Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes: Holiday Recipe Ideas to Help Avoid The Fitness Train-wreck

Recently I was watching Biggest Loser and was very intrigued by one of the guests they had on “The Ranch”. They had a scientist who has done brain research on why obese people over eat and why thin people, generally, do not. 

What he said he discovered in his research was a difference in the brain’s “pleasure center”. For obese folks, the pleasure center is actually much smaller in comparison to their thin counterpart. This suggests that while both obese and thin folks have cravings, it takes much MORE for the obese person to satisfy the craving. 

The good news is that this pleasure program can be re-written in the brain. It takes 4-5 weeks of healthy and moderation eating to train your brain. The bad news is, it can be overwritten with the old habit with just 4-5 days of over-indulgence. That means 1 week of unhealthy eating can completely undo all the hard work you have done to enjoy eating healthy. 

So, what is a health-conscious person to do during the holidays! We are bombarded by all types of unhealthy foods and sedentary living for an extended period.  

My solution is to deck your halls with boughs of healthy this Thanksgiving and find healthy recipes to keep your Holiday Train from getting de-railed.  

While I am no recipe expert, I love to eat and I know where to look. I found a site with a full menu of healthy Thanksgiving recipes that will provide good options for just about any traditional Thanksgiving craving. These include: 

Healthy Thanksgiving Menu

Cornbread Stuffing

Fresh Cranberry Sauce

Hearty Mashed Potatoes (without butter and milk!)

Sweet Peas with Braised Lettuce

Carmelized Onion Gravy

A Healthy Turkey

And Pumpkin Pie in a Glass 

Using your brain to train your brain is the key to long term weight loss. Find these recipes and more healthy options at www.coxhealth.webhealthyrecipes.com

Please do me a favor and  post your own healthy recipe ideas and websites below in the comments section to help other readers!
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World's Greatest Fitness and Weight-Loss Apps

Back in the old days, if you were really serious about losing weight you would have to get a food calorie dictionary and start keeping an old-fashioned pencil and paper list. If you wanted to keep track of your heart rate, you’d put your finger on your wrist or neck and attempt to take your pulse while running.

A lot has changed in the past 25 years. Heck, a lot has changed in the past 25 weeks. So, knowing there are a lot of other geeks out there, I decided to put together a list of some of the best apps around for nutrition and exercise.

Exercise:

Loops (Livestrong): Web : This app allows you to search for and create exercise loops wherever you happen to be. This app is especially good if you travel a lot to large cities and have no idea where to go for your daily walk or jog.

Target Heart Rate Calculator (American Cancer Society): Web : I recommend working out with a heart rate monitor to be sure you are keeping the right intensity level. This site will calculate your target heart rate for you.

Physioadvisor (iphone): This app helps you develop your work out program with common physical therapy exercises. You can search by numerous categories and body parts to help you develop a comprehensive program.

GPS Motion X (iphone): I used this one a lot before Susan bought me a new Garmin watch for our anniversary (I know, she is quite the romantic!). However, if you don't have a watch and are going to run with your iphone anyway, this app will give you your pace and a plethora of other workout tracking info, all while still playing your music. Obviously, though, this app is worthless if you have an ipod touch...unless you just run circles in a wifi hotspot.

Nutrition:

Calorie Tracker (Livestrong): Blackberry / iPhone / iPad: One of the problems with using a calorie tracker is the frustration with not having the foods you need to track. I have found the livestrong app to have a pretty comprehensive data base so that you can find just what you are looking for, or at least get pretty close.

Menu Planner (National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute): Web. This menu planner is only available online, but helps you plan your meals. There is a large variety of food options and serving sizes and calculates the number of calories for you. This one may be really good to help you pre-plan those dangerous holiday meals.

Text-2-Eat (Livestrong): Text messaging. This one is fun, and you don’t even need a smart phone! You just text a food you are considering (or just ate J) to 35242 and they will text you back with the item, calories, fat and protein.

If you want more ideas, I got most of these from an online story by MD Anderson. It has several other categories including kids nutrition and smoking cessation. So, follow this link and "app" to your healthy hearts content:

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