Thanksgiving Power Plan

If Thanksgiving always feels a little… chaotic, this episode is your calm, grounded reset. In today's episode, I walk you through a simple, strategic plan for your morning, mealtime, and evening so you can enjoy every bite without the crash, guilt, or stress.

You’ll learn how to set up your morning foundation with protein-forward meals, hydration, and light movement to keep blood sugar steady long before the turkey hits the table. Then we dive into the mealtime strategy — a realistic, non-restrictive approach to building your plate, choosing the foods you genuinely love, pacing your meal, and enjoying dessert without the spiral. Finally, we wrap with a gentle evening and next-day reset to support digestion, lower inflammation, and get you back into your routine with ease.

Think of this episode as your holiday roadmap: simple, doable, supportive, and designed to help you feel amazing all day long.

And if you love structure that doesn’t feel overwhelming, stick around to hear how Missy’s quick 30-minute coaching sessions can help you build routines and habits that actually work in real life — not just on holidays.

Transcript

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So today we're talking about how to feel amazing on Thanksgiving without stress, guilt, or overthinking. I'm gonna guide you through a simple plan for your morning, your meal time, and post-meal reset so that you can enjoy the day, support your digestion, and get back to your routine with ease. Hello, friends, it's Missy, and this is my podcast, This is Me at 50. Let's chat about what it looks like and feels like to go from your best life in your 40s to an even better life in your 50s while navigating hormones, very metaphobes, and metaphobes. Let's talk about finding balance over perfection, nourishing your body in the nutrition place, healthy movement, who you should surround yourself with and why that matters. Anxiety, half flesh, concentration, focus, sleep cooking relationships, and friends of all the things. This is me. Now, before I move on, I want to make sure you're getting all of the best information because I love sharing. As a professional health coach, I am passionate about educating and providing quality information with the goal of creating a healthier community. Be sure to check out the show notes and sign up for my Authentic Wellness mailing list. This is an awesome resource for recipes, upcoming events, and more great information on ways that you can create that healthy lifestyle that you want. Just click on the link to sign up, or you can also visit my website, authenticwellness.net. And as a nice bonus, I'll send you an awesome freebie just for joining my community of fun. Today we're breaking down your quietly strategic and not at all restrictive plan for feeling amazing on Thanksgiving. Because here's the truth the food is not the problem. The unplanned day is the problem. So think of this episode like the nutrition version of knowing where your keys and your phone are before you walk out the door. Calm, grounded, collected, and fully ready. So let's get into it. So first we need to talk about your morning foundation, setting up your day. The goal for setting up your day is to make sure that we set up your blood sugar, digestion, and hunger cues before the big meal so you're not walking in ravenous. Start with breakfast strategy. This is a non-negotiable. Skipping breakfast is the fastest route to the 3 p.m. Why did I just eat five dinner rolls moment? Your target is 30 to 40 grams of protein plus eight to 10 grams of fiber plus a healthy fat as part of your breakfast. So some really easy options would be cottage cheese with fruit and chia seeds, eggs, greens, and avocado, Greek yogurt, berries, and pumpkin seeds, or a protein smoothie with chia and flax seeds. And why this works? You're creating stable blood sugar, fewer cravings, and better choices. Number two, you need a hydration strategy. Start your day with 16 to 24 ounces of water. Add electrolytes if you're traveling, if you're going to be drinking wine or drink wine, or if you're already in chaos mode. Don't save space in your belly. Hydration equals digestion support. Number three, you need movement prep. Light movement changes the whole metabolic structure. So quick ideas. You can do a 20 to 30 minute walk in the morning, walking while talking with family. You could do some light Pilates, you could do a little yoga. Movement calms stress hormones and supports digestion. You also need a snack strategy. If the main meal is later in the day, I want you to have a protein and a fat snack, not like a fat snack, like a snack that has healthy fats in it around one or two o'clock. Think about cottage cheese, yogurt, turkey slices, nuts. Avoid carb-only snacks because that's going to spike your hunger. Now we want to move into mealtime strategy. So enjoying the food that you love. So the