"How to Maintain a Healthy Mindset with Nutrition and Exercise Over the Holidays"

Blog Post Written By: Juliane Volosky MS, ATC, PES, CWC

Getting present in the moment and spending time with family is what Holidays are all about.

Since the Holiday Season brings families together for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year, we spend a lot of time bonding around the dinner table. When the holiday season starts to fade away, and the celebrating, laughing, and gathering dies down... many of us start to face feelings of anguish, anxiety, regret, and remorse because of our diet and exercise during the holiday months. It tends to fall to the wayside, is nonexistent, or extremely out of alignment with our goals. While we were gathering with those we love and care about the most, we didn't monitor or practice awareness at all for our wellness habits including our daily diet, exercise, sleeping patterns, and hydration.

If you have found yourself in the spiral of losing sight of your diet and exercise over the Holiday Season, you are not alone. It's so easy to get caught up in all the obligations, commitments, events, and deadlines of the holiday season. You have 10 different holiday parties to provide a dish for and Christmas shopping to do. We do all of this while trying to maintain a healthy home life, professional life, and personal life. The "to do" list over the holiday season gets long and daunting, so when push comes to shove- we sacrifice some of our commitments to be able to handle all the other commitments on our short term Holiday to do lists.

For many of us, the one area that we tend to neglect pouring energy into is our commitments to our overall wellbeing and long term health. Healthy eating, movement, hydration, and sleep all fall to the wayside. We give these healthy habits up because like I said earlier the task list of things to do over the holiday season quadruples in size, and something has to give in order for you to meet and reach all the deadlines and things that need accomplished before the holidays get here. We put diet and exercise at the bottom of our priority list, and neglect an area of our life that should be one of the highest priorities.

So what do you do to maintain a healthy mindset with your diet and exercise over the Holiday Season?

I personally get asked this question a lot. As someone who works really hard at being in the habit of a healthy lifestyle with my daily diet and exercise, I wanted to provide you with some tools and strategies that have personally helped me stay committed to my healthiest and happiest self for over 10 years now. So I am going to share 4 ways to keep a healthy mindset over the holiday season.

Tip #1 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays: Stop Calling Your Eating Habits a Diet

So many of us look at our daily nutrition like an on/off switch. "My eating has been horrendous, I need to diet," "I am off the rails again, I need to go back to keto," "I can't eat any sweets- I started tracking calories a day ago." These phrases create a huge trigger and concern for someone like myself since I spent my early to mid twenties battling a severe eating disorder and a calorie obsessed relationship with food. When you feel like you need to be "on" again because you have recently been so "off" this is living life through an all or none mindset of thinking. We set ourselves up for failure thinking our eating habits should always be 100% perfect. We forget that progression is much more important than perfection. The minute you feel like you failed with your eating habits, most people throw their hands in the air and say, "Oh well, Ill try again next week."

Your daily eating habits should not have an on/off switch. You shouldn't be extremely on or extremely off with your eating habits, you shouldn't have foods that you label "diet foods" and "non-diet foods." Your relationship with food should be through a healthy lens. You shouldn't loathe family get togethers or social gatherings because you are anxious that you will "get off track." There is no such thing as getting off track if you are prioritizing the right balance of foods. Over the years I have began focusing on a whole food based protein dense diet 80% of the time- with foods I love and adore that may fall into the processed category 20% of the time.

You will not derail your progress with your fitness and nutrition goals if you eat what you want over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve/Day, but get right back into a healthy lifestyle again with your diet and exercise after they are over. That doesn't mean you should look at the holiday days as a binge or an all out "IM OFF MY DIET TODAY IM GOING TO GO CRAZY," but you should enjoy the day, and understand that thanksgiving and Christmas foods are readily available all year around to you.

If you wait until the holidays to have these types of foods because you normally restrict yourself from them all the other days of the year- this is a huge red flag, and where most people start to develop a negative, scarcity, and restrictive mindset around food. I stopped living life through this lens when I focused on eating freely 20% of the time with the foods I love and enjoy, and stopped labeling foods as BAD! Any food can be bad even the healthy ones if you can't control the amount or portion you eat of it, and binging and having an inability to control your portions is usually caused by restricting yourself from certain food groups for long periods of time.

Your daily nutrition habits should be about making progress, improvement, and small steps to a better you each day. So let the holidays where you eat a little bit out of alignment go. The real roadblock over the holiday season is to allow one bad day of eating progress into multiple days or months of overly processed eating until the whole Holiday season is over. I tell my clients that I work with all the time- the quicker you can get back into alignment with your goals when you had a bad day of eating habits- the faster you will see results. It takes time and a lot of practice to repeat healthy eating habits and behaviors, so focus on the process of getting better- don't focus on being perfect.

Tip #2 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays: Stop Allowing the Holidays be An Excuse to Continue Practicing Negative Deposit Eating Habits

Adding onto tip #1 of focusing on healthy eating habits as a lifestyle- I want you to remember that 1 Day of Eating is NOT going to derail your progress.

