A No-Win Day for the Fat-Fearing
Peter Seamans, a personal trainer who treats the Zone diet like a religion, knows that soon after he arrives at his parents’ Carlsbad home for Thanksgiving dinner, his father will offer him this traditional greeting: “Shut up and don’t preach.”
Being a family holiday, however, Seamans said he is allowed to give his own version of Thanksgiving grace: “Take 60 seconds to look at your food.” The La Jolla-based trainer explains the pause allows for diners to think, “Wait a minute, I don’t think I need those three pounds of mashed potatoes my mother put on my plate.”
Once, like 300 years ago, the idea of Thanksgiving was to be thankful there was any food to eat at all. Now, you’re grateful for not eating all the food on the table. Thanksgiving is the opening salvo in the seasonal food war between body-conscious eaters and their wills. Succumb completely and you’re a bloated food slut, self-loathing and regretful the next day. Resist and you feel deprived and depressed.
Days and weeks before the actual holiday, nutritionists, trainers and psychologists review game plans for the day with their clients. Surprisingly, most say don’t gird for battle.
“It’s the eating-est holiday of the year,” says longtime Weight Watchers leader Marilyn Rouse. “There’s no right or wrong as long as they know they can get back on the program the next day.”
That doesn’t mean don’t have a strategy. Rouse brings a low-fat, sugar-free chocolate pie to her Thanksgiving feast. “I’ll eat some real-people dessert,” she says, “but the pie is good enough for me.”
In addition to his stop-and-view-the-food homily, Seamans tells clients to exercise in the hours before dinner. “I say get your butt in there and spin first,” says Seamans, referring to a popular stationary bicycle exercise. “Get that core deficit started before you go eat.”
He also suggests eating two smaller meals instead of one huge one. “That way your body will assimilate the food better,” he says. “Most people stuff themselves to the point where they can’t assimilate. Eat a normal-size dinner at one or two or three--and then eat another one later.”
Seamans plans to first eat some turkey--his protein--followed by gravy and stuffing--fats and carbohydrates. Food combinations, as well as the order in which they are eaten, says Seamans, help curb his appetite. “And sweet potatoes are better than mashed potatoes,” he says, because they take longer for the body to convert to sugar and, therefore, keep you full longer.
Diners have been preparing for days.
“I already have it in my head--I’m going to run four miles on Wednesday and four miles on Thursday morning,” says TV soap actress Barbara Crampton, who is upping her daily exercise regimen so she can double her usual 1,500 daily calorie limit on Thanksgiving.
“I’m going to eat everything,” says Crampton, who stands 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs 115 pounds. “I’ll have like three pieces of turkey.” She describes her anticipated portion of mashed potatoes by making a circle with her hands the circumference of a navel orange.
Developing a Game Plan
Registered dietitian Tobi Levine, who sees clients at Sports Club L.A., suggests people first inventory the offerings.
“I have people scope out the meal,” Levine says. “Just pick your favorites. I show them what a portion size is.” For instance, a small piece of pie is half of a regular piece of pie.
Some of Levine’s clients have been ruminating for days over how to eat dinner on the holiday. One woman, who despises herself when she overeats, was fretting over how to deal with the Thanksgiving carrot pudding she loves. “She says, ‘How often do I get to eat this?’ ” Levine recalls. “And I said, ‘Why don’t you look at this not as a weight-loss day? Just eat what you want. And don’t hate yourself.’ ”
At a Tuesday morning Weight Watchers class in Westwood, a dozen members, in various stages of their weight loss programs, hold a last huddle before the holiday.
“One day isn’t going to make or break you,” says Toni Beck, 30 pounds lighter than when she joined and two weeks away from her gold pin for weight maintenance.
Rouse, a sleek Weight Watchers group leader who lost 23 pounds almost three decades ago--and kept it off--goes to an easel and reveals a sheet of paper covered with scribblings of dieters’ angst: Holiday Cookies. Office Party. Dinner with friends. Stress. At the bottom of the page is a stick figure with its arms flung out in distress and an upside-down mouth signaling unhappiness.
“Do you have a plan about how you’re going to deal with eating what you like on Thanksgiving?” Rouse asks the group.
“I have potatoes I make that are laden with cream cheese, eggs and fattening things. I’m going to substitute fat-free cream cheese and egg substitutes,” says Carol Clark.
“You know, it’ll taste the same,” says Rouse, nodding. “And don’t announce, ‘DO YOU NOTICE ANYTHING DIFFERENT?’ ”
Cena Abergel--who’s lost 25 pounds and hopes to lose another 40--is determined to eat modestly. “I’m cooking,” she tells the group. “So I’m going to have a lot of vegetables and just a little mashed potatoes--just enough so everyone can only have a little bit. And then they’ll have to fill up on vegetables.”
Then, in the fashion of a true believer, she adds, “Everyone in my family should be watching their weight.”
Weight Watchers, which allocates the dieter a certain number of points for food each day, allows members to bank points for another day. “We never encourage anyone to eat more than 10 banked points in one day,” says Rouse. “But you know that’s going to happen on Thanksgiving.” And that’s being relatively dutiful. Others won’t manage that.
“When people come back and tell you how they blew it, I guarantee they won’t blow it as hard as if they never walked in the door here,” she says.
Psychologist Jean Hardesty, who counsels patients in UCLA’s obesity program, tells people that it’s just one meal. “No one gets where they are because of Thanksgiving,” says Hardesty, who used to be overweight. She talks so often about taking diet Jello to Thanksgiving dinners that her patients give her Jello molds for Christmas.
“It’s the way people react to feeling they failed on Thanksgiving that sets them up for a much larger weight gain,” says Hardesty. That and leftovers and a long weekend can spell an eating disaster.
Avoiding Second Helpings, Leftovers
Some people plot how to free themselves from Thanksgiving leftovers. If they’re hosting, they plan to give it all away. If they’re guests, they plan not to take any home. (Now there could be a battle.) Hardesty suggests practicing what to say to the host. “Think about what your motivation is. A lot of time you don’t want to hurt the host’s feelings,” she says. “But put your own feelings to take care of yourself ahead of another person’s.”
Some dieters go to restaurants to avoid leftovers and second helpings. Others find it easier to eat with strangers, or at least, with no one from their family.
“If I was home with my family, forget it, I would eat everything,” muses jewelry designer Mia Koniver, who just started a new diet, as she lifts weights at a Brentwood gym. She turns to David Kelmenson, her personal trainer. “Dave, can I have stuffing?”
“No,” he replies.
“I’m counting on the people whose house I’m going to not having really good food,” she says. Is she sure she wants to say that? “That sounds terrible,” she says. “I mean I’m hoping it won’t be too tempting. It won’t have that nostalgic appeal of home.”
“I’ve thought about this for 20 years,” says trainer Steven Kates, listening to Koniver’s plan. Kates, who keeps a lean physique with constant calorie-counting and exercise, is vigilant through the holiday season. But he does allow himself to sample small portions of the entire meal.
“I envision French people around a table,” he says. “How would they eat? Very rich foods in small quantities. But not too small, otherwise it’s torture. A couple of slices of turkey. The amount of stuffing that would fit in the palm of your hand.”
However, Kates and Kelmenson, who are business partners, reward their holiday season dieting with something nonfattening. This year they bought a Cartier Pasha watch they will take turns wearing. “You have to give yourself these treats,” Kates says. “Otherwise the subconscious beast will be angry.”
Dieters who insist on being zealots sometimes fall the hardest. Consider this cautionary tale: Kelmenson went to a Thanksgiving dinner a few years ago, armed with his food scale. He weighed his turkey, ate asparagus and put salad without dressing on his plate. Other guests gawked as he smugly ate his 500-calorie dinner.
But eventually, the smells of food and the sight of plates heaped high proved too much. Thinking he would just “bring his calories up” a bit, he helped himself to more food. Soon, he was ladling everything on the buffet onto his plate.
Two hours and 5,000 calories later, his business partner, Kates, helped him to the car.
“Food coma set in,” says Kates. “I had to drive him home.”
