Enjoy the Holidays Without Gaining Weight and Adding Extra Stress: 53

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Today we are going to talk about how not to gain weight during the holidays but not have so much stress about it. So there's enough stress in the holidays without having to worry about what you're eating and what you're doing, but at the same time it can be a time of year where it can be really easy to pack on the pounds and then you're back on January 1st making resolutions to actually lose the weight. But what if you could go through the holidays, still enjoy them, not stress out about them, enjoy some of the foods you love, but not gain weight? Like, wouldn't that be a great way to approach the holidays? And that is what I kind of keep in my head every year, uh, when I go into the holidays. So if you are in maintenance mode or you are trying to lose weight, I think the way to really approach the holidays in a sane way is not to try to keep up weight loss during the holidays, but rather focus on maintaining whatever weight you went into the holidays with. Now, that's not to say if you really did want to be focused on weight loss in the holidays and that's your goal, you can absolutely do that, but it just might be a little bit more stressful. Um, for the rest of us who are thinking, okay, I wanna enjoy my holidays, I wanna have some things of the season that are foods that I might not normally eat, uh, you need some strategies on how to approach this without gaining a whole bunch of weight during the holidays, because then you just have the year started again. You're up, you're going to feel a little depressed about it. It's going to, you know, impact your New Year's goals. I mean, most people, even if they don't set resolutions, they have some thoughts about some things that they'd like to change during the new year. So if that's you, let's talk about some strategies for the holidays. And I think I did an episode similar to this last year. So we'll see how my thoughts on this have changed or evolved. And also, there's probably plenty of you that were not around last year when the episode aired, so some of this information will be new to you. So I'm going to try to make these apply no matter how it is that you eat. These should apply to keto people, non-keto people, vegan, vegetarian, whoever it is. These are some things that are going to help. So the first thing is to not take this— not take too much stress about any of it. If you go to a party or you go to an event and you eat some things that you didn't intend to, don't stress about it. Don't let it put you off the rails. The most important thing about not gaining weight during the holidays is not to make it an entire season of eating in a way that is not in alignment with your goals. Because if you keep doing that day after day, week after week, you are going to gain weight during the holidays. However, if you keep it to special events, parties, that sort of thing, couple times a week, once or twice a week, that you maybe eat in a slightly different way or you eat some things that you wouldn't normally, you're going to be able to keep in line with your goals without gaining weight. So when you go to a party, one of the things that you should do is to think about not going to the party being super starving. I know this is in counterintuitive because you're thinking about all the awesome things that you might be able to eat there. But in reality, most of the time you go to a party and the food's not all that fantastic anyway. It's just fast finger food, or it's, um, a lot of appetizers and things. It's not like things that are going to keep you full and satiated. It's just like little nitpicky things that you're going to be able to keep eating, and they're not even necessarily that good or that healthy for you, either one. And if they're not good, what's What's the point of that, right? So just, you don't want to be eating stuff just because it's there. So going to events, not being super hungry, is actually a really great strategy. One of the things that I would recommend, because you know we're all about prioritizing protein on this show. In fact, I just had this great interview with Alan Aragon. It was all about getting the proper amount of protein. Most people do not get enough. It is a very important, it's maybe the most important macro of all of them because it's what is required to build and maintain your muscle. So for you to be a strong and healthy person, you need a certain amount of protein every day. And the amount that we need is not at all what the RDA says. That is the bare minimum for just sustaining yourself. It is not what is optimal or what can help you actually gain muscle mass. So since protein is the most important thing, and since we are trying to go to an event not being totally starving so that you can make better choices and you know, feel good about what you do choose to eat while you're there is to eat a protein meal, a small protein meal before you go to a party. So you want to have enough room to still eat something at the party. As you know, the whole thing with muscle protein synthesis, you want about a 30-gram amount of protein at any time you eat. So a 30-gram protein snack would be a great idea. So this could be something like a few egg whites. It might be a chicken breast. It might be some leftover steak from the night before, but basically getting a small meal of about 300 or 400 calories that's mainly protein before you go to an event, that's going to take the edge off and give you a little bit of room still to eat at the party. So I'd do this something like maybe 3 hours before you go, have this small protein meal and then go to the party. And then when you choose to eat things, eat the things that you really wanna eat, like whether it's Keto, not keto, whatever your thing is. If you— if it's in alignment with your goals, if you can eat some sweets without it totally wrecking your blood sugar, if you can eat things like wheat without it bothering you, pick the thing that you really love and that you might not normally choose to eat