Thanksgiving weekend always has serious potential to derail your fitness goals, especially as a vegan. If you aren’t thoughtful, you could set yourself back by a couple weeks worth of progress in a matter of days. You may not realize how many calories are in food made by others because you don’t know what’s in it. Also, I don’t know about you, but for me the holidays and moderation never went together very well. There’s always a dish or two that I can’t seem to get enough of. Then you might have a few days of leftovers to get through. Even if your goal is a caloric surplus, you almost certainly aren’t getting a ton of protein or hitting your other macro goals from typical vegan thanksgiving side dishes.
Let’s talk about some strategies you can use to navigate this holiday as a vegan:
Save up some calories
If you plan ahead, you can cut some calories out of your normal daily plan for a few days leading up to Thanksgiving. For example, if your normal calorie goal for a day is 2000 calories, then maybe you can aim instead for 1800 for the Sunday-Wednesday starting out the week, and you’ll be going into Thanksgiving Day with an 800 calorie cushion.
You can still hit your calorie goal (or close to it) as an average for the week, which will keep you on track.
Pre-game with some protein
On the day of the festivities you can give yourself a jumpstart in the macro department by having a protein shake or your favorite quick and easy high protein snack early in the day before you get into the holiday events. This will at least put some points on the board toward your goals for the day, and make you a little less hungry for the main meal, so you’ll be more likely to practice moderation.
Bring your own dish
This is usually our go-to option for holidays because we can make something ahead of time that we know we love and we know exactly what is in it. On top of that, we also get to show our families how good vegan food can taste! We’ve got some recommendations for High Protein Thanksgiving Recipes, or you can head over to our main Recipes page and pick anything you like!
Have fun
Above all, take this time to unwind and enjoy yourself. Using moderation doesn’t mean you can’t partake in your favorite desserts! Fitness is a long-term journey, and being able to experience things we enjoy through the whole process is essential.
