Navigating Holiday Wellness: Stress, Travel and Eating Strategies

Welcome to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. The website, this show, and our newsletter all focus on making the science of advanced nutrition and greater overall health accessible to everyone. Buckle up for our latest episode to get ideas, tools, and practical knowledge you can use to improve your health and move towards your perfect version of ultimate wellness. The Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast shares interviews with nutrition experts, health researchers, and everyday people that have changed their lifestyle nutrition to support greater health. You'll learn how to implement lasting change and create new habits that support greater wellness and a happier, healthier life. Please visit healnourishgrowpodcast.com for full show notes and links to our guests.

Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, and it has been a little while since I've been on the mic. I took an unexpected longer hiatus than I thought I would, and I'm just now getting around to starting to record again, and I really wanted to get on here and do this episode because the holidays are such a stressful time for everyone. It's a time where people could use extra support, could use extra ideas about how to de-stress, not gain weight during the holidays, and just find ways to support your wellness in this busy time of the season. So I've done another episode like this in the past, and I'll be sure to link that in the show notes. But for this one, I did map out a few bullet points to keep me on track. I've got my laptop here with that on it so that I can glance over there occasionally and remind myself of what I wanted to share with you today. But the first thing is, is why does, what does holiday wellness even mean? Or why does it matter? Again, it's a stressful time. We're around family for some times. That's very exciting. And sometimes it can be very stressful and there's a lot of travel involved typically, and a lot of extra events and cooking and things like that. So it can be just a time where there's So much going on that you forget to actually take care of yourself. So planning ahead now so that you don't have to recover from everything at the beginning of the year is a good plan. And usually what I like to say during the holidays, I mean, if you're— a lot of people that listen to this podcast are interested in weight loss or fitness or health and wellness. If you're trying to lose weight during the holidays, that can be particularly challenging. I think what would be a better goal for most people is to just maintain. During the holidays and not gain extra weight that you then have to kind of backtrack from the progress that you've made throughout the year. So all that being said, I think the good way to start with this is just to set some intentions around the holidays. So for example, just to be really mindful every time that you eat, or consistent movement, or practicing on your sleep during the holidays to make sure that you stay on track with your wellness. So whatever that intention is, just making something specific enough that you know what it is that you're trying to accomplish. But generally it's not going to be any big goals during this time of the year. Um, just because it's, like I said, a lot of extra stress, a lot of extra things going on. And so setting really big goals around health and wellness this time of year can just be a way that sets you up for failure, which is not what we want. Want to go into the new year thinking positive, feeling positive, and having every intention. That way when we get to the new year, we're kind of set up in this place. Been mindful, we've been practicing taking care of ourselves, and then once we get to the new year, we can really focus on those bigger goals that you want for yourself and your wellness in 2026. So after you've set the intentions, let's address the first thing is weight. I actually looked this up before I got on here, and most people gain anywhere between a pound to 5 pounds during the time period from Thanksgiving to the end of the year. And While that can be also, if your intention is to say, enjoy time with family, eat really good foods, um, just nourish yourself and not to worry too much about weight gain, that is a perfectly acceptable intention as well. But if you want to think about, you know, maintaining your weight or not gaining weight during the holidays, then it's important to kind of have a plan when you go into this. So the first thing, you know, I'm going to say is we're always very focused on here is the importance of protein. Protein is a very satiating nutrient. There's a lot of theories around about how your body your body will keep seeking out food if you're not getting a proper protein intake. So that's the first thing. So every time you sit down to a meal, plan on getting your protein in first, and then you can have a little bit more flexibility with the rest of your meal because you know that you've gotten your protein requirements out of the way. And then you can fill in after that with fats and carbohydrates. If you're a carbohydrate eater, if you're still trying to practice keto during the holidays, it is a time to perhaps be just a little more flexible with that. Only because there's going to be a lot of temptations. There's going to be a lot of things you want to try. So again, having that intention around that, whether it's taking a bite here or there, or allowing yourself certain days of the week or a party or something like that to enjoy a few more carbs. Again, just being really mindful and setting that intention so that you don't kind of go off the rails with that stuff. Cuz some people, one of the reasons they do a lower carb lifestyle is because they don't have, they don't either feel good when they eat carbs or they have a relationship with them where when they eat too many carbs, it makes them hungrier and eat more. So if you know that you're that person, you certainly don't want to set yourself on this crazy path of that during the holidays by eating a lot of extra cookies or potatoes or candy or whatever it is you're normally avoiding for the most part. So being really mindful about those choices and allowing them in, in the quantities that make sense for you and your personal goals. So the other thing is eating to 80% fullness. Now this is something that we should be practicing pretty much all of the time. If you're doing, um, an eating program where you're doing just more of an, um, intuitive eating kind of style, is you want to give yourself time for your brain to get the feeling of whether you're actually full or not. So eating slowly, eating mindfully, chewing your food, and stopping when you're already starting to feel full, because it takes a little while for your brain to catch up with your body. So if you're already starting to feel full, chances are 20 minutes later, 30 minutes later, you're gonna be, oh, you might have that stuffed feeling, which a lot of people have after Thanksgiving meals. So just being really mindful of why you're ingesting, to take note of how you're feeling. If you're starting to get full and shooting for that 80% mark in that way, if you go a little over, you're not going to end up, you know, on the couch with your— holding your stomach and just being miserable. You'll probably end up in a much better place. Also, I have two thoughts on this. Um, and again, it's, it's about knowing the kind of person you are. So there's this idea of saving your calories for certain big meals and everything. And I think that that can work for some people. Especially if you're tracking your macros and you're eating a meal that maybe you made, or that it's a simple meal, like tracking a certain quantity of turkey, for example. That's very easy to track. So you can either save some calories for later, so not eating as much throughout the day, so that you know when you have a big meal that you're not going to go over your calorie allotment for the day. But again, it's about knowing yourself. If in the past you've experienced that, for example, on Thanksgiving you don't eat most of the day, or you just eat a very small breakfast, and then you go totally overboard, you feel sick the rest of the night, you might be better off having two smaller meals earlier in the day. Again, very protein forward. And maybe yes. Okay. Saving a little bit of your calories for that last final bigger meal, but not allowing yourself to get so ravenous that you just go off the rails when the meal comes. And so again, knowing yourself here is the key to practicing this and to knowing which one will work best for you. So just give that some consideration before you go into those days where, you know, it's going to be a bigger food day. Knowing your plan also is a big key here. So don't wait until the last minute to kind of mentally prepare yourself for what's going to happen. Have a plan when you go in. At this point, you know, you're listening to this, you're not a 5-year-old, you're, you're an adult. You've had many holiday meals. You know what your tendencies are. And so just again, set some intentions around how you want it to be different this year and how you're going to approach things so that you end up with a successful holiday. Uh, the next thing is holiday stress and cortisol. Cortisol is such a big trending topic right now. I'm just getting out of balance. And so the top triggers are in this scenario, probably family obligations or family relationships. So again, just setting your intention, kind of knowing how you approach these kinds of things, knowing the kind of stress that you might encounter and having some strategies ready to better deal with that. So for example, if you know that you get very overwhelmed once all your family's around and, and all these things are happening, maybe make it your intention that you're going to go for a walk after dinner or something like that. Or maybe just take some time for yourself to kind of regroup, calm down, do some deep breathing exercises, whatever it is that you feel is going to nourish you is you don't have to spend 8 hours in a row with the entire family doing all these activities. That can be very, very stressful. So again, knowing yourself and taking a little break away from that. If you need to practice some breathing exercises, practice some ways to calm yourself and certainly getting in some activity throughout the day. It's a really nice way to accomplish that. I also find that there's this idea of the way that people communicate, you know, often at the, at the holidays, it's like everybody's around the table and you're really face to face and you're, you're catching up on things. Sometimes you're talking about intense topics, but there's this idea of, you know, conversing face to face, um, which is very intense and can be one way. And another thing where it's more like a side-by-side interaction, like if you're walking or you're doing an activity, you're not looking at each other, you're still being able to communicate, you're still being able to have time together, but it's just not that, um, really intense draining kind of thing. So maybe thinking of some activities that you can do together as a family, or again, taking that little time for yourself away for a little bit, can be a way to mitigate some of that stress.

