It’s Thanksgiving, which means the holiday season is officially here! Instead of that exciting wonder we had as kids, we tend to get stressed as adults. Food, parties, dinners, more food, travel, obligations, shopping… Let’s take a deep breath for a second. While Macrostax can’t help you with everything, we can help you with your nutrition! 

Here are our top five tips for surviving and thriving this Thanksgiving season, however closely you decide to track macros over the holiday.

1. Let’s talk about the thing between your ears: mindset. Stress plays a part in our hormone regulation and can affect our appetite, as well as the way we think about food. Read the graphic below to get a sense of how to approach your nutrition during Thanksgiving week.

2. Now, let’s develop a game plan based on your goals and mindset above. Take a peek below at how we suggest approaching your nutrition as it gets closer to the holiday.

3. Now, onto the good stuff! If you are trying to stay relatively on track with your macros and just need some quick tips, follow the below the chart for the best macro-friendly swaps during turkey time. 

4. For those of you that would like to stay on track a little more carefully, you can use the below Portion Guide as a way to enjoy your favorite holiday foods without going completely overboard. 

As you can see, most of the foods we see in a Thanksgiving spread are primarily carbs and fats. (Luckily for you though, you’ve been snacking on plenty of veggies and lean protein earlier today, so you have the room for them!)

Use the hand illustrations as guides for your serving sizes. Keep in mind that if you opt for options like stuffing, buttered mashed potatoes, gravy, or pie, those will have both carb and fat macros. 

In this guide, you can see we’ve checked off the foods we plan on eating at Thanksgiving. Let’s take a look at what that looks like on a plate for a good mental image!

5. Last but certainly not least, if you’re going for the gold and trying to get green thumbs with your macros, you probably already know that you will need to do some weighing and measuring with your food. But we’ve also included a special Thanksgiving Macro Cheat Sheet below as well! These are generic averages of traditional Thanksgiving dishes, so keep in mind that macros may vary depending upon the ingredients and preparation!

So there you have it, folks! No matter how you decide to approach your nutrition this Thanksgiving, Macrostax is here to help. If you need any advice during the week or on the day of, you can always reach out to us in StaxChat!