BINGE ON THIS – Healthy, Not Heavy

Healthy

Think healthy. The fact is, you can easily make a Thanksgiving menu that your gut will be extremely thankful for. Taking away some of the fat and high calorie foods, doesn’t mean taking out the taste. Just cutting down on the damage that’s sure to hit when you cook up the calorie and fat combo you usually do, can do wonders. This year, put away your time worn recipes and hit the computer. Recipes galore. Recipes no one but you, will know are actually good for you. There are platters of turkey day tips to help put a halt to indigestion from an overload of all the things you look forward to and think you are entitled to.

THE BEST KIND OF TRIMMINGS

We’re going to give you a few tips here that could help. You just have to blast the “are you kidding me?” thoughts out of your brain. So here goes:

  • Start the day with a healthy breakfast. That way you won’t be as ravenous later.
  • Keep the food in the kitchen instead of loading it on the table. People will be more aware (and sometimes even embarrassed) of getting up and down to refill their plates.
  • Use smaller plates. The less to give you gerd, and worse, my dear.
  • After dinner, try going for a walk instead of diving to the sofa or a comfy chair. Give your food a chance to digest before the half-time show.
  • Give your leftovers a makeover. Think of healthier ways to use all the food groaning to break out of your fridge the next day. It’s a lot more sensible than stuffing yourself all over again.
  • Get back on track with an exercise routine. And we’re not suggesting an

routine like the Rock lives by. Just something sensible.

THE VERY BEST END OF THE MEAL

Get back all your holiday hormones that are out of whack. Hormones that the Thanksgiving feast put on overload. Hormones that a totally unbalanced meal probably caused your hormones to end up in an unbalanced state. Fortunately for you, Dr. Stephen A. Goldstein at Denver Hormone Health can help. If it has to do with hormones, he’s the specialist to see. With years of experience and expertise, he knows how to get you feeling your best again. He takes simple tests which tell him exactly where your hormones stand and what to do. Then he creates a unique treatment plan to get you back in balance. Make an appointment now.

And celebrate how good he’ll make you feel.

BINGE ON THIS – The Hungry Games

Hungry

“Hunger”, “Appetite.” Every Thanksgiving, we target both, hitting them dead and center. But hunger isn’t the same as appetite. Hunger is a physical reaction due to chemical changes in your body because of the need for more food, while appetite is more psychological in nature. Appetite is one reason why you can eat so much when you’re not hungry.(Who never falls into that trap?) And when that happens, you’re on a direct path shooting for real trouble.

CARBO-BLISS

Today, Thanksgiving has become the Superbowl of eating turkey like a horse, unable to ever rein it in. Bet you’d even find “the science of orgiastic gluttony” on YouTube. And “Unbuckle Our Belts” has become the Thanksgiving Day anthem.

Think of it.

We eat before we eat.

The bar flies open.

Appetizers abound. Pigs in a pretzel. Bacon spinach dip, Thanksgiving nachos. Anything poppable or fingerable. And all before we even pull a chair up to the table.

And that’s where the real feast begins; ta-da…the main event. An obscenely huge turkey with its everyone-will-fight-over geasy, crisp turkey skin. Thick, thick creamy gravy; a virtual bacchanalia of butter. Bowls of sugar laden cranberry sauce. Mounds of potatoes. (Oooo those tiny little marshmallows) Gobs of green bean casserole. And usually hot buttery dinner rolls to help scoop it all up. (Excess on the up.)

But wait, oh wait, don’t stop there. Dessert! Pumpkin, pecan, apple, cheesecake. And not just in pie or plain. Try salted caramel apple snickers cake, caramel apple blondie cheesecake or gooey chocolate bourbon pecan pie custard cake. (be still, my stomach.) all topped with endless mounds of whipped cream. (Cool Whip, if mom is looking for the easy way out.). Peruse the net, and you’ll find 40+ Easy Thanksgiving Recipes. 72 best Thanksgiving Dessert Recipes. 100+ Easy Thanksgiving Desserts. It’s a hard-core smorgasbord of gastric misery.

HOW ABOUT A SMORGASBOARD OF HELP?

