, Cooked1 tbsp EXTRA VIRGIN
OLIVE OILDIRECTIONS
Soak kidney and pinto beans in water over night. Sautee onions in EVOO and brown turkey; drain away any grease. Mix all ingredients in a crock pot in the morning, set to low and presto!… Dinner that night
