Welp! It’s the end of November, and I’m still alive! It’s week 32 and I made it through Thanksgiving in one piece, though plus a pound or two! Working to survive the holidays when trying to lose weight can be discouraging, to say the least.

That being said, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It really is one of my favorite times of the year, despite my current struggles.

Pounds lost: 51.4

% to super goal: 41%

Doing the damn thing!

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So as we know, this week was Thanksgiving, which followed hard on the heels of a trip to Nashville, which followed right after my surgery. In other words, this month sucked for weight loss. Like ridiculously so. 

Even with that, there were some highlights this month! For the first time, I got below 200 lbs! I can’t even remember a time in the last several years when I weighed less than 200. I got all the way down to 198.8, which was within 1.5 lbs of my November goal. Then Thanksgiving happened – and, well, we all know how that story ends. The other good thing is that even with the surgery, and traveling, and the holiday, I still came out with an overall loss for the month. 2.8 lbs, but whatever, I’m taking it. 

My Holiday Pitfalls

I was sort of dreading the holidays this year because I didn’t want to lose my momentum. If you’re like me, you might tend to “graze” – eat a little here, or there, as you’re cooking or as you see something delicious put out for everyone to snack on. It’s easy to eat more calories through “appetizers” than you actually eat in the main course. Another pitfall is, of course, eating too much. With so much variety of yummy food available, it’s easy – and common – to eat WAY more than we need or even want to.

My Thanksgiving Survival Guide

For Thanksgiving Day itself, I focused on two things: portion size and avoiding “grazing”. I made sure not to eat anything unless it was on a plate. I also used a smaller plate than normal, so that my plate looked really full even when I had less on it. I didn’t log my food either! I am almost obsessive about it now, so it’s eating at me that I have a missing day, but I’m holding firm. 

It helped that I cooked dinner for several people as well. That kept me busy and for the most part prevented me from snacking too much just from being busy. I made a delicious looking spinach and artichoke dip which I didn’t even sample! I’m kicking myself for it now. 

We had a baked ham made with pineapple juice and sugar replacement glaze, homemade stuffing, spinach and artichoke dip, deviled eggs, cranberry brie bites, and some amazing gruyere and bacon herbed scalloped potatoes (definitely not low fat, but completely, completely, worth it)! For dessert we had sugar free pecan and pumpkin pie with homemade low-sugar eggnog!

Sugar “Free” Goodies

I think the best recipe I used was for a low sugar, crustless pumpkin pie. My husband is diabetic, but with a major sweet tooth (naturally) and so I’m always looking for low sugar or sugar-free recipes to try. The one I found below has been a staple at all our holiday dinners for the last several years. It tastes just as good as the original! It does have some sugar, but I believe it is naturally occurring in the pumpkin. There’s also a little bit in the evaporated milk.

BandGeek LOVES this pumpkin pie, and it is so easy to make!

A couple notes:

• You could try reducing the cholesterol by using egg replacements, but I’m not at all sure what that would do to the taste. 
• I used Land o Lakes light butter with canola oil instead of regular butter.
• I used Swerve granulated sugar replacement with 0 sugar.
• The nutrition calculator below says there’s 14g of sugar per serving, but when I look at all the ingredients I used, there’s not that much sugar total that went into it. So I’m not sure what that’s all about. 

Crustless Pumpkin Pie

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 1 hour

Chill time: 2 hours

• 15 oz 100% pure pureed pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 12 oz evaporated milk
• 1 tbsp butter, softened or spreadable light butter
• 2 eggs
• 3.5 tbsp granulated Truvia, Stevia, or Swerve
• ½ cup biscuit baking mix
• 2.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Blend ingredients – I used a KitchenAid blender, but you can use a hand blender as well.
3. Pour mixture into a pie plate. 
4. Bake 1 hour, or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. 
5. Let cool, then chill in the fridge for a couple hours.

You can also make a sort of low-sugar whipped cream by using a stand or hand mixer with a whip attachment to whisk 1 cup of cold heavy whipping cream, 2 tbsp Swerve confectioner’s or granulated sugar replacement, and ½ tsp vanilla extract. Whisk until you see peaks – when you pull out the whisk, the cream shows up in little peaks on the whisk that don’t droop too much. This recipe goes into greater detail. 

That’s it! Enjoy!

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