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And then maintaining your routine. You're not going to be able to maintain your routine probably perfectly over the holidays, but the more that you can stick to that, the more that you can stick to your routine about going to bed at a certain hour and doing a certain amount of exercise that you normally do, the less that you deviate from that plan, the better you'll feel throughout the holidays. Again, it's gonna require some flexibility. Things are gonna, you know, not always go perfectly, but if you can stay to some kind of schedule and be consistent, that's really going to help you a lot. Also, you don't need to add a lot of extra stress to yourself during this time. So if it is more stress to get in your workout for that day than it is to mindfully skip a day and then do what you need to do, you're going to actually lessen your cortisol doing that. Because if you still try to do all the things, workout, do all this, and then you have the extra stress on top of it. That might make you feel even more overwhelmed. So taking those breaks when you need it, being mindful and not using that as an excuse to skip workouts or to skip taking care of yourself or to go to bed late every night, really try to find as much as possible. You know, some people hate this word, but trying to find balance around that as much as possible is going to be really a key to having a great holiday season. And then the next thing is around healthy drinks and alcohol at the holidays. Whether you choose not to drink at all, and that is certainly a trend now that I 100% support because, uh, you know, I've said it before and I'll say it again, just for those of you who may not have heard this, or you may not always have it in your awareness, may not want to have it in your awareness. And I am sometimes guilty of that myself, but alcohol is a poison. There's really no amount of it that is safe. And depending on who you are and your health potential problems, it can be much worse for some people. So that's, that's definitely something to give some consideration to. It increases your increases your risk of cancer. It increases risk of, you know, basically everything negative can be traced back to consuming alcohol. Now that all being said, many of us still choose to drink knowing the dangers and knowing the risks with that. And there is also an idea. So if you look at French culture or Italian culture, and people often call that out because those cultures drink primarily wine, but it's not the reserve of it all. That's kind of been debunked for a long time. It's more about that they use alcohol as a way to be together in community and to to be very social and they don't go overboard with it. So that's probably at least part of the reason that we find in those populations that it doesn't seem to be as detrimental to health. But again, all that being said, just make good choices around it. Be mindful of quantity, be mindful of very sugary, uh, drinks. They just, it racks up the calories. So always choosing those beverages that might be on the slightly healthier side, for the lack of a better word for alcohol. But, um, that would be things that are clear, that don't have a lot of additives, drinking organic wines whenever possible, um, taking a break in between to have a glass of water before you have the next one, and really thinking about whether you even need the next one. Um, there's a great app for this that I've called out on the podcast before called Sunnyside, and it just helps you track drinks. And if you do it in the moment as you're doing it, right, really make you consider, hey, do I need to go to this next one? Is that going to totally derail me? Because the other thing that happens when people drink alcohol is they tend to make less good decisions around food, right? They may say, oh, well, forget it. I'm just, you know, I'm gonna have everything now because it clouds your judgment. And it also can, I think, make you hungrier when you're having alcohol. So that's just something to be thinking about too. And then, so that's the drinks part, the food part. What is your strategy around going to parties? Again, knowing yourself here is key. So if you go to a party super hungry, are you just gonna eat whatever's available and it might not be the healthiest choices, or do you choose to have a high protein small meal before you go to a party so that you're not as ravenous when you get there. And that makes it so much easier to only choose the things that are really appeal to you, that feel worth it calorie-wise, that are a great taste, because it really, the holidays should be more about being in community with people and nurturing your relationships. And we make it so much about food and drink, and that is an amazing and fun part. I mean, you know, this is coming from a recipe developer, somebody who loves to eat, who loves to cook. It's kind of the way that I show my love and appreciation for people is to feed them and to cook for them. So I, again, I'm certainly not— there's no judgment around this. It is just trying to be mindful of the decisions that you're making when you're in these social situations and when you're at parties in particular, because the types of foods that tend to be there are