Eating healthy on Thanksgiving doesn't have to difficult. While the day is traditionally filled with way too many calories, help yourself or the athlete in your life by making these easy swaps. I wrote this post a couple of years back and decided to update and re-post because it is a good reminder of simple tips and swaps to save big on calories without sacrificing flavor.
Turkey
Baste with low-sodium/low-fat broth or olive oil. Season with herbs and spice. While the white meat is lower in fat, the dark meat is higher in vitamins and minerals. So a little of each is okay. If your family likes to deep-fry your turkey, don't eat the skin to omit a good portion of saturated fat.
Mashed Potatoes
Substitute trans-fat free and olive oil based tub margarine for butter, sub non-fat plain Greek yogurt for sour cream and sub non- or low-fat milk for cream/whole milk. Cut the added salt by half. Consider sweet potatoes versus white, which are lower in calories and higher in vitamins and minerals. If you go the sweet potato route, spice to your heart's delight but go easy on the brown sugar or marshmallows where calories can add up quickly. Try keeping them plain enough that you can actually taste the potato. When mashing, leave in some of the potato skins, which is where most of the fiber lies.
