The holiday season is upon us, starting with Thanksgiving tomorrow.

The good thing about Thanksgiving is that getting protein is not a problem, and there are usually vegetables served. There usually aren't many, if any, browns served at your typical Thanksgiving dinner, unless you make cornbread stuffing, but I never found it a problem to have regular mashed potatoes at the meal, although skin-on mashed potatoes would be better. If you are the one cooking, you could do a separate smaller batch of skin-on mashed potatoes for yourself if you think your family will object, or have some baked sweet potato.

The biggest challenge I had with this holiday is the timing of the meal. The meal is usually served mid-afternoon, so I always found that I needed to eat 4 meals that day: breakfast, some kind of lunch, the big meal, and then something in the evening because from mid-afternoon until bedtime was way too long to go without food.

My husband and I are going to a wildlife sanctuary for the day. We will cook our Thanksgiving meal, or most of it, today. We'll take a picnic lunch with us, and then heat food up when we return to the house. We have a small turkey breast and a leg quarter, and we will make skin-on mashed potatoes, gravy and some sort of vegetable (we have several options). I am baking my sweet potato pie right now. It has no added sugar and actually is a brown. (I get this little thrill when a program dessert is also a brown, or a serving of protein. I know it's silly.)

I hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving. Whatever happens on your day, keep in mind that holidays get easier every year you are doing the program.
Allison