not the most nourishing. So one thing you could try if this is you and you know, you struggle with this is having a two-bite rule or something like that. So if there is a dish that you really wanna try or something extra that's there that really looks appealing to you, just having 2 bites and then moving away from that for a while. And again, so this is where eating a small meal before you go really helps because you're not ravenous and then you just have a couple bites here and there. You're focused on socializing and being with the people that you're enjoying. And I think that can be a really great way to approach parties. Another scenario is when you again have these family gatherings, quite often you might be asked to bring a dish. So this is the perfect opportunity to bring something that you love, bring something that you know is healthy and nourishing for you. For you or that works for your particular diet or works for your particular goals. And most people, you know, enjoy trying new things too. So it can be, you know, whatever it is, whatever dish it is that appeals to you. That way you'll know you'll have something there that you like and that will be healthy for you. And then you get to share it with your friends as well.

If you're listening to this episode when it first releases, we are really close to Thanksgiving and the holidays. That's the whole reason I made this episode for you, obviously, to help you manage stress and to hit your goals over the holidays, or at the very least maintain some weight, maintain your sanity. But I've got a lot of resources at the website too, tons of Thanksgiving recipes. You can download my free Thanksgiving cookbook. And also, if you go to healnourishgrow.com/shop, are all my approved products, things that I checked to be manufactured in a GM facility, third-party tested, things that are non-toxic, things that are better for your health, easy swaps that if you're shopping anyway, start there because many of my codes stack on top of Black Friday deals and save you money throughout the whole year. So go to healnourishgrow.com/shop to start your holiday shopping, and you can also find my favorites on Amazon, and that address is amazon.com/shop/healnourishgrow. Thriveandprosperity.com/shop/healnourishgrow. It means so much when you support me by using my links. It doesn't cost you anything more, and it saves you money.

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That's another way to approach the eating strategy. Um, then we have travel wellness. So travel can be tricky because while there are much better options nowadays, airports tend to be very expensive. If you're driving on the road, I almost feel like that's actually better because almost every gas station now will have some healthier options, whether it's meat sticks, jerky. Quite often in the gas station, I can find boiled eggs. In the refrigerated section, there's always pickles. And things like that. But another thing to do is just to pack a small meal with you when you're traveling. If you're, whether you're on the road or in a plane, you can make it work. I learned a lot about this, this spring when I end up doing those bodybuilding competitions, because you have to be so specific with your food during those times that I traveled multiple times with my own food that I prepared and made. So that is another way to handle that. And then also just making sure that you take breaks when you're traveling as much as possible. So whether you're in the car or on the road, take some time to stop, get outta the car, move a little bit, just stop at a rest area if you're driving, or if you're on the plane, making sure that you get up every hour or so, which can be, I know, frustrating for seatmates and things like that, but you really just wanna make sure, you know, there's health reasons behind that too, because there's that risk of clots when you're on a plane. So just taking that little bit of time to get up, walk back to the back, even if you don't have to go to the bathroom or something, just getting out of your seat for a little bit when you're traveling on the plane can really go a long way into just making your body feel a little better when you finally are back on the ground again. And then there's this idea too, during the holidays that we have to do it all. And I know I'm very guilty of this, but I will say the older I've gotten, the better I've gotten at managing this a little bit better. And that is, you know, you know, the energy reserves that you have, you know, the amount of energy it requires to be with certain people, you know, the amount of energy it takes to be out of your house, go to an event, be at a party, stay out late, all of those things. You don't have to say yes to everything. I know this is really difficult for people, but I like to think of it like this. When I say no to certain things, I really am saying yes to certain other things. So for example, if I say no to a specific party, I'm saying yes to recharging myself, to having that extra time to do a workout or cook for my family or whatever it is. Just, it's not an— don't think of it as no, think of it as a yes to something else. So that really helps me when I'm trying to manage those decisions. The other thing to note about that is you wanna