143. Exactly What To Do Before, During & After Your Holiday Events For Maintaining Body Composition | HOLIDAY EATING SERIES

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 mini series 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. 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. Today's coaching chat, my friend, is all about holiday events and how to walk into them feeling grounded and intentional and in control instead of anxious, reactive, or I hope I Don't blow it again this year. Because this is one area where so many women lose momentum. It really comes down to, especially during this time of the year when we have so many social events going on. And it's not because of the food itself, but it's because of that mindset that we walk in with and the reactions they have afterwards. So by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly what to do but before, during and after an event to stay balanced, enjoy yourself and avoid the guilt spiral. So let's get into it with step one. What should we do to set ourselves up before the event? So what you do before an event has more of an influence on how the night goes than anything you eat at the event, to be completely honest. And the most women unknowingly sabotage themselves by not realizing that. So here's what most women do. They will skip meals earlier in the day to save up calories. They'll eat light all day long. They'll restrict. They'll walk into the event quite hungry. And then they wonder why everything feels so out of control. But the truth is, walking into an event hungry is the number one predictor of overeating. Not the food, not the desserts table, not the wine. So here's the grounded strategy I have for you before your event. Number one, I want you to eat a protein rich breakfast. Start your day with something very protein rich. Add in that fiber. We talked about that in the last episode. But things like eggs, egg whites, yogurt, cottage cheese, turkey bacon protein, chia pudding protein, oats, anything that is going to give you a really, really solid protein. Start for the day. I want it to be 35 grams or more of protein in that breakfast meal. Then number two, I want you to eat a real lunch, not a small one, not a half meal, a normal protein and fiber meal. Again, this could be something like chicken breast with roasted veggies and some sweet potato and maybe like a salt sauce in their. Yum. But it's not going to be like a half meal. It's not going to be a small salad. It's going to be something that's actually filling. But think volume, think volume. Veggies, like adding in roasted veggies, adding in lots of lettuce and greens. Those are going to help you feel fuller because of that fiber. So protein and fiber focused meal for lunch. Then number three, I want you to have a pre event snack. Yes, really. I want you to have something like a Greek yogurt or a, an IQ bar or veggies. And hummus or an apple with some Greek yogurt and powdered peanut butter or a small little turkey wrap. I just posted recently some of my favorite calorie deficit snacks. One of them is turkey roll ups where you can put bell pepper or cucumber and hummus inside a slice of turkey and roll it up. Amazing pre event snack for you right there. You do not want to walk in hungry because when your blood sugar is unstable you will make worse choices and when it is stable you make much more clear choices. You taste your food, you stay present, you stop when you're full. This one shift will completely change the way holiday events go for you. Now let's move into during the event. So we talked about what to do before the event. Now what do you do when you are at the event? Because this is where most people will start to panic. Here is my mantra. I want you to repeat. My plate builds my balance, not my willpower. When your plate is built with intention, everything else becomes a whole heck of a lot easier. So here is how I want you to build a plate when you're at an event. I don't care if you're just having appetizers or if it's a full on blown dinner, I want you to still use the same four step process number one. Start with the protein. Where are your protein sources? The turkey, the roast, the chicken, the ham, the shrimp, meatballs, steak, whatever is available that is a protein source. Get your eyes on it and start there. This studies your hunger and it keeps you satisfied. Then we're gonna add a big old scoop of color to that. I don't care if it's from, you know, raw veggies or a salad or some greens or some fruit, whatever can bring some volume, fiber and just density to either your snack app plate or your full on meal. You're gonna wanna do that. And then comes the fun stuff. This is where you get to add in the things that you want that you only get during the holidays. The things you enjoy. Grandma's potatoes, the stuffing, the Mac and cheese, the casseroles, the pie. Not because you deserve it, not because it's a cheat, but because these foods are part of the experience and that matters too. So once you have that, then I want you to start by eating the proteins and the fibers. Before you get to the fun stuff, start with the two things that are going to help regulate your blood sugar. Before you get to the things that are probably gonna cause your blood sugar to spike. But if you start with the protein and the fiber it's gonna help with those spikes and it's gonna help with your overall hunger, overeating, all of that. So start with your proteins and fibers, move on to the fun stuff, and then eat until you're satisfied, but not stuffed. I once heard this, and I can't unhear it now, and I absolutely love it. And it is eat until you're 80% full. Don't eat until you're almost 100% full or until you're 105% full. Eat until you're 80% full. Where you're like, yeah, I'm hungry, but I could still keep eating. Eat until you hit that point. You don't need to stop early or restrict. You also don't need to clean your plate. But if you eat until you're about 80% full, you will notice by giving yourself 5 minutes, fullness start to kick in. And that will really help you set the stage for not overeating and not feeling like you're in this endless cycle of spinning because you're like, oh my gosh, I'm so stuffed. I need to go lay down the couch now. So think about eating until you're 80% full. Okay? I want to give you a little bonus as well, and that is navigating alcohol without the aftermath. So alcohol is where a lot of holiday anxiety lives and where the next day crash usually happens. Here's the simplest, non restrictive guideline for you. For every drink that you have, drink a full glass of water and choose what actually feels good for your body. So if you're drinking wine or hard seltzer or a cocktail you enjoy, or no alcohol at all, like me, I don't drink alcohol anymore. But choose something that you're gonna actually enjoy and stick to the one to one ratio. So for every drink that you have, you have to have a full glass of water after that. It's gonna help you feel a whole heck of a lot better tomorrow, but also it's gonna help offset and slow down your drinking. Drinking is not empty calories. Drinking can definitely add up and that is what can put you over as well. But don't worry, again, if it's just one day, your body's not looking at one day over one day over one day. It's looking at trends over time. So the goal here is just to be present and enjoy and there's no punishment here. Now let's move to after the event. What do you do after the event? So we went through before the event, we talked about when you're at the event. Now you're home from the event. This is where we can oftentimes feel a little stuck. We have a really big meal or the party went really late and we ended up eating more because we were there for so long and you think, I ruined everything. I'll start over again Monday or I'll start in January. Or you have the thought, I need to eat super clean tomorrow. But here's the truth. Your next day choices matter more than anything you ate last night. And what your body needs after a holiday event is not restriction. It's not eating super clean tomorrow. It's regulation. It's this ritual that I like to do. If after an event I'm like, whoa, okay, I need to like just check in a little bit. I need to reset. These are the things I recommend doing. So after your event, your little reset ritual is, number one, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Immediately upon waking up, 20 to 30 ounces of water. That is a non negotiable. Number two is eat a protein rich breakfast yet again. This should be a non negotiable every single day. But make sure that is a super non negotiable. The day after a party or something where you're like, eh, I just felt like you went a little overboard. Go for a short walk to reset your digestion and your mood and help with blood sugar stabilization. And then have a normal lunch. Do not have a small tiny salad. Do not have a small lunch. Eat a proper lunch. Again, protein and fiber. And then at dinner, add your color, your fiber, your protein at dinner and just get right back to it. That's it. That's it. Nothing fancy, normal, balanced, supportive. The shame spiral ends the moment you choose to support your body instead of punish it. So your action step from here on out is go enjoy something fully this week. This week, I want you to choose a holiday event or a holiday food and enjoy it mindfully. Again. We practiced this already once in our previous episode, but don't rush through it. Don't fill it with guilt the second it hits your lips. Don't feel guilty about it after, but use these three processes before, during and after your event and put it into practice. Because when you allow yourself to enjoy food in the moment, you stop the need to overeat later. We're not avoiding life this season. We're learning to navigate it in a way that feels good, that feels doable, and that you can fully look back and say that you really enjoyed this holiday season. If you haven't downloaded the holiday eating roadmap, yet. Grab it down in the show notes. I have it linked down there. It has a full strategy page, including plate building, visuals, tips, reset rituals that pair perfectly with this episode. In our next episode, we're talking about how to rebound after a day of overeating. We're going to dive all into it. In that episode. I want you to know that you are doing absolutely amazing. And if you ever need a reminder, a refresher on any, any of these, go back and listen to the episodes. These are your pep talks here to help you obviously through the holidays, but really, anytime. So I'll see you over in the next episode.