3 Tips for a GUILT FREE Christmas!

So we're at that time of year now where for a lot of people, maintaining their nutritional habits and staying on track with their goals tends to be pretty tricky. Now, for some, it's been happening for weeks like that because of course in the roll-up to Christmas, we get busier and busier and there are more and more obligations that we have to take care of. And that therefore, of course, makes it more difficult or more challenging for us to stick with our good healthy habits and so on. But many of us would like to be able to kind of go through the Christmas period guilt-free and be able to kind of do what we want, have what we like, and so on, and not have to feel bad about it. The catch is, for many of us, we're not really able to do that because we don't necessarily have that, that kind of control over our emotional state yet. Maybe we need some practice, some reps in the game in order to build that skill. But I'm going to go over 3 different options that I would recommend that you make use of in order to have your own guilt-free Christmas. So they sort of range from one end of the scale to the other, and the one that you choose will depend on where you consider yourself to be right now with your ability to handle and control your emotional pendulum. Now, what I mean by that is your ability to maintain a relatively neutral emotional state relative to the things you decide to eat, because for a lot of people, if they have something that's sort of off plan or isn't good or maybe shouldn't have had that, they find it very difficult to not put themselves into an emotional cascade where they're angry with themselves and they feel guilty, then they shame themselves, then they blame other people and so on, and then eventually blame themselves and so on. So we get put in this emotional spiral, which unfortunately kind of leads us to this place where we're desperate to kind of get out of that shitty situation and feeling like crap about it. But the problem is what we tend to do is reset back before the trigger. So then what happens is we roll into the next day or the next week feeling like everything's fine now, and then we repeat the same habit or the same pattern and behavior and keep repeating that cycle. So it's essentially like the sabotage cycle that we see. So if we want to have a guilt-free Christmas— as I said, a guilt-free— sorry, a guilt-free Christmas, there are 3 ways I recommend you approach it. Now, I recommend you pick one, and as I say, it's the one that you think that you can deal with the best. Now, the first one is you literally just hit the fuck it button. And what I mean by that is you go, I will eat what I want when I want, but I will have no emotional attachment to my decision. So if I decide to eat completely clean throughout, that's cool. I eat clean and I don't feel guilty about the fact I've done so, and the fact that I didn't take part and I was boring and all the rest of it. That's fine, you just do that. Or you go all in and you eat absolutely everything you want, as much junk as you want, as many treats, sweets, snacks, and so on as you like. But again, there is no emotional attachment to that decision or the action. So therefore you get to enjoy the food but without having to feel shitty about it and beat yourself up afterwards. Now, as I say, for many this might be quite challenging and difficult. If that's the case, maybe you're going to have to rein it in a little and keep, keep it under control a touch. But I'll get into that in, in one of the later tips. So So that's the first one. We literally go, I don't care, I will do what I want. I'm just— my goal is to enjoy this season, this period, and it doesn't matter what I eat, what I choose to do, the actions I take, how much I drink, and so on. I'm just going to go all in and that's that. Now, if you can, as I say, remain emotionally neutral to that decision, absolutely fine. If you can't, then maybe you want to choose one of the other options. So the second option is, of course, we're we literally run all the way to the other end of the scale. So rather than saying, I'm going to eat what I want when I want, instead we go, no, I'm going to stay 100% clean. Now, the reason we might choose to do that is because we're unable to control our emotional state in relation to the negative or bad foods that we might choose to eat. So if it's a case of every time I eat a bad food, I beat myself up and I guilt and shame and blame myself for doing so, then we might be better off avoiding that stuff altogether, even though it might not seem as fun. But if it will enable us to maintain a healthier and more neutral emotional state, that might be the best way for us to approach it. Now, of course, there is a risk that we will then have a negative emotional response to not getting involved. It's like, oh, well, everyone else is having fun and enjoying themselves and letting go. I look like the boring one. I'm the party pooper. And then we might guilt, shame, and blame ourselves because of that. So again, we need to be careful and, and learn to understand where we're at emotionally and whether