Jennifer Stojkovic is pumped for Thanksgiving.
As a new mom, she needs extra calories for recovery and breastfeeding — and the Super Bowl of Eating is the perfect excuse to load up.
Stojkovic, who gave birth to son Roman in September, has been craving carbs, specifically a sweet potato casserole with brown sugar, dried cranberries, a streusel topping and mini marshmallows.
One problem: Several members of Stojkovic’s immediate and extended family are on GLP-1 diabetes and weight loss drugs, which means their appetites and tastes have shrunk along with their waistlines.
“I think a lot of people are using less sugar in things,” Stojkovic, 35, lamented to The Post about holiday preparations. “That’s why I’m definitely making sure there’s marshmallows in the casserole.”
Stojkovic expects to see a “streamlined menu” at her LA gathering, featuring fewer appetizers and sweets and more protein-packed fare instead of carb-heavy dishes.
So much for feast mode. Ozempic, Mounjaro and Zepbound are the party crashers transforming Thanksgiving dinners from stuff-yourself-silly suppers to sad samplers.
Because these drugs have become particularly popular among women 50 to 64 years old, Mom and Nonna are helming The Great Thanksgiving Slim-Down — whether you like it or not.
Sayonara, sugar!
Take Erin Cadden, for example.
The Pennsylvania grandmother of four has shed 40 pounds on a compounded GLP-1 drug since 2023. The med mimics the natural GLP-1 hormone, leaving her feeling fuller for longer and curbing her cravings.
To help maintain her weight loss, Cadden has been quietly substituting a half cup of zero-calorie Stevia for 1 cup of sugar in her legendary, creamy Thanksgiving sweet potato casserole. Shhhh!
The pecan-crusted side dish — which Cadden admits is more dessert than vegetable — is inspired by a version made by Ruth’s Chris Steak House.
She swears that no one has noticed — and it’s as delicious.
“I didn’t tell them, because you know what? That was just my choice to switch sugars, for me,” Cadden, 62, told The Post.
“I just used a plant-based sugar, and it cut back on a lot of calories.”
This Thanksgiving, she’s also cutting back on her dessert offerings.
She typically presents a caramel apple pie and a chocolate peanut butter pie, but chocolate peanut butter is getting chopped for a medley of fresh fruit to avoid “an abundance of desserts.”
Buck the belt-busting buffet
And in rural Alabama, Andrea Lusk‘s Thanksgiving spread will be missing pecan pie, sweet potato pie, ham, baked macaroni and cheese, onion-topped green bean casserole, marshmallow-less sweet potato casserole, deviled eggs, yeast rolls, potato salad, cranberry sauce and her famous Kentucky wonder beans.
She insists her family is skipping Thanksgiving at her home for other commitments — not because she’s eased up on the butter.
Lusk has dropped 15 pounds since August, thanks to semaglutide — the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy. Her husband is also along for the GLP-1 ride.
Their meals have gotten healthier, and their plates have gotten smaller.
“The food noise, to where my eyes are bigger than my stomach, that has ceased,” Lusk, 70, told The Post. “And when I eat so much, I can’t eat anymore, period.”
Now, family, friends and neighbors who make the five-minute trek up her driveway this week will be greeted with banana nut bread laced with mustard and skinny ambrosia salad.
That’s orange sections and cut-up jarred Maraschino cherries — minus the cherry juice.
“I don’t put the juice of it because it’s a lot of sugar,” Lusk said. “And I’d go without the coconut because I found out the coconut can raise my cholesterol.”
She and her husband will likely be at Golden Corral on the big day, enjoying the baked chicken and escaping her typical 3- to 5-pound Thanksgiving gain.
Rice and beans? No, thanks!
Chloe Krznar‘s diabetic grandma — a professional baker for over 30 years — tried lots of things to shed weight over the years. She finally found success starting Ozempic over a year ago, dropping nearly 70 pounds.
Though Krznar is proud of her transformation, there’s an uneasy dynamic when the pair goes out to eat.
Krznar, an Ohio college student, cleans her plate while her grandma picks at hers.
“I’ve gotten used to it, but definitely it is awkward at times,” Krznar, 19, admitted to The Post. “Especially for big family functions like Thanksgiving, it does get awkward, and sometimes it makes you feel guilty about yourself.”
Ozempic will surely be a topic of conversation among the 15 to 20 family members attending Krznar’s Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania.
Besides her grandma, Krznar has a few cousins on GLP-1s.
“Since my grandma lost such a drastic amount of weight over the last few years, definitely people bring it up,” Krznar said. “And my other family members that have gone on it talk about it a lot.”
Not only has her grandma reduced her portion sizes, but now she’s on a whole-food diet, so Krznar expects to see new Thanksgiving dishes this week.
“She might change it up a little bit,” Krznar said. “She’s very into rice and beans and things like that.”
And will Krznar, whose favorite part of Thanksgiving is the homemade mashed potatoes, partake in these options?
“No,” she confessed. “Probably not.”
Stay the course
GLP-1 users who aren’t hosting Thanksgiving should review the menu ahead of time and bring dishes that fit their needs, experts say.
“Maybe you’ll just bring some oven-roasted yams instead of the candied yams … or [a] turnip can be very good with just some cinnamon on it,” Dr. Sue Decotiis, a triple-board certified medical weight loss physician based in Manhattan, told The Post.
“It’s kind of nice that you can control what you’re having, and others can enjoy that as well.”
Decotiis said turkey, salad and vegetables like Brussels sprouts are ideal.
She also suggests drinking lots of water and being careful around foods with a high glycemic index, which quickly raise blood sugar. Think white rice, pasta without protein, white potatoes, commercial stuffing and sugary yams.
GLP-1 users may be tempted to skip their shots this week so they can partake in the High Holy Holiday of Overeating, but Decotiis advises against the risky practice.
Patients tend to pack on 15 or 20 pounds when they do so — then they have to start from square one after New Year’s by reintroducing the expensive drug and scaling up.
“We don’t want to have to do that,” Decotiis chided.
“It’s not that hard a holiday to navigate.”