Hormones can really mess up your gargantuan feast. They can hit you in the middle of the momentous and monstrous meal, or after it. If your hormones are out of balance, they can cause problems you won’t be so thankful for. Problems that can batter any body that’s eating non-stop, until the chairs start to sag. And after the leftovers that will be left and scarfed down the following day, it’s a good chance that you’re going to regret what you shoveled in. That’s why it’s a smart idea to make an appointment ahead of time to see Dr. Stephen A. Goldstein at Denver Hormone Health. No one in the Denver area knows more about the effect unbalanced hormones can have on your body.  His skill and expertise matches his caring and understanding. With simple tests, he can tell where you stand and what exactly you should do about it, creating an integrated treatment plan of hormones, nutrition and exercise, giving you relief no tub of Tums or Maalox cocktail can.

So put him on your list, like right now.

BINGE ON THIS – The Turkey Trot and Other Tales

Turkey

LOBSTER, SEAL AND SWANS…TURKEY?

O.K., here’s the real Thanksgiving story (according to some…) After a 66-day arduous journey that left them with malnutrition, exposure, scurvy and outbreaks of contagious disease, the Pilgrims that somehow made it, were grateful just to be alive. Food? Not much available of anything, until the Wampanoag Indians taught them how to cultivate corn. Time to celebrate! The Pilgrims and Wampanoag Indians sat down for three days…but not a turkey to be found. In fact, none of the stuff we stuff ourselves with today. It was a potluck of nothing to get excited about. Beaver, skunk, raccoon and tough, now extinct wild passenger pigeons. Oh, and 5 deer the Indians brought. Feast? Hardly. Well, on the good side, since they didn’t have a lot to gorge on, and no streaming anything to plop themselves down to watch, they probably didn’t get as much gastric distress as we suffer now. Or maybe if they did, burping and flatulence were commonly accepted.

Talking turkey, here are some facts we do know for sure. And they sure are amazing:

Sarah Josepha Hale, editor of the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, and the woman who wrote the classic song “Mary had a little Lamb”, was a real trendsetter for running a household, and a leading voice in establishing Thanksgiving as an annual event. Beginning in 1827, Hale petitioned 13 presidents, the last of whom was Abraham Lincoln. She pitched her idea to President Lincoln as a way to unite the country in the midst of the Civil War, and, in 1863, he made Thanksgiving a national holiday and without being conscious of it, emancipated the nation’s appetites.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Minnesota is the top turkey-producing state in America, producing more than 46.5 million a year. Six states—Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, Missouri, Virginia, and Indiana—account for nearly two-thirds of the 248 million or so, turkeys.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the largest pumpkin pie ever baked weighed 2,020 pounds and measured just over 12 feet long. It was baked on October 8, 2005, by the New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers in Ohio, and included 900 pounds of pumpkin, 62 gallons of evaporated milk, 155 dozen eggs, 300 pounds of sugar, 3.5 pounds of salt, 7 pounds of cinnamon, 2 pounds of pumpkin spice and 250 pounds of crust.

Oh wait, it gets better.

Thanksgiving is the reason for TV dinners! In 1953, Swanson had so much extra turkey (260 tons) that a salesman told them they should package it onto aluminum trays with other sides like sweet potatoes — and the first TV dinner was born!

Campbell’s soup created the green bean casserole for an annual cookbook 50 years ago. It now sells $20 million worth of cream of mushroom soup.

Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird, not the eagle.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s first meal in space after walking on the moon was foil packets with roasted turkey.

And yes, the short, jerky steps of the turkey, did inspire the turkey trot, at that time considered a ballroom dance.

PUT THIS ON THE MENU

Before you pounce on the promise of fat and calories to come, you should make an appointment to see Dr. Stephen A. Goldstein at Denver Hormone Health. He knows everything there is to know about hormones and how certain ones can, with certainty, spoil the binge-o-rama you’ve been dreaming of for 365 days. To you, every tidbit (and who settles for tidbits?) is part of the eating extravaganza. But what you might not know, is that there is a serious link between hormones and holiday binging. What you think is so good, can really set off a not-so-good-for-you hormone imbalance, which in turn can turn wonderful into “whaaat?” “Why do I feel so awful?” Dr. Goldstein can explain it all and with simple tests, determine what’s going on with your hormones before a bite goes into your mouth. Call for an appointment now.

And wait until you see what he cooks up for you.