My husband and I have been strict atkins for months except for we cheated on our cruise, but otherwise absolutely no cheating whatsoever. We have decided that Thanksgiving day is going to be a cheat day. My mom's stuffing is to die for, very very good. Things like that and potato casseroles that are only a once a year thing in my family. What I want to know, is...are any of you doing the same thing..eating what you want on Thanksgiving?

I did that one year.
My stomach paid for it for the rest of the day. Just was not used to all that bread and such.
I'll be sticking to the plan this year. And making more things that I can eat LOL.

Absolutely not! I'm not good at getting back on track if I slip off. I plan to make my own faux potatoes with cauliflower/cheese and my own pumpkin pie. I'll probably pig out on turkey, green beans, and the olives as well.

i would say go for it, the only problem is (with me) i just carry on cheating

I stuck to LC the first Thanksgiving (03) but ate starches and sweets the since. I have actually used it as a reloading day and I usually have a larger weight loss the following week. This is due to the leptin replenish and ticking your body.

I plan on cheating on Thanksgiving...........I make everything that day. But, I will only cheat that day only. I will be back on plan the following morning for sure.

Yes, I will eat whatever I want on Thanksgiving.

I eat whatever I want every day of the year.

I just don't want what you want, I guess!

I don't want to eat food that's going to make me all bloated, tired, crabby, and feeling icky for a few days.

I don't use holidays (or any day for that matter) as an excuse to eat "off plan". That's me though. Atkins is simply how I eat.

One approach you might take is to pick one food that defines "Thanksgiving" and have a small portion of that food. Enough for the taste, but not enough to derail you.

I've seen a lot of people try your idea... a lot of them come back in a few months saying that one meal turned in to the whole holiday season of "eating"... and now they're back at the beginning.

I've seen a few people have the "taste"... and not use that taste as an excuse to "fall off the wagon".

Only you can resolve this issue and know your relationship to those kinds of foods.

One thing I've learned since 2004... Christmas still happens even if I don't eat the cookies that I made for my mom. And they were to die for, too.

Holidays are about the people... food is nice, but at the end of the day, if you had food that makes you "sick", how's that a pleasant memory?

Do let us know how whatever you decide to do works for you. Because that's really all that matters -- this is YOUR journey.

I haven't decided but I will make LC friendly dishes along with the more traditional high carb dishes. I won't make huge amounts of the high carb dishes so I won't have a ton of leftovers. I'll also make a few tweaks to lower the carbs in the high carb dishes.

Absolutely! I will eat ONE meal off plan and use it as my re-feed. I won't lose for a couple days but I won't gain either. As long as I don't go overboard I won't feel sick either. I'm not big on dessserts but I will have stuffing and mashed potatos with gravy. Everything else is legal (turkey, green beans, baked yams). Hey! It's once a year! I won't feel bad. I've been working really hard on this journey and I deserve it. That's how I'm looking at it. Good luck to you all on your journey's as well!!

>>I've been working really hard on this journey and I deserve it. >>

Here's a different spin...

You "deserve" to treat your body with respect and with food that does it good.

You don't "deserve" to eat food that's not good for you.

This isn't personal... just a comment on the general thinking (I see it a lot from people this time of year! Some actually do manage to make it only one meal!!!)

If you feel that you "deserve it" you don't really believe in the LC lifestyle. I also see people say something about treating themselves by eating "normally". Why do we think of HC junk as "normal" eating? I choose to eat LC, every day. Does a vegetarian "treat themselves" and eat "normally" on Thanksgiving or Christmas? None of the ones I know do. It's a lifestyle, a way of eating for life. Anyone who thinks otherwise is doomed to eventual failure. Sorry, that's my opinion.

I'm eating whatever is on the table I like on TG. I'm committed to a LC lifestyle, but I'm not going to insult my sister by not eating her food, i.e. bringing my own. She's in GA. I can stand it for a day or so. It's not like I have control over the menu that day.

When I get home, I have control over the groceries. If I was making TG dinner at home, I could make it lc and make it taste just as good as high carb, but there is no way I could convince my sister to do that without having a lot of pain and turmoil.

for me the whole " i deserve it" way of thinking is really not on the food.. its on the whole situation.. i deserve to do something i enjoy with my family, and not feel like i have to pay special attention to my foods... if it were a perfect world where everyone would eat lowcarb there would be no problem here..
so all in all when i think about a meal off plan as a reward its actually all the other things than the food itself that the issue is about: not feeling like i need special attention, being able to taste and talk about the same food, enjoying not having to think about and plan around food etc.
just my take on the whole "i deserve it" issue
mylle

If you had a food allergy, would you eat the food "just because" or to avoid insulting someone?

I agree with you in principle... I had some meals on vacation where I wasn't able to select what to eat. I was able to make some decisions... just because the main dish wasn't "perfect" didn't mean I had to eat the cookies.

Could you ask your sister if you could contribute a dish?

Bottom line is YOU are still responsible for what YOU eat.

And being on maintenance, you have the skills you need to make it work for you. Newbies don't really have that, in my experience.

This will be my 3rd holiday season doing Atkins... and I'm also fortunate in that I don't have family eating to contend with.

I just see a LOT of people at this time of the year make all sorts of rationalizations as to why they "have to" have <insert food here>.

Some of them actually come back on the day after the holiday having resumed their eating.

Some came back a few months later.

Some come back years later.

Some don't come back.

I am reading all the comments and I guess I'm still undecided as to what I'm going to do.

If I were an alcoholic, would I take just one drink on thanksgiving knowing that one would probably set me off on a binge?

If I were a drug addict, would I do drugs just once because I "deserved it"?

When I think about it this way, I'm more inclined to abstain the same as I do on other days when family and friend are "eating their health away".

Having said that, I'm still not sure what I'll do. If I do decide to cheat, I will not intend to go overboard, but do I have the will power to say "no more, thank you" once I've said "yes"?

In years past there would have been no question...I would have eaten anything and everything that was served...Atkins or no Atkins.

This year I say my attitude about food has changed. Has it really changed, or have I been fooling myself? Have I really made this way of eating a way of life or not?

Then there's the question of re-feeding. I have never tried it, but I understand that others, when they are on a stall, spend a day loading up on carbs and they break the stall that way. The last time I did that, I was losing an average of 4.5 lbs a week, cheated one day, and went into a 4 week stall and have never recovered to losing at the same rate since then.

I'm not sure it's worth going into another long stall when I still have so much to lose.

As I said, I'm still thinking on it. I sometimes wish I could see my future, then I'd know exactly what to do. ;>)