Thanksgiving Day tips for dudes - From my WW newsletter

For some of us, Thanksgiving is a simple turkey dinner and a time to give thanks. But for many, it's an eating orgy and a six-week countdown to the same lose-weight-and-get-back-in-shape New Year's resolution that we make year after year…after year. Break the cycle this holiday season. Enjoy Thanksgiving but don't overindulge; head into the New Year feeling confident, slimmer and in control.

Ready, set, eat
Consider the worst-case scenario: If you were to eat a serving of dark meat turkey with all the fixings and sides in the plate above it would total a whopping 36 POINTS® values. Yup, more than twice the POINTS values some people eat in a day. Here's how to slash that number in half.

Make classic recipes light
If you're hosting dinner or bringing a dish to someone else's house, consider trimming the fat from your recipes. For instance:

• Make your mashed potatoes creamy with naturally low-fat buttermilk instead of butter
• Pour your turkey pan drippings into a large glass bowl (or you can use a gravy/fat separator) and allow it to sit for 5 minutes so you can skim off a layer of fat. Use some of the fat in your gravy, not al
• Slim down your pie by making a light cookie crumb layer instead of a traditional pie crust
• Leave off the top (or bottom) crust instead of using both. Or forget all about the crusts and bake your pie filling in small ramekins for mini soufflés instead
• Use whole-wheat bread, not white, for stuffing to increase the fiber and decrease the POINTS values (not to mention upping its vitamin and mineral profile)

Opt for tasty Weight Watchers recipes
Compare the POINTS values for some traditional Thanksgiving dishes versus our sure-to-please renovated recipes:

Traditional Recipe	POINTS Value	Weight Watchers Recipe	POINTS Value
Green bean casserole (3/4 cup)	4	Green beans with almonds (3/4 cup)	1
Candied sweet potatoes (1 cup)	8	Candied sweet potatoes(1 cup)	3
Garlic mashed potatoes (3/4 cup)	6	Garlic mashed potatoes (3/4 cup)	3
Mashed sweet potatoes, canned (1/2 cup)	2	Mashed sweet potatoes (1/2 cup)	1
Canned cranberry sauce (1/3 cup)	3	Cranberry-orange relish (1/3 cup)	2
Bread stuffing (1 cup)	8	Bread stuffing (1 cup)	2
Pumpkin pie (1 slice)	9	Pumpkin pie (1 slice)	3
Pecan pie (1 slice)	12	Pecan tartlets (1 item)	3

Know your portions
To help you size up your servings, come armed with some visuals:

• 1 cup of mashed potatoes is about the size of a tennis ball or your fist
• 3 ounces of turkey equals a computer mouse or a checkbook
• 1/2 cup of green bean casserole fits into a small cupcake wrapper or an ice cream scoop
• 1/4 cup of gravy equals 4 tablespoons; measure out some water in your gravy ladle to see how many tablespoons one full ladle holds

Comparison shop
Look up the POINTS values of common foods before the meal so you can make smarter choices. Here's a mini guide:

Item	POINTS Value	Item	POINTS Value
White meat turkey (no skin; 4 oz)	4	Turkey leg (with skin; 4 oz)	6
Mashed sweet potatoes (1 cup)	4	Candied sweet potatoes (1 cup)	8
Apple Pie (1 slice store-bought)	7	Pecan Pie (1 slice store-bought)	10
Wine (2 fl oz)	1	Vodka (2 fl oz)	3

Employ a Leader's own tactics
New York-based meetings Leader Elizabeth Josefsberg shares her tricks of the trade at the Thanksgiving table:

• Don't sit down overly hungry; eat a decent breakfast and lunch
• Drink alcohol only when you're eating dinner
• Fill half your plate with vegetables
• Only go for one round of food (aka Liz's "one-plate rule")
• Eat the middle of your pie and skip the crust
• Even if you just take a bite of a puffed pastry or pecan pie, count each taste as 1 POINTS value (great rule of thumb for those random BLTs — bites, licks and tastes)

Go for the two-for-one side dish special
Hopefully not all the vegetables are drenched in butter. Opt for two spoonfuls of vegetable side dishes for each starch-based one that you take (and no, potatoes are not a vegetable in this case).

Plan on eating leftovers
There are usually more than enough side dishes for a few meals. Whatever you don't taste today, you can taste tomorrow.

Seek satisfaction
Think about what's worth eating and what's not. You can make yourself a baked sweet potato anytime, but your Aunt's sweet potato pie is a once-a-year specialty.

Fend off food-pushing relatives
Don't eat something just because your mom wants you to. Compliment her outfit, ask for a recipe, enquire about an old friend — anything to change the topic from why you didn't touch both her pecan pie and pumpkin cheesecake.

How to properly set your Facebook Page for privacy

Alot of us out there want to be able to have our Facebook page work in two ways... one view to be the "everything" view for close friends and family, and the other view to be "restricted" to non-close friends and other facebook types. It takes a little work, but you can get your page to be that customized in Facebook, so that only the people you want will see WHAT you want, and you can actually use your Facebook page to display all those things you wanted. You can talk about your life and dreams and close thoughts and feel good knowing that only the people you WANT to know this stuff actually see it!!!

Facebook allows alot of granualarity in how it lets your page and private information be viewable. By default, Facebook allows everyone to see everything. This can be too wide open and let people you don't care to know about your daily life privy to those details. But FB allows you to let your page and info be viewable to those you want and NOT to those you don't.

These are the steps you should take to get your Facebook page setup so that those you want can see and those you don't.... don't. It takes some work, and you'll need to invest a little time, but in the end, you'll have a system in place that allows you to add people in the right places so that those you want can see and those who don't.... don't.

The real key to privacy starts with your Friends and putting them into lists. The lists are what is going to give you the power to decide who has the ability to see what. We'll start by having 3 basic lists (personally, I have like 10 lists). You should have a list for close friends, for family, and for Others. Now, go to your friends section in FB and start adding them to one of the lists. ALL your friends should be in one of the lists. This takes some time, but its VERY important. The more granular you get, the finer your control, but it also adds that much "admin" to the process because there are more items to be in control of.

Now, you've put all your friends into lists. Go to your Settings page and then go to your profile page. Here is where you're going to set the permissions to control who see's what on your page. I'm not going to go into detail about which options to choose for each section cause that would take forever, but what I will tell you is this... permissions to the various sections of your profile will fall into 3 categories, depending on the type of permissions allowed by that particular section of FB...

• NO ONE can see but me, with exception to ONLY these lists (example, close friends and family)
• EVERYONE can see EXCEPT these lists (example, Others)
• Only the chosen lists can see (example, close friends)

Based on these 3 styles of permissions, you'll decide what type of access you want.

Photo's have their own section for permissions, they also fall into the same 3 permission levels.

A HUGE trick to remember, when you're done setting permissions, is to go back to the settings\My Profile page and at the top you'll see a section that says "check how your profile looks to someone else". It's here that you can type in someones name and you can see how your profile will look to that person. This is extremely helpful when you want to see if a particular person can or cannot see your page.

I'm tired and don't want to write anymore, but that's really the gist to locking down your FB page. The lists are the key, without having your friends in lists, you can't get the granular control you are looking for. But with those lists, you'll have all the power. And don't forget about the tool to look at your page like someone else, this is huge for testing your permissions.

Have fun, ask me questions, take care!