goal here is to enjoy everything you love without the crash or the heaviness. So first of all, you need a plate blueprint. This order matters. So as you're building your plate, put your protein first. Next, I want you to have veggies or salad. Next is healthy fats. And then the last thing is your favorites. So it could be stuffing, it could be mac and cheese, it could be potatoes, it could be rolls. You get to eat all the things you love. We're just simply supporting your hunger hormones in the order that we're going to eat. Number two, proportion principles. So your first plate sets the tone. And your first plate, I want you to aim for 30 to 40 grams of protein, six to eight grams of fiber, moderate fats, and one to two carb choices that you actually really, really love. Just skip the foods that you don't genuinely care about. Number three in your strategy is timing and pacing. I want you to eat your first plate really, really slowly. Take like 10 to 15 minutes. Then I want you to pause 10 minutes before you go back for seconds. This pause prevents the overfull spiral. Fourth strategy lighter swap ideas if you want them. So instead of mashed potatoes, swap out for cauliflower mashed potatoes. Opt for roasted vegetables. Instead of a drinking, have a seltzer with lime. Do half the stuffing portion and a full veggie portion. All of these little swaps can help your plate look a little and be a little healthier. Dessert strategy. Pick the dessert that you really, really want. Have five to six conscious bites and pair them with a protein or a fat to keep your blood sugar steady. So after you've had your big meal in the evening and the next day, we need a strategy for that as well. So your goal is to reduce inflammation, support digestion, and get yourself back to your structure without feeling guilty. So the first thing I want you to think about is going for a walk after you have your big Thanksgiving dinner. A 10 to 20 minute walk helps reduce blood sugar spikes, it boosts digestion, and it prevents that post-meal crash. Hydration reset. I want you to drink another 16 to 20 ounces of water after that meal. I want you to add electrolytes to that water. Third, digestion practices. I want you to do some light stretching. Maybe when you go for your walk, you do a little stretching, you get up, you kind of reach your hands up really high. You try to touch your toes, you just move. Get your body moving. Okay. Also for digestion, having a little peppermint or ginger tea is going to help your body digest those foods that you ate in that Thanksgiving meal. Try to avoid lying flat or sitting and plopping on the couch for at least one hour after you've eaten. The next morning, the very next morning, I want you to make sure you start your day with protein-forward, simple structure. So your breakfast has 30 to 40 grams of protein. You're going to add in a fiber source. You're going to start hydrating early, and you're going to go for a morning walk or do some light lifting just to get everything back in motion and get everything moving. For anti-inflammatory support, I want you to include in your meals leafy greens, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate all day, and add in electrolytes to those waters. Have omega-3 rich foods and keep your added sugars really, really low, like none if you can for 24 to 48 hours after that Thanksgiving meal. And finally, have a mindset reframe. Thanksgiving in itself doesn't have to derail you. Your ability to reset and shift back to structure the day after Thanksgiving will lead you to success. So have the goal of getting back on track immediately the next day, and there you go. So this tackles Thanksgiving. If you want this kind of structure beyond the holidays, clear, doable, and personalized, I do offer quick 30-minute coaching sessions that help you create a plan that you can actually follow. No overthinking, no guessing, just simple supportive guidance tailored to your real life. If you're craving more direction or you want help mapping out your nutrition, movement, or weekly routine, these 30-minute sessions can shift everything. Remember, you do not need to be perfect. You just need to have a plan that supports a strategy going in, and then a plan for after that meets you exactly where you're at. You've got this. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Remember, the day is about connection. It's about being with the people. It's about refilling your cup and loving on the people that are important in your life. Thanks for tuning in, friend. If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs the reminder that Thanksgiving doesn't have to derail you. That going in with the plan and knowing that you have a strategy leaves you feeling empowered and ready to enjoy the day for everything that it's meant to be. Until next time, my friend, I wish you all the best that life has to offer. Make it a great day.