141. How to Quickly Stop the I’ll Start Over on January 1st Mentality (Try THIS Before You Spiral!) | HOLIDAY EATING SERIES

If you have been waiting for a sign to start 2026 feeling strong, confident and actually in control of your body again, this is it. The New Year Reset Program is back and this year it's bigger and better than ever. Last year it was four weeks. This year it's eight weeks, eight live coaching calls, deep dive support, and you get lifetime access to my full Breakthrough program. All for the exact same price as last year. Why am I doing this? Because I do not want there to be a single reason you don't hit your body goals this year while still living a full, real busy life. If you're ready to get a custom plan, real support and results that actually last, go grab your spot now. Seriously, pause this episode and go over and join the New Year Reset Program with me. Head to mindinmymacros.com reset or or scroll on down to the show notes and I'll link it for you there. All right, let's get into the episode. Welcome to the Holiday Eating roadmap miniseries. Your 8 episode 10 minute coaching companion to help you get through the holidays with less stress, more intention, and without feeling like you're starting over in January. Every week in December, I'm dropping two short bite sized coaching chats designed to help you navigate real life. The holiday meals, the travel, the events, the stress, the low energy with confidence and clarity. These are the kinds of conversations I have with my clients when things get messy, busy or unpredictable. Except now you get to have them in your ears whenever you need a little guidance or grounding. And if you haven't already downloaded it, I created a totally free companion resource to go with this series called the Holiday Eating Roadmap. It's a beautifully designed step by step guide that walks you through balanced meals, enjoying the holidays guilt free, resetting after indulgent days, supporting your energy and ending the year feeling proud, not panicked. You can grab it for free down in the show notes. It pairs extremely well with these episodes so you can listen, learn and actually apply everything in your real daily life. My goal with this miniseries is quite simple. I want to give you the tools and the mindset shifts you actually need to feel good throughout the holidays. Without the restriction, without the shame, and without feeling like the season derails your progress. Because it's not the holidays that throw most women off, it's the weeks of all or nothing that follow them. This series is here to help you break that cycle once and for all. So my friend, grab your coffee, settle in for the next 10 minutes and let's dive into today's Coaching Chat Foreign. Welcome to well On Her Way the podcast helping busy women cut through the noise of today's wellness industry to focus on what really moves the needle. I'm Dani Merenberg, nutritionist, women's health advocate and mom, juggling it all right alongside you. I know how overwhelming it is to do it all and still find time for you Here. We're done with wellness that overwhelms each week. I break down the science, tune out the noise, and sit down with trusted experts to make health feel clear and doable for your real everyday life. You'll leave every episode with simple, sustainable steps you can use right away to feel your best and live with more clarity and confidence. Because wellness shouldn't feel like another full time job and you deserve to feel well on your way. In today's quick little coaching chat for the holidays, we are talking all about the psychology behind guilt, permission, and indulgence, and how to finally break the I'll start over again Monday or in January spiral that keeps so many of us stuck. This one is the most freeing mindset shift you can make, especially during the holidays, and I promise it's going to change the way you think about food. So let's start with this. Guilt doesn't come from food. It comes from the story you tell around it. Most women do not feel guilty because of the food itself. They feel guilty because of the meaning they've attached to eating it. For example, I shouldn't have eaten that or I was doing so well. This is going to ruin my progress. I I blew it. Now I have to make up for it, right? I'm sure. I mean, I've said these things to myself. I'm sure you've probably said something along these lines to yourself, right? But here's the truth. Guilt is not a natural response. It is a learned response. You weren't born feeling guilty for eating cookies. You weren't born thinking carbs were bad or that sugar meant failure. You learned those beliefs over time from our lovely dieting culture that we live in, from your environment, from all the good versus bad food messaging that you see out there. And if guilt is learned, it can be unlearned and unlearning. It is what will set you free. So let's talk about permission for a second, because this is important. When you forbid certain foods or or label them as off limits, you create a psychological reaction called reactive desire. I'm sure you've heard of this. Maybe not the term, but I know you've heard of this. Essentially, this means that the moment something is restricted, all of a sudden you want it more, right? All of a sudden you're like, actually, no, give that to me, please. And when you finally do allow yourself to have it, you swing hard into the I already messed up, so I might as well just keep going mentality. I have been there before. You mean to just have two little cookies and you end up eating like half of the sleeve? This is the cycle. It goes restriction, craving, indulgence, guilt