balance that that idea with the holidays are a special time and it's pretty limited and it often involves people that might not be in town all the time that you only get to see once or twice a year. And so just be mindful of that as well. You might have to expend a little bit of extra energy in one specific weekend or evening in order to accomplish, you know, seeing the people that you need to see and that you want to see while they're in town, uh, and balancing that with, again, your personal energy reserves and taking care of yourself. So The big word here, I guess, that you're noticing is balance, but it just requires being really mindful and having a plan. So, you know, making the choice, whether it's making the choice to drink alcohol or not drink alcohol or go to a specific party, you're not going to a specific party, whatever it is, you definitely wanna have peace around it and you want it to be intentional. So there's that word again. But just, you know, not just going with the flow so much and, and letting everything run over you during the holidays, I think is really what it boils down to. To do. You wanna every day just take a few minutes to kind of breathe and be like, okay, what's going on today? What's happening? Do I have this party? And then, you know, managing the rest of your schedule around that so you can try to find as much balance as possible. And then after a big event, the next day can be quite tiring, right? So if you still happen to weigh yourself the next day, and, uh, you know, I've talked about this before, I personally have weighed myself every day for years and years and years. I have a a fine relationship with the scale. I'm able to look at it as just data. It is not a big deal for me. And I do think that over time that this has allowed me to maintain my weight because whenever you see it creeping up, you're not suddenly surprised by that. You can see a trend over time and you gives you more time to do something about it. Whereas the short amounts of times in my adult life, mainly when I was dating and, you know, somebody's house in the mornings and stuff, when I didn't have the opportunity to weigh, It starts to creep up on you. So for me personally, after an event, I would still weigh because it doesn't bother me. If you're the type of person where the scale really negatively affects your mood, you may not want to weigh yourself the day after event because what happens at events, you tend to get a lot more sodium than usual. You might not drink as much water. Um, there's, you might eat more carbs. There's a number of reasons why you might wake up the next morning and see the scale be up 3 to 5 pounds. Just know that that is not real weight. That is just water weight from the day before. And what you don't want to do though is go through the whole entire holidays not checking on that, because that is when you are likely to possibly gain some weight. And since I mentioned the scale, I will say this— I've been using this for over a year now, the Hume BodyPod. It's on some amazing sales right now with Black Friday and going into Christmas and going into the new year. They usually have a sale as well. Um, and I have a whole episode on it. You know, the at-home body composition scales are not perfect. Nobody will argue that they are, but this one is very comparable to a DEXA scan, which is pretty much the gold standard for weight. And it keeps track of your body composition as well. So if you are working on gaining muscle or losing fat, things like that, the scale gives you a lot more data around that. If you're interested in it, I love it. I've had it, like I said, I've been using it for over a year now. I have a great discount code that stacks on top of whatever sale is going on. So look for that in the show notes. But the link, if you just want to go to the link, that will work and it'll automatically apply the discount. It is healnourishgrow.com/hume, H-U-M-E. And you can check out that scale, but if you wanna, and again, like I said, it's not perfect. I did a whole episode on that to kind of tell you the things about it to be in awareness. If you start using it, you have to be super consistent with when and how you use it, and that will help you get the best data from it. But just keep in mind, it's not perfect. People have expectations around it that it's gonna be kind of this magical tool, but I have found it to really be a, an awesome, amazing asset in my wellness journey. This box. And again, when I go out for that kind of holiday thing, I will still weigh. I will be aware though that it's not going to be probably a number that I'm liking that I get on there. But then usually by the next day or 2 days later, drink a lot of water, go back to your normal thing, and your weight should be also back to normal as well. So again, if you know, they're kind of person that will freak you out and just wait a day or 2, um, before you get back on the scale. But I wouldn't go the entire holiday season not weighing yourself and You know, only weighing yourself once a week has that same problem associated with it because of those fluctuations in your daily water weight. If you just have one data point for the week, it's less likely to know if that is real or not. So that is one another reason to keep