we are able to yet function as an adult, or whether we're kind of still stuck in this child mind where we're completely reactive to the things that go on outside of us. So those are the first two options. We go one end of the scale where we just go all in, balls to the wall, eat and drink anything we want, or we keep it super clean, super strict, and say, you know what, I'm not, because I know that I will feel worse and make myself feel worse if I do choose to have that stuff. So I'm just going to stay clean and eat healthy foods right throughout the season. That way I can maintain my results, I can maintain my body. In fact, I can probably even improve my results and so on, because I'll just keep moving towards the goal. So that's the other option. Now, the third option is the one that will probably suit most people, but again, it depends on you. You might just be like, I don't want any restriction or limitation, in which case you'll pick the first. But If you kind of want the best of both worlds, what we recommend that most people do is literally just stick to the 80/20 rule. So what that means is essentially that 80% of the time you eat clean, you, you do the right things, and you eat how you know you ideally should to reach your goals. And then of course that 20% of the time you just let loose, do as you please, eat what you like, drink what you like. And again, whenever you are eating those foods or treat sweet snacks and so on, you don't allow yourself to feel bad about it. You just enjoy it, enjoy the moment. Because what a lot of people don't realize is that in many cases, the physiological response of that negative emotional cascade is actually more damaging to your health than the bad food or bad drink might have been had you chosen to indulge in that. Because at least in many cases, if you just have that food or that drink in that moment, Cool, you have it. Your body will then obviously over the next day or so have its physiological response to it, but the emotional response tends to be heightened even further. So now what we've done is we've gone, okay, I've got this potentially negative physiological response from the, the alcohol or the, the snack or the treat or the junk food or whatever it was, but now I've had a negative emotional cascade or reaction to it as well, which now heightens that physiological response, which pushes us deeper into a fight or flight response and therefore causes more catabolic and damaging reactions than had we just had the food and been done with it. So that's why we ideally over time get better and better at controlling our emotional state in relation to the decisions we make. So it's fine to make bad decisions or to make the good decisions, but what matters is how we respond to the outcomes of those decisions. Now, if we can do it without constantly being knocked from one pillar to the post, sorry, from one pillar to post with our emotional reaction, then it's much easier for us to go through life without those emotional peaks and troughs. One minute I'm anxious, then I'm depressed, then I'm neutral, then I'm happy, then I'm sad, then I'm angry, and so on. And of course, we all go through these emotions on a day-to-day basis or a week-to-week basis, but it's when it's so chaotic and quite often in relation to things like food, which obviously we indulge in daily. Whether it's 2 times a day to 4 times a day and sometimes 6 times a day, or even throughout the whole day for some people if you're a grazer. But the catch is, if you've got these constant emotional reactions to everything that you're doing, then unfortunately you're multiplying the negative physiological effect of your action, which of course is not gonna be good for your health or your body transformation results in the long run. So that's what I'll leave you guys with today. If you want a guilt-free Christmas, those are my 3 recommendations. Either way, you must maintain that neutral emotional response to your decision. So we either go all in, eat whatever we want, when we want, have as much of it as we like, and we don't feel bad about it, or we stay completely clean and don't eat any junk food. And again, we have no emotional reaction to that decision. Or the final one, which as I say, I reckon that's the one that suits most people the best, is that 80/20. So it's like I eat clean 80% of the time, and then that 20% of the time I allow myself to let loose and have fun and eat and drink as I please. And then that way I don't have to worry about maybe not getting involved or maybe feeling bad because I didn't get involved. And at the same time, I don't have to feel bad about going completely off the rails and completely sabotaging my diet and my results. So that, as I say, guys, is what I will leave you with today. Let me know in the comments which one you're choosing to do, or if you have your own method or sort of protocol or strategy that you like to employ over Christmas in order to keep you on track and stop you from slipping too far off of the rails. Take it easy, people. Thank you for watching as always, and I look forward to chatting with you in my next video. Take it easy.