Cars flood the highways as the pre-holiday migration begins. The refrigerator overflows with your favorite holiday comfort food. The final preparations are being made.

Thanksgiving day is almost here… and so is the familiar after feast food coma and muffin top.

Luckily, this Thanksgiving you can leave your elastic waist pants at home. It is possible to eat your fill and maintain your waist line. Read on.

As you anticipate this celebratory day of Thanksgiving, I encourage you to implement the following 5 holiday health tips.

1. Drink Up: We often mistake thirst for hunger, which causes overeating. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water throughout the day (don’t exceed 100 oz). Also, limit yourself to 2 diuretics (dehydrating drinka) on Thanksgiving day in order to help maintain proper hydration and avoid mistaking dehydration for food cravings. Diuretics include coffee, alcohol, and soda.

2. Engage in Pre-game Eating: Eat a healthy, whole-food breakfast and lunch on Thanksgiving Day. This tactic will stabilize your blood sugar and decrease the temptation to binge eat at dinner.

3. Savor the Feast: Enjoy every bite of food you ingest. Observe how it looks, smells, tastes, and feels in your mouth. Chew each morsel of food well. Pause in between each bite, rest your fork on your plate, and converse with your loved ones. Why? It takes your body 15-20 minutes to register it is full. All of these tactics will help you to feel full sooner, which will help dissuade you from overeating.

4. Eat the Rainbow: Fill your plate with veggies and eat these first. The fiber and nutrients in the vegetables will help you to feel full.

5. Toss a Football: Make a point to either workout on Thanksgiving morning or spend part of the afternoon in the backyard making touchdowns. Exercise will speed up your metabolic rate, which is the rate at which you burn calories