weighing consistently throughout the holiday season because at least 3 to 4 times a week is much better than only one. Um, and then after the event, so the next day, we just talked about the next day a little bit. I would rehydrate. Have some electrolytes, make sure you have a protein-heavy breakfast. And again, just go back to normal after that. I think that's where people really get off the rails during the holidays because they think of it, oh, I had one bad meal, quote unquote. I'm putting air quotes around that if you're not watching the video, but they have one bad meal and it kind of sends them into this spiral where they think, oh, well, I already messed up. Might as well just, you know, wait and start again at the new year. No, you can have one awesome holiday meal, one night out with friends, um, enjoying a party, something like that. And then the next day you just simply go back to normal, do everything the way that you always do, and you will have a lot less, uh, likelihood of putting on a whole bunch of weight during the holidays. So, um, I think that covered all of the points that I had in the document that already had mapped out. Again, I had another episode like this where maybe I mentioned some other tools. I'm gonna guess they're pretty similar though, but it's always good to revisit this year after year because you start to think of things in different ways. You start to have new tools at your disposal, new things that you learn personally that really work for you, new things that you've learned about yourself. So I always think it's important to revisit these things each year and, you know, go into the holidays being very mindful and intentional so that we don't get off the rails. So, uh, going forward, I, it was, like I said, it's, it's just been procrastination central over here for me to get back on the mic and start recording the podcast again. Um, but now that we've broken the seal, hopefully it's going to continue on the once a week basis that it always has in the past. I'm going to be doing something a little different, at least for this time period between now and the new year, in that I will probably most likely be doing mostly solo episodes just because, um, there's a few topics that I've wanted to cover. I need to do a follow-up on the whole, uh, bodybuilding situation that had competitions that happened this, uh, spring and summer. And share with you some insights and some things and some new tools that I learned out of that, um, as well as just a few topics, uh, that I think, uh, deserve some coverage and it would be easier for me to just put it out there myself. As far as I did record one interview last week with, uh, somebody that I is more kind of a more in quote, I'm gonna say again with the air quotes, but I'm gonna say kind of a normal person that is not a particular, I expert in a certain way, although that's not really true because she's like an Olympian and, uh, she has a new company that she's working with women on outdoor skills and it should be really, I think, entertaining for you guys. She's also competed in bodybuilding and learned some lessons out of that that she shared with me in the interview. So I definitely have that one coming up here soon. And then in the meantime, if there are topics that you'd like me to cover or guests guests that you'd like to see be interviewed on the podcast, as always, please get in touch and let me know. Um, if you could leave a comment below, let me know what you found most useful about this particular episode and what strategies you will be using during the holidays. If I missed anything, I'd love it if you'd share in the comments anything that I missed or thoughts that you have on dealing with the holidays, because I'm sure everyone else that sees it and reads it, you know, we all need all the help we can get during this stressful season. So I would love it. If you could share that in the comments. But, uh, so that's it for now. I will see you again next time. And hopefully, like I said, we will be back on a much more regular schedule going forward. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I will talk to you soon.

This has been the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Again, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. You can find show notes for this episode at healnourishgrowpodcast.com. If you have feedback on today's episode or questions about the content, comment, please email us at podcast@healnourishgrow.com. We'd love to hear from you. Be sure to sign up for our email list at healnourishgrow.com and subscribe to the show with your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Join us next time for more information that helps you live your best and healthiest life. Thanks for listening. Content on the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast does not constitute medical advice. Content contained in the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. Neither the company nor its owner, Heal Nourish Grow LLC, nor any of the company's employees, agents, or guest speakers provide medical advice. The content provided on Heal Nourish Grow podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult your medical provider with any questions about what health practices are right for you.