with your health goals. Eat that first. Enjoy it, savor it, have it, don't feel guilty about it. And then, you know, move on to maybe one other thing. Pick one or two things that are kind of like your treat that you want to have at the party or the event and, you know, have those. And then the next day you're back to normal. Eat normally, eat healthfully, and at the calorie level that you're trying to hit. And then at the next event you can do the same thing. So the key to it is just because you choose to eat some of these things you may not normally eat during the event on one night or one, you know, one afternoon family gathering, whatever it is, just commit to being right back to your normal way of eating the very next day. Now, the only challenge with this for some people, and this is something to observe because it can really show you if you're able to do this on a more normal basis or if you're able to do it without ill effects, is that for some people, if they, you know, eat some things they normally don't eat, like more carbs than usual or more sweets than usual, it can trigger cravings. And this might make it more difficult in the days that follow to stay on your more normal diet. So if that is you and it really wrecks you for a few days, you might choose to not have those things if they affect you in this way. But if you do have them, just know for the next few days it might be more challenging. It's not going to be impossible, but knowing this going into it, it changes your mindset in a way that it will allow you to go ahead and make those better choices in the days that follow, despite the fact that you might be having more cravings or feel hungrier or have whatever the negative effects that you may have from it are. If on the other hand, you're a person that you can eat a couple of those things and then simply go back to eating totally normal the next day, then you're not gonna have to worry about this as much. So part of this is a little bit of an experiment in knowing yourself and in knowing how certain foods affect your mood and then the way that you perform in the days after, you might make different choices in the future. So know that going in. If you already know this, good, you know what to do. If you don't, it's gonna be a little experiment and then you're gonna figure it out. The other things that I recommend are keeping track or keeping an eye on the number of events during the holiday season because having too many events or feeling obligated to go to too many events during the holidays can create a lot of stress. So this is the stress part. As I said, there's two parts to this episode is one is how not to gain weight in the holidays, Number one, without stressing about it as far as what you're eating, but also avoiding excess stress during the holidays is part of this conversation. Because as fun as it is to see family and friends during the holidays and to go to some of these work events and do these different things, these fun times of the season, sometimes it can get to be too much. So I think keeping an eye on the number of events that you're attending is really important. Choosing the ones that really feed your soul, that are in alignment with your goals, that are with people that you love, that you cherish, that you really wanna see. Um, so doing these events and things out of really wanting to rather than out of obligation is an important part of the holiday season. I know that I've had holiday seasons before where it was just too much. It was overwhelming. There were too many events, tried to do it all. And it just creates a lot of extra stress that's not necessary because the holidays just by themselves are stressful enough. So do we really need to add a whole bunch more events or obligations or things that we don't really want to do. And I would, I would challenge you to say the answer to that should be no. It should be pick the things that really feed your soul and that really are the people that you want to be around rather than the ones you feel you have to. Now obviously I realize with work events and stuff like that, sometimes there are going to be events that are necessary to go to whether you want to or not, but just try to balance that with choosing the number of them over the season and trying to space them as well as you can. It's not always possible, but these are just, again, some things to keep in mind to lessen your stress during the holidays. For some people also, it stresses them out more to be really, really strictly adhering to a diet during the holidays. So again, just finding that balance of most days eating in a way that is in alignment with your goals. So if you, if you have been on a weight loss, uh, path for a while and you're restricting calories or you're doing a ketogenic diet or paleo or whatever it is, sticking to those things that day, sticking to your calorie deficit, also sticking to a calorie deficit most days of the week during the holidays when you're not having events, will allow you then to consume more calories or a few more carbs, things like that, when you do have events. Or if it's just on the weekend over the holiday season where you're wanting to have some special dishes with your families that you're making at home that are a little bit different than you might normally eat. You can kind of quote unquote, um, if you're watching some video, I'm using air quotes, but save calories for an event, right? So it could be, um, within the week or it could even be during a day. So for example, if you know that you're going to a big event that night, and if you— again, this is about knowing yourself— if you know that, you know, fasting all day won't put you over the edge that night and cause you to overeat, then you could choose to fast for most of the day or the whole day leading up to an event. And that way, when you get to the event, you have more calories to consume without feeling guilty about it after you get there. Um, so fasting is another way that you can, uh, implement this into your holiday season so that you can enjoy higher calorie days on other days. So, so far we've