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MOVING TOWARDS HEALTH

Choose for yourself

Maggi Fitzpatrick
Posted 11/19/24

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and how we choose to approach it will look different for each one of us. When I think of my ideal Thanksgiving experience, it includes enjoying delicious …

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MOVING TOWARDS HEALTH

Choose for yourself

Posted

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and how we choose to approach it will look different for each one of us. When I think of my ideal Thanksgiving experience, it includes enjoying delicious food, feeling satisfied but not overly stuffed, and having loving conversations with people who matter to me.   

 While I wish the day would magically go according to plan, it requires work, planning ahead, and mindfulness to have a day I am proud of and enjoy. 

Our health is a topic that often comes to the front of our minds on this day. In my experience, I have had some Thanksgiving holidays where I have put my health goals very front and center, and others where I let them slip into the background. You’d think that focusing on my health goals would make the day less enjoyable, but this isn’t always the case. 

The main difference of how much I enjoy the day is not whether or not I prioritize my goals, but how aware I am of the decision I’m making. 

Decisions on our health are always being made, regardless of if we are in control of them or not. If we don’t choose ourselves, we will default to what has been chosen for us. Being in control of our health decisions looks different in different scenarios, but on Thanksgiving, it’s helpful to have a plan for ourselves before we arrive for the day. Following our regular health goals completely isn’t as important as being aware of how we’d like to show up on that day. 

For example, I don’t eat very much sugar in my regular diet, including desserts. I also don’t eat very many grains, including bread or pasta. In my normal day to day, I avoid those foods because they don’t make me feel my best and they don’t help me reach my goals. 

On Thanksgiving, it is my choice how strict I’d like to be on my regular habits. In recent years, I’ve learned that choosing to eat a little bit of these foods on Thanksgiving is very enjoyable to me, but overeating them is not. 

  If I don’t go into the dinner knowing what my intentions are for how I’d like my plate to look, it would be very easy for it to include only foods that don’t make me feel my best. To avoid this from happening, I like to prioritize adding foods to my plate, like vegetables and protein, that I know help me feel great. 

The same is true when it comes time for dessert. While I’d love to eat an entire pumpkin pie myself, I know that wouldn’t leave me feeling my best physically, and that would lead to me not being present for the conversations I love to have. So instead of going back for more, I pace myself, knowing that I can always have more later.

 Curating our ideal day on Thanksgiving requires us to focus on what we are in control of. We cannot control the actions of other people, but we always get to decide how we respond to them. Taking a few moments before the day to get clear on how you want to show up will help you make decisions in the moment that you feel good about. Whether it comes to the food you’re consuming or the conversations you’re having, you always get to choose what you’d like more of and when enough is enough.

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