21 Ways to Move More for Your Holiday Meal
During the holidays, turkey trots aren’t the only way to put those extra calories to use. Let your holiday meal move you!
We’re starting to understand more about how our food choices impact the environment, but rarely do we consider our own personal physical actions in collecting and preparing the food we eat. Our food has become quite sedentary!
Throughout human history we have had to move in order to eat—hunting, gathering, foraging, and gardening movements, for example. Now, many of us can outsource most of our food moves to others, an outsourcing that has sociological and environmental impacts. It’s only relatively recently that we began think of exercising off extra calories.
As we approach the holidays, here are ways to move more for the stuff we’ll consume.
IN THE DAYS LEADING UP
1. Use your body to gather as much food as you can. Forage—for wild mushrooms, local nuts, fruit, veggies and herbs—or simply walk on foot to local farms, vendors or grocery stores.
2. Do an actual turkey trot. Walk to pick up your turkey. Even if you work out regularly, carrying an awkwardly shaped object a couple of miles can be tough!
3. Swap out the nuts in your recipe for ones growing closest to you. Nuts from certain place are still harvested using slave labor (yes, it’s true— find lists online). Foods we prefer but don’t source for ourselves are still gotten (read: moved for) by others, and in many cases our preferences come at the expense of another’s health and experience.
4. Buy less-processed ingredients. Once you figure out which nuts are most local to you, try to find them in the shell. Do your squats and hip stretches while shelling nuts for stuffing or pie! Buy whole nutmeg and cinnamon to grate fresh; use whole garlic instead of powder.
5. Chop, stack and haul wood. Moving for wood warms you twice—while you’re doing the work, and again while cozied up by the fire. Don’t have an indoor fireplace? See tip 18.
6. Take a décor hike. Take a nature walk to gather leaves to spread on your table. Scout for silver dollar branches, acorns, rocks, shells, or branches and build a natural centerpiece.
7. Freshen up holiday linens on a line. Use your shoulders to reach, hang and take down linens (brings the sweet smell of late-fall sunshine in too!).
8. Skip the can and bake a pumpkin. Move that pumpkin on your own (no machines, factories or fuel required) and roast oiled seeds for a snack. Bonus points for carrying your pumpkin home from the store, or picking it right out of your local pumpkin patch.
9. Set up an outdoor prep area. Let your body feel the temperature of your landscape and work to adjust; you’ve got a million thermal-regulating muscles that “work out” when you allow yourself to feel cold. Got heaps of veggies to chop? Grab a sweater, cutting board and knife to take outside where, as you chop, any littles you have can work on tip 6.
THE DAY OF
10. Mash potatoes with a masher or ricer instead of an electric mixer. If you’ve been relying on powered kitchen gadgets, the movement involved in processing food by hand is surprising but gratifying.
11. Roll out your pie dough instead of using a ready-made (i.e., less-movement) crust.
12. Whip your cream and meringue by hand. Somebody’s grandmother used to beat egg whites into a meringue with a fork. You gonna get whipped by somebody’s grandmother because your arms get too tired?
13. Unplug the electric carving knife and work muscles in your hands, arms and shoulders by using a good old-fashioned knife.
14. Make a standing soup course. Serve soup in mugs as guests arrive and encouraging those who are able to mingle and stand outside while they sip. Guests who traveled in may be particularly grateful for this approach. (This idea works inside too—standing is good for us, outside or in!)
POST DINNER
15. Take a walk. Encourage everyone to join you on a walk around the block between dinner and dessert. Make it a game or tradition. You know how at a wedding, a bride and groom have to kiss anytime someone starts clinking glasses with a piece of silverware? Do that, only make it a “get up time” or “walk around the outside of the house for two minutes” game. (Those who are able but unwilling to cooperate are automatically volunteering to do the dishes. By hand. Because you get more movement that way.)
16. Put some puzzle or board games on the floor. Play your usual indoor games, but move them to the floor and get everyone’s knees and hips working at different angles than usual. Have pillows and bolsters available to accommodate a range of abilities.
17. Take the play outdoors. Set up dynamic activities like horseshoes, badminton or a nature scavenger hunt.
18. Swap watching the football game or movie for a fire. Using wood from tip 5, set up an outdoor fireplace to socialize around. Sit on the ground, and watch the sun set on a day full of gratitude. Peckish guests can make popcorn over the fire. Take turns adding fresh logs so all can be warmed by movement.
GRATITUDE
I’m thankful for many things: my body; my community; and the gifts of the Earth. After years of struggling to find the best way to show gratitude for all of these, I’ve found that “outside the box” ways of celebrating Thanksgiving best represent how I want to give thanks. I love nature, being outside and moving, so I want a portion of my holiday to take me out of the kitchen—I wanted the holiday to feel more authentic to me.
Here are some ideas I, (and others in my community), have been trying in order to mix it up:
19. Set up an outside dining room. Let guests know in advance to bundle up, and eat all or part of the meal out in the fresh air and sun. Provide some warm blankets for chillier guests, make sure to have a hot drink on the menu and let your meal be cozy and invigorating at once.
20. Try a walking progressive Thanksgiving dinner. Assign friends, family or neighbors a course of the meal to prepare. Start at one house with appetizers and cocktails, walk to the second house for salad, then to another house for turkey, and a final house for pie! Bonus: Large groups often take up more space, which means eating on the floor picnic-style—so lots of hip opening and squatting!
21. Dinner or dessert hike. Feel like going totally minimal? Make a batch of turkey soup, stuff your thermos full, and head out on a Give Thanks Trek. Pick five or 10 or 20 miles and do a pilgrimage of sorts, nourishing yourself as you go. Or, arrange for your besties to meet up after their holiday obligations for a pie hike. Find a special spot in nature or your favorite urban location and walk there to enjoy a slice or two together.