BUT- so many of us begin a downward spiral of back to back days, months, and years of negative deposit eating habits because the Holiday season breaks our healthy eating habits. We fall victim to the all-or-none mindset of thinking, and spiral downwards, and can't find the courage within ourselves to get back into alignment with healthy fitness and nutrition habits.

We don't recognize that if our diet is off for one day that we will not derail or reverse our progress. However, most of us lose sight of our goals and commitments to a healthier lifestyle with diet and exercise for the ENTIRE holiday season after allowing ourselves to have one bad day, and continuing to use the holidays as an excuse for negative deposit eating habits. The leftover cookies, sweets, and processed food stays in our kitchen and environment cause it's there and we continue to partake in eating habits out of alignment with our healthiest self.

My old self used the holidays as a scapegoat, excuse, and false narrative to why I would fall off track. I was always telling myself and loved ones that I would get back on track after the holidays would die down. I would get all the bad foods out of my house after the holidays.

Red flag number one for me was not being able to control my sweets intake if it was in my house. If you live in a restrictive mindset and usually don't allow yourself sweets at all unless it's a holiday- you will begin the downward spiral to not being able to control your sugar/sweet cravings at all post holidays. If you spend your year eating sweets and deserts in moderation, and most days prioritize protein and whole foods- you will have a much healthier relationship with food around the holidays because you have a lens that these foods are always available to you and are "ok" in moderation. However if you live in scarcity mindset and tell yourself these foods are "bad" your mind will have an even harder time saying no to them when they are in your environment. You begin to eat all of that food item until it is gone because in your head you want them gone because you can't "control yourself" when that food is in your house.

After reading quite a few self help books because I recognized my relationship with food was falling into the restrictive and unhealthy category- I recognized that I was operating from a place of lack, and with an all or none mindset of thinking. If I wasn't 100% on I was 100% OFF TRACK. This derails a persons progress more than anything.

Why? Because we are humans. Progress isn't always going to be linear, results are not always going to be instant, and to become healthier takes a lot of repetition, consistency, and time. Knowing that healthy eating and seeing results will take a lot of time, consistency, and repetition is step number one to seeing long term results and sustainability. Anyone can go into a restrictive mindset or lens of thinking, deprive themselves from certain food groups, and lose a ton of water weight because they aren't eating balanced, and severely restricting calories. It's the people who start focusing on the process of healthier habits and exercise that will see long term results. They don't look at carbs as the enemy, and focus on eating the things they enjoy in moderation while prioritizing more whole food based food items and protein dense food items.

So stay consistent with your goals, habits, and commitments over the holiday season, and operate from a place of abundance and not lack. For me- I personally found my healthy mindset with diet and exercise when I began telling myself that I will take the holiday to enjoy time with family and friends. If I eat out of alignment for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day that's okay, however I shouldn't treat everyday around the Holiday Season like Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. So enjoy the memories, and the food on the holiday, but don't stop chasing your healthiest and happiest self on all the other days surrounding the holidays.

If you feel like you have found yourself saying "I'll get back on track over the holidays," "I don't have time to work on myself over the holidays," "How do you expect me to improve my health with all the sweets and cookies around the holidays" It may be time to start practicing awareness and setting some guardrails around your daily eating habits.

Tip #3 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays Set some guardrails on "special occasions"

Setting guardrails for yourself around the holidays is important. We can't eat out of alignment with our goals every day just because the holidays are here. You will not see results or progress doing this.

This was the hardest concept for me to learn. I remember every party, gathering, and social event used to be labeled as a "special occasion" in my book. With some personal inventory in my late 20s I realized that these "special occasions" were making negative bank statements on my ability to reach my goals, because I was labeling every social gathering as a special occasion. There is nothing wrong with eating out of alignment with your goals every once in a while, but if you are eating out of alignment with your goals almost daily, or a few times a week- you are not going to reach your goals or see results. In my late 20s you could find me eating out and drinking alcohol almost every weekend of the month. I couldn't wrap my head around why I wasn't reaching my goals at the time because during the week I was eating very healthy. With some personal inventory and some deep thinking- I realized that my eating habits as much as they were "on" during the week, they were not "on" at all during the weekend- so it was ME getting in my own way of reaching my results. The all or none mindset of thinking. If my eating was "on" it was 100% perfect, but if my eating was "off" it was 100% processed and out of alignment with my goals.

I had to start setting up guardrails on what special occasions were. I still enjoyed certain foods on occasions, but started practicing healthier eating habits even on weekends. I started focusing on high protein on the weekends, the same amount of veggies on the weekend, and I started limiting alcoholic beverages on the weekend.

The biggest shift also came when I started connecting in the moment choices with delayed gratification or with long term success. All of us want dessert every time we eat out, and fried food because it is so tasