Learning resistance tactics for a holiday that’s all about food

With a class of dieters in front of her, Flora Becker nodded at a misshapen yellow plastic mass propped on a nearby chair.

“This is Mr. Five Pound Fat,” Becker said. “It’s estimated that the average person gains from five to seven pounds from Fat Thursday to Happy New Rear Day.”

Her charges laughed, but the topic at hand -- how to face food demons on Thanksgiving -- was no joke on Wednesday in the meeting room of a Burbank Weight Watchers office.

No hurdle looms larger for dieters than the Thanksgiving dinner that beckons with its glistening candied yams and hot dressing, mashed potatoes and pies, seducing diners to pitch their chaste food plans and succumb to that eating fugue state.

Determined dieters plot their strategies for dealing with one of the most calorically fraught events of the year. Websites weigh in as well. The Hungry Girl website (which bills itself as “Tips & Tricks . . . For Hungry Chicks!”) lists eight tips and tricks to avoid “Thanksgiving bloat,” among them drinking water during the day and during the meal and having a “tasty guilt-free dish” for splurging.

In meetings and consultations, dieters trade survival tips (Becker’s: leave a one-inch border around food on your plate, and make that a salad plate). They vow to steam vegetables instead of swabbing them with cream sauce, and they invoke mantras: “Be grateful, not greedy -- and don’t wear loose clothing,” says Char Alonso, a Weight Watchers leader in the West Valley.

Those dieters who do leap onto the gravy train today should just disembark on Friday. And they should not allow leftovers in their homes.

“Remember, it’s a holiday,” said Becker. “Not a holi-week, not a holi-month.”

Becker began preparing her troops last week for the holiday feast. She handed out paper plates that they labeled with the foods they wanted to eat and the number of “points” the servings would cost them on Weight Watchers’ system. Some members said they would take the plates with them to dinner as a guide.

And there was more from Becker: Don’t go to Thanksgiving dinner starving.

Trim in belted pants, Becker shed 20 some pounds more than two decades ago and has been a Weight Watchers leader for 23 years. At 72, she looks at least a dozen years younger. She staves off hunger with a sliced apple. (“Cutting it with a ceramic knife means it won’t go brown,” she told her group.)

Although Becker never tells anyone to banish a food, she does suggest alternatives.

“You’ve got to watch out for store-bought eggnog,” Becker said. “Could you have lower-calorie egg nog?”

“And cut it in half with nonfat milk,” added Suzanne Picott, an antiques dealer.

“Oh!” said Becker. “Excellent.”

At a Jenny Craig center in Encino on Tuesday, Patty Tokahuta, 37, was explaining her history with the food-laden holiday: “Thanksgiving is our favorite holiday -- at least for my dad,” said Tokahuta, who owns a dog-walking and canine massage business called Zen Pup. “He loves to cook. If I ate seconds and thirds, he was happy.”

“Now is Thanksgiving one day for you or can it go on for several days?” her consultant, Stephanie Cervantes, inquired sympathetically.

“It can kind of happen for a few days, with the leftovers,” Tokahuta said. “But I can let my husband eat them.”

Cervantes asked what she planned for the day.

“Well,” Tokahuta said with a sharp exhale of determination, “instead of the creamy sides I usually do, we’re doing steamed asparagus. I would have done cream of mushrooms with string beans. And I would have made a sweet potato ball.” (Anyone hungry should stop reading here: A sweet potato ball is a concoction of sweet potatoes and molasses wrapped around a marshmallow and baked, melting the center.)

Much of facing Thanksgiving involves deconstructing the pressures of the day.

“Why is this time of the year so challenging?” Alonso intoned, sounding more shrink than drill sergeant, at a meeting of 20 dieters in West Hills on Tuesday.

“There’s just so much of it,” sighed one woman.

“Also, if your mother-in-law has been working on dinner for two days straight, you have to try everything,” said graphic designer Shai Harary.

In front of him, Loretta Youngman nodded: “Very wise, young man.”

Alonso, 63, with perfectly tousled blond hair, has kept off 32 pounds for three decades. “I plan to make this my 33rd successful Thanksgiving,” she told the group.

She suggested people give themselves a holiday gift -- taking care of themselves by not gorging.

She pulled out a muffin tin with modest-sized cups. “I say I can have a little of everything.” Then she reached for a giant mixing bowl -- “and a lot of salads and vegetables.”

Weight Watchers members get a weekly allotment of extra points they can use as “a cushion” whenever they want that week, Alonso said, and she printed up a little cheat sheet for members with the point values of various holiday goodies.

Tips came fast and furious from the members. Before going to dinner, “I eat a handful of raw almonds,” said Harary.

“And raw is better than roasted,” someone added.

“Or salted!” another dieter shouted.

Miriam Shaffer, a sixth-grade teacher who lost 40 pounds nine years ago and now wants to lose her pregnancy gain, will do a 5K walk in the morning. Later as she faces food and family, “I pray,” she said soberly.

carla.hall@latimes.com