5,000 Calorie Thanksgiving Dinner

This week, the Today Show announced that we will consume 5,000 calories in one Thanksgiving meal.

Meredith and Matt showed us the individual count for every drumstick, each serving of stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. Enough food to nourish me for four days. The pilgrims had to pork up because their next big meal was Christmas, but today's Americans will be wolfing down another 5,000 calories of leftovers all weekend.

I decided to fight back a year ago to society's pressure of force-feeding us to an early grave.

None of my designer clothes that hung in eight closets fit. I had gained 20 pounds from champagne and hors d'oeuvres at countless screenings. I went from my fighting weight of 115 at 5' 7" to 135. I know this sounds insane — but normal people use to weigh 115 at 5'7" thirty years ago. Check out your family photos.

So I went to nutritionist Jordan Carroll. She made me write down every gram of fat I had been stuffing into my face for two weeks. I also sent along blood tests. I had to submit my weekly schedule of activities and meetings and meals. She designed an eating program for my lifestyle.

Jordan taught me to eat 2 oz of protein at breakfast, 3 oz at lunch and 4 oz at dinner. She taught me to eat one cup of fruit at breakfast and another at 4:00pm. She added salads and vegetables at lunch and dinner; eggs and meat once a week.

Very obvious and easy. Never skip a feeding and practice portion control. In a matter of three months I lost 20 pounds. I I have kept if off for a year.

I have sent dozens of very snazzy smart people to Jordan during the year and they all lost 20 pounds. No joke. Not kidding. And they are all so thankful, too.

So this year I am particularly thankful for the Today Show for announcing the 5,000 calorie Thanksgiving wake-up call to a nation of food addicts. I am thankful for no longer being a victim of social eating rituals. I am thankful to be able to go shopping in my own closets. I am thankful I was able to sit at the Thanksgiving table and eat 500 not 5,000 calories....thank you.

Comments

[rini]

I will not make myself starve all day, then feel as bloated as a parade float on any day. No way.

BTW I was traveling with my daughter (from Cali to Phila) on Thanksgiving this year, back from seeing my new baby nephew because I had to work yesterday. For the first time in my 41 years I didn't have Thanksgiving dinner. (Although I did have a WaWa turkey hoagie, if that counts.) I didn't miss it at all.

[Pandemia]

5000 calories, that's an obvious exaggeration; the Today Show is pulling a "We're sooooo fat ! How fat are we ?" bit.

The whole concept behind Thanksgiving has become totally obsolete in our age of saturated gratification, anyway, practically a parody of America's gluttonous disposition. New to the New World, European settlers long ago had it really rough -- they were starving, so when they caught a break, they partied with a huge meal; that makes sense.

Today, literally straining under high rates of obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, what exactly are we celebrating ? -- not a reprieve from starvation, that's for sure. Our new challenge is far more insidious than the quaint notion of hardship from antiquity we so nostalgize over: the propensity itself to indulge without caution, reverence, or restraint; we're in the process of polluting and depleting away the very systems that support our subsistence, much less our grand lifestyles. We go as far as to view any threatened dimunition of this unencumbered "right" to all gratifications and comforts as a virtual act of war, a "threat to our way of life". Yes, we"ve mastered the material world, but can we protect ourselves from ourselves ??

If we really, truly wanted to feel thankful, we would, wait for it:

FAST ON THANKSGIVING !

Not feast, FAST !! Appreciation is borne of denial, not gratification ! Can we not eat for one freaking day ? Muslims do it every day for like a month every year at Ramadan ! Instead, Americans interrupt their yearlong pigout for another extra-unnecessary obscenity of gorging; oh, it's so us, isn't it, but it should stop.

The point is Americans now take their historic bounty totally for granted, and a surfeit does nothing to foster any sense of gratitude, and more importantly, responsibility. No one ever values what they have when nothing is ever denied them.

At the first Thanksgiving, "we" were underdogs; today, we're just assholes.

(adapted from my recent blog: blog.myspace.com/tekayrocks)

[CarnegieHill]

Versailles only has eight closets?

[flatus]

So.....let me try to wrap my head around this... If you eat less, you lose weight?

Why the hell, hasn't anyone told me about this before?!

[Alyonka]

I've heard there's a better method to loose the weight.. my kind powerful guru prommmmmises me to teach. and i know he will.
A theory says it must be early morning. or deep night.. or evening - not so important. it must be an excellent mood, 'couse you feel hot and hungry and lots else - depends on personal taste. and then your weight will be taken care of.

[BobMunck]

The "designer clothes that hung in eight closets" says it all. Obsession.

[Lt]

Right On!

A nation of lemmings can not stand.

[Thorn]

What a bizarre premise. The Today Show "announced" that "we" are eating a 5,000-calorie meal? I didn't. Did you? I'm quite sure I couldn't. What kind of dicey study was this based on?