Ep 432 | How to Survive and Thrive on Thanksgiving Day!

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today is going to be a fun episode. It is the last day before I go on a holiday break, and we, we, uh, begin to replay some of our best episodes. So For the last episode before I leave, I want to give you some tips from our buddy, Dr. John, on how to not just survive but thrive on Thanksgiving Day. What you need to be thinking about, what you need to be doing, how you should eat, how you should move, ways to help you really have the best Thanksgiving Day you've had in a long time. Especially, especially if you're a health nut. So, number 1, Thanksgiving morning, eat a big awesome breakfast, something that's got lots of protein, lots of fat, go a little lighter on the carbs. You're gonna go lighter on the carbs because you're gonna get plenty of carbs throughout the day, especially at the feast. So, go easier on the carbs, focus on protein and fat. Protein at breakfast is gonna help your hormones, like insulin, for example, be more stable throughout the day. And this is gonna prevent you from getting what Dr. John would say is hangry. You can't be stopping, eating junk throughout the day. Don't be stopping at 7-Eleven or Circle K for lunch. You already know how that's gonna shake out. So front load your protein to the beginning of the day and it's gonna help you prevent some sort of huge energy crash when you end up, eating a ton and eating some pie. So number 1, start the day with a great breakfast. John would tell you to eat eggs, bacon, sausage, you know, the organic, more wholesome, the better. Next, if your Thanksgiving celebration is closer to dinnertime, avoid crushing too much pie and desserts at this time. Carbs after sunset and during winter will jack up your GI, your GI tract, and your circadian rhythm. So, if you want pie, eat it earlier in the day before the sun goes down. Shoot for the carb loading ideally before 2:00 PM. Late carbs, late meals, late sugars are going to mess with your stomach. It's going to mess with your sleep and your circadian rhythm. Which kind of goes to the next thing. Knowing what kind of day you're gonna have on Thanksgiving Day, get a morning workout in. Something with weights or bodyweight exercises. You're gonna cover— you're probably gonna have a lot of food during the day, and, and so doing some resistance training to burn some of the carbs that are stored in your body is gonna provide some degree of damage control. So maybe it's your standard weight routine or maybe you're doing something. John would actually tell you at a minimum, maybe go do a couple sets of air squats, do a couple sets of push-ups, maybe jog a short distance and walk back and jog again and walk back, do some pull-ups, maybe do some walking lunges and repeat this sort of cycle a few rounds. At a minimum, you'll get, for those of you that are already very active, maybe you don't wanna go super hard this day, maybe it's more of a day of rest, but you'll get the body going, you'll burn a few carbs in the morning. And if this is kinda new to you, don't go too hard. You don't wanna strain yourself or make yourself super sore, but just that movement's gonna serve you well later in the day. Next thing John would talk around, What do you do after, after the feast, your post-Thanksgiving feast? Shawn would say rest. You got to chill out. After that huge feast, you want your blood actually going to your GI, your gastrointestinal tract, right? You want your GI to have blood and you don't want that blood necessarily in your muscles. So when you work out, blood flows to the muscles and this increases your, or I should say, I'm sorry, decreases the blood that's available to your stomach and your intestines. So you gotta get blood flow to the GI. How do you do that? Expose yourself to some cold after you eat, meaning go outside. Most places it's pretty cold at this time of year. Go outside, maybe wear shorts or a t-shirt. And what that'll do is when your body's exposed to that cold, your blood is gonna be pulled from the muscles and gonna be pulled towards your organs. This is gonna help with digestion and absorption of the nutrients from the food you just crushed. So if you have any sort of GI issues, overeating pie starts to feed those GI issues. You add in the stress of the holidays and the lack of light and— poor sleep, and you're really setting yourself up for failure. So after the meal, get outside, get cold, get more blood going to your organs, and let it help your GI and your intestines as they work through that meal you just killed. Last thing I want to say, uh, on Thanksgiving Day, take a walk, take a hike. Do these things. Now, of course, eat and do all these other things we're talking about, like eat a good breakfast and, and, and make sure you rest after the meal, but, and, and do some movement earlier on in the day. But hang out for, you know, after the meal, hang out for a few hours. Let your GI digest and absorb the food, and then get in some sort of slow-paced walk or hiking, maybe for 20, 30, 40 minutes. You know, keep the walk somewhat aerobic. And make it a little easier, right? You don't have to be too crazy, but just get outside, ideally be in the sun, and get your body moving a little bit. The sun's gonna help with the function of your mitochondria, so you wanna support them as best as you can. So you wanna take this time, maybe walk a little bit, get some movement again once that blood has flowed to the organs as we were just describing. Kind of along the same lines, And in the perfect world around Thanksgiving, given all that's going on, do your best to avoid stress, stressful scenarios, nonproductive conversations, you know, those things that might, that might get you a little fired up. Given all that you're consuming and how you're kind of going off the rails with your food, now is not the time to fire up that stress. So to wrap it up, right, I want you to have a great Thanksgiving Day. There's no question about it. I want you to have some family time. I want you to have some you time. I want you to enjoy the meal and all that it's about. But I also want you to continue to get better each and every day. So some quick actionable steps, just the quick and dirty, dirty as Dr. John would teach. Eat a big breakfast, number 1. Eat a big breakfast with plenty of protein and fat. Number 2, get up in the morning, get a workout in with weights or bodyweight exercises. Number 3, Hang out after the meal for 2 to 3 hours. Rest, get the blood to the organs, maybe get outside into the cold a little bit. Number 4, take a hike or maybe walk around after, after you were hanging out post, post-meal. And then number 5, lastly, have some you time. Plan nothing, just relax, get some zen, zen time in for you. Well, no focusing question on that, but make the most of your Thanksgiving week. Hopefully you get a couple days with the family. Enjoy yourself, and I will be back talking to you soon. Thank you for joining me here today, the No Days Off podcast. Remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better, so let's get after it.