The holidays are an easy time to over eat. In fact, Thanksgiving is actually a holiday associated with over eating and weight gain. If you are really working hard to make sure that you don’t gain a lot of weight this holiday season there are things that you can do. Remember that you need to consider everything that you eat and really think about the choices that you make whether you are grabbing nuts from a nearby dish, picking up another cookie, or filling your plate for the meal.

Avoid Over Eating By Starting With Breakfast Thanksgiving day often begins in a whirl wind and it can be easy to skip breakfast. This is especially true if you are the one cooking and if you feel a deadline for the lunch time meal. However, by starting with breakfast you will feel more comfortable and you will be less likely to overeat. It doesn’t have to be anything big or fancy, but consider cereal, toast, or some eggs as a great way to start any day and a great way to start your Thanksgiving day.

Avoid Eating While Cooking It’s easy to try a lot of foods while cooking. Have a bite here, grab an olive there, and sample the flavors of the different foods to make sure that they taste good. However, most of the time this doesn’t really feel like eating and it is easy to eat just as much at dinner time if you are eating while cooking. Instead you should skip the tasting and if something needs to be tasted have someone else do it. This can cut out as many as 300 calories from your day!

Use a Smaller Plate Studies have shown that the bigger the plate the more you eat. It’s easy to fill your plate brimming full and you only want to do this if you are using a smaller plate. Use a salad plate instead of a dinner plate. You will feel like you are getting enough, but it won’t be near as much. If you are one who just has to go back for seconds on Thanksgiving day then get an even smaller plate!

Eat Your Fruits and Vegetables Make sure that you are picking out fruits and vegetables while you are at it. These things have fewer calories and you can fill up on them without overdoing it. Just be aware of the things that are being served with the fruits and vegetables. Green bean casserole isn’t very good for you because of the cream of mushroom soup and baked cinnamon apples can be bad if they are loaded with sugar and baked with butter.

Take a Small Amount of Each Type of Food If you like a lot of different kinds of foods or you want to try everything then do that. Just make sure that you take one or two spoonfuls of each thing so that you aren’t getting a lot o food to eat. You can take pleasure in trying each food and you can eat at Thanksgiving without feeling deprived or like you are dieting. Just take a small amount of each type of food.

It isn’t easy to avoid Thanksgiving over eating, but the good news is that with some helpful tips you can enjoy the holiday and avoid eating too much. You can eat hundreds fewer calories at the meal and during the day and still enjoy your meal!