over correction, and then we repeat this cycle. But here's the funny paradox in all of this. The more permission you give yourself around food, the less chaotic your choices become. Permission removes the sense of urgency around food. It removes the scarcity, the secrecy. It removes the pressure to be perfect. And it removes that shame spiral that we end up in when inevitably life happens. Permission creates this sort of peace when it comes to food. So let's reframe. I want to give you a new definition of balance, because most women totally miss the mark here. We're totally misunderstanding what balance is. Balance is not eating perfectly. It's not never indulging. It's not having self control 24 7. It's not saying no to things that you love. What balance actually means is that it's having the flexibility to enjoy your life without abandoning yourself and your desires. It means that you can enjoy dessert. It means you can go to your party, have the holiday meal that you've been looking forward to, taste all of the family recipes that you get once a year without letting it turn into a shame spiral that lasts three days. Indulgence is only a problem when you turn it into a story about your worth, your progress, or your lack of discipline. But indulgence itself, whether it's, you know, planned, enjoyed, savored, indulgence is part of balance. It's not the opposite of progress. It's actually part of it. So when you can include that indulgence into it, you ultimately get progress. But I want to give you a practical mindset shift that can help you avoid this. I'll start over again Monday mentality and spiral. Because what I want to do is get really practical here. I think this is going to help. I want you to have actual tools to interrupt that all or nothing thinking that is happening as it happens. So here are three simple mindset shifts that you can implement. Number one, One choice doesn't cancel out the day. Just say that to yourself. One choice doesn't cancel out the day. One choice doesn't cancel out the day. You could have a cookie at 2pm and still have a protein and veggie forward dinner. Just because you have a cookie at 2pm doesn't mean the rest of your day has to be sugar. You can enjoy brunch and still go for a walk, drink water and move on. You're never more than one choice away from feeling grounded again. So if you start to feel that spiral, check, check yourself and say, what's that next move I can make to get me back to grounded? Number two mindset shift. Say I don't start over. I continue forward. Say this out loud if you need to. I think it's so helpful to say it out loud and like actually verbalize it. Because when we say it in our head, that's one thing, but when we actually say it out loud, half the time we're like, oh my gosh. Yeah, like, what am I thinking? That's absolutely crazy. I was thinking that, right? So by saying it out loud or even just thinking it, it removes shame and puts you back into momentum. So there's no resets, there's no punishment, there's no undoing, just onto the next choice. And then the third one is, how do I want to feel two hours from now? This question pulls you out of the current moment and into intention. It shifts you from reacting to choosing. You're not being reactionary anymore. You're saying, okay, in two hours, how do I want to feel? What are those choices that I'm going to make from here on out? This isn't about earning food or burning it off. It's about choosing what supports your energy and your mood and your long term goals. So if the enjoyment of having the peppermint bark is going to make you feel really good two hours from now, which it absolutely could, because it's this enjoyment, amazing. But if you've just, you know, had two pieces of peppermint bark and you now think, okay, I could spiral at this point, but how do I want to feel two hours from now? That can check you and pull you back into intention in the moment. So this week, until our next episode, I want to leave you with one simple action step. And that is to enjoy your favorite holiday food mindfully this week. So this is your assignment. At some point this week, I want you to choose a holiday food that you love. Not one that you think you should eat, not the one that's healthiest, not the one that you feel pressured to avoid, the one that you genuinely enjoy. And I want you to sit down, slow down, take a few deep breaths, enjoy that food, taste it and let it be enough. Not rushed. No guilt. We are not filling it with any guilt. We're not mindlessly eating it in the car or standing in the kitchen. We are sitting down and we are enjoying this food. And we're just having a mindful enjoyment moment. Because when you pair permission with presence, I know it sounds oversimplified, but you break the cycle of guilt psychologically. You can break the cycle of guilt and you can stop the I'll start over again Monday or in January pattern before it actually begins and takes over. So again, your assignment this week is to sit down and fully enjoy a food just for the pleasure of it. Just for the enjoyment of it. Let it be that and move on. If you haven't downloaded the Holiday Eating roadmap yet, definitely do that. I'll link it down in the show notes for you. There's an entire Mindful Eating Quick guide inside that pairs beautifully with today's episode, and it will help you practice everything we talked about in real time. Next episode, we're going to dive into holiday events. How to build your plate, what to do before you go, and how to enjoy the night without feeling out of control. You are doing so well. I am so proud of you and I'll see you in the next episode.