got, you know, fasting, knowing yourself, keeping track of the number of events that you're going to. Uh, you also— it is a busier time of year, right? So it will be possibly more challenging to stick with your movement plan. So I always like to call it movement plan because exercise sometimes has a negative connotation for people, but you should be moving your body every day. And I like to go, as some of you may have heard before, for joyful movement. So doing movement that you can do that makes you happy is always going to make you more consistent, is always going to be better than doing nothing. So even if it's just, uh, you know, sticking to your walking schedule through the holidays, or if you do resistance training, which we all should be doing to help maintain our muscle mass and to keep us healthier into our older ages, you wanna stay on that plan through the holidays. So since time is more restricted, this might mean short, slightly shorter workouts. It might mean breaking your workouts. Uh, if you normally do say a half an hour workout in a day, um, since it's a busier time, it could mean breaking that up into 3 10-minute sessions, squeezing it in at your lunch break, squeezing it in a little walk after dinner, uh, doing some, you know, push-ups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, that sort of thing for 10 minutes at some point in the day, or 5 minutes. Just getting that movement in however you can throughout the holidays and trying to stick to as normal of a schedule as you can. Again, it's a busy time, so there's gonna be variations, but just be flexible. And think that you're not going to skip it entirely, but that you're just going to try to work it in either in a lesser amount or in a way that's more split up than you might normally do. So sticking with your movement throughout the holiday season will also help prevent you from gaining weight. Again, I really think that it's a big challenge to continue to try to lose weight during the holidays. So I think if more people were just focused on not gaining weight, you know, not being so strict, because I think what tends to happen if you thought, okay, I'm gonna be so strict. I'm going to stay on this diet plan, I'm going to continue to lose weight through the holidays. What might happen is you overly stress yourself, you fall off the quote-unquote fall off the wagon a few too many times, like eating some things or eating more, and then all of a sudden it has totally derailed you and you've given up and you've said, oh, just forget about it, I'm just gonna start again in the new year. And then you kind of go off the rails a little bit for the holidays. I think that is just the scenario for failure that is all too common. So if you go into the holidays with a completely different mindset, like, hey, I'm gonna enjoy the holidays, I'm gonna have some treats here and there, but I'm gonna keep moving, I'm gonna most days stick to what I know, or on the days that I'm not having events, I'm going to have a calorie deficit so I can kind of make up for some of these, uh, events that are going to be a little bit more opulent than usual. That's really a great way to approach things. So that is pretty much my thoughts on how to approach the holiday season, how to go into it and still maintain your weight. And then, you know, after all the events and stress of the holidays are finished, then you go into the new year thinking, okay, I didn't lose weight over the holidays, but I didn't gain, so that's definitely a big plus. And now I'm going to refocus on changing my body composition or creating new habits or moving more or whatever it is that you want to accomplish in the new year as goals for yourself. You're just going to be in a much better place mentally to approach that in the new year. Uh, the other thing that I might as well have a little update on since we've gotten through the tips that I have for getting through the holidays, and it's really mostly about mindset. If you look at all of those things I said, I mean, some of it is practical, uh, practical suggestions, practical knowledge on kind of how to approach the holidays in a different way. Uh, but a lot of it's mindset. The mindset of enjoying abundance but creating balance is always what you want to keep in mind when you're trying to, you know, maintain your weight through the holidays and not gain. Um, but the update on just kind of what's going on in the world of Cheryl, AKA Heal, Nourish, Grow— since I basically run the show, right? Not only the podcast but the whole business of Heal, Nourish, Grow. Is my passion and my thing. And if you've been following along for the last few months, you'll know that we sold our house in Cincinnati in August, the beginning of August. I think the 5th was our closing date, and I've been on the road ever since. So a lot of this thing about stress and being kind of displaced has been put into practice the last couple months. Being on the road has definitely been very interesting. We are in our Suburban. And while we're not living out of it, we have been renting a house via VRBO each month. Right now we are currently in Sedona for the next week. I'm recording this episode on October the 25th, so trying to put it as close to the holidays as possible before I actually publish it here next month in November. But, uh, yeah, so it's been very interesting. Sedona is so beautiful. I've written about it on the Vagabond Tour update over on the website if you have any interest in that. If decide to visit here. It mentions some of the beautiful hikes. Uh, we have a great Airbnb place here that we've enjoyed. It's got the most beautiful view, and, uh, it has been very productive work-wise because for the last 2 months I haven't had any additional, uh, responsibilities of owning a home, uh, such as cleaning and that sort of stuff. I mean, obviously day-to-day tidying and cooking and, uh, just like kind of regular cleaning. But as you know, when you own a house, there's always so much more to do, right? It's like the deep cleaning and the maintenance of the house and the fall cleanup, all the leaves coming down. No leaves to rake this year, so that's a blessing. So it's definitely been really good in a lot of ways, but also very challenging in a lot of ways and very stressful in a lot of ways. Uh, we are trying to work through where we want to live after this. Of course, we love all of our friends in Cincinnati and have both lived there for a very long time, so that is basically our home. But with both kids being off at school now, it is also an opportunity to try living somewhere else and to experience a different kind of lifestyle. As you might know if you followed along, we both love snowboarding and travel to do that every year. And so we think it would be pretty lovely if we could live somewhere where we could do that without having to get on a plane every time. So that has definitely been in the mix, something that we've been looking at. And we have considered a lot of different cities, all out west for the most part, obviously for snowboarding. I mean, there is snowboarding in the east or skiing in the east, but If you ski or snowboard, you will know that the East Coast skiing is quite challenging for the most part, very icy. And, uh, while nobody likes ice, uh, not even skiers like ice, it is easier for them to deal with since they have 4 edges on their skis and we only have 2 on a snowboard. And ice is just not that much fun. So somewhere out west would be ideal. And we've been looking at multiple different locations. Uh, we stayed in Montana. We've visited there many times in the past for snowboarding. So we were in Montana for September, and then in, uh, October, like I said, we've been in Sedona. Not a mountain town, no snowboarding here, although actually Flagstaff is only about a 45-minute drive from here. And we've, we've never ridden there though before. But also, I just don't think we could actually live in Sedona, as much as we love it here. It's a wonderful place to visit, but I just don't think I could live here. Um, and then the plan for November, we're in Taos, New Mexico, which while we cannot snowboard yet and we have never ridden Taos before either, but we are near the mountain there and so we can check out the mountain, we can check out the town, see if that's a place that we might think that we could live. And then December, so far the plan is to be in Colorado in Steamboat, which we have visited before, we really enjoy it. Uh, stay there for most of the month until we go home for a week for Christmas to visit everybody in Cincinnati. And of course, this is all dependent on, you know, unless we find a house in the meantime and end up buying it. So yeah, and that's, uh, this is all kind of set because you do have to plan ahead with VRBOs. If anybody wants to see any links or anything like that, I'll have the link to VRBO, the ones we've stayed at, in the show notes. And trying to think— oh, so yeah, I should just tell you the rest of them. So January, January, the plan is Jackson, Wyoming at the moment. And February will be in Salt Lake again, one of our favorite places to ride. And March back to Colorado. So again, that's all dependent on unless we find a house in the meantime. And, uh, yeah, the one that we lost in Cincinnati— we had put a bid in on a house in Cincinnati— is we actually have an official backup offer on that one, and apparently the closing is this week on Friday. So as of Friday, we'll know if we have permanently and completely lost that, because you just never know with real estate. Like, there's a chance at the last minute could fall through, and if you've been following the real estate market at all the last year or so, you'll know how crazy things are. So that a couple of the things that we've been on have gone into multiple offers. And this one that we lost, it was a very old home built in 1890, and the people that end up getting the contract had no inspections on their contract, which, oh my gosh, I cannot believe anybody would buy a house built in 1890 with no inspections, but they did. So that's kind of crazy, but we didn't want to be that crazy personally. So yeah, I think that gets us kind of up to speed on what's going on in my world, if you care. If you dropped off by now, I completely understand. You're just here for the health and wellness. But you know, part of your health and wellness is where you live and your lifestyle and where you spend your time. And if you do have the ability to change where you live, and you know, so many of us do now due to remote work, which we didn't have that ability before that, that you could possibly, you know, move states or move to a place where there's an activity that you love or a particular place that you love to hike or love to visit or that has better museums or restaurants or whatever it is that you like. That's all part of your health and wellness plan. It's all part of mental well-being to be somewhere that you love, to be in a place where you can feel comfortable and do the things that you enjoy. So anyway, I hope that you have a wonderful rest of your week wherever you're listening from. As always, I appreciate you being here. Please tag me on social media if you post about the podcast. Tell me where you're listening from. Are you on your treadmill? Are you out walking? Are you in your car driving to work? I just love seeing where people are finding the show and how they're listening and how you know, it's helping them potentially. I know a big part of when I'm listening to podcasts is when I'm exercising or if I happen to have one of those nights where I can't sleep very well. And so I always try to, when I happen to post about those, I'll tag the podcast and just share with them how they are integrating into my life. So if you would do the same, that would be really cool, just so I know what is going on in your world and And as always, if you have any questions or comments or, uh, anything like that, reach out. You can email me at podcast@healnourishgrow.com or tag me on social. Uh, lots of ways to get ahold of me. Contact form on the website, all the things. So anyway, have a great rest of your day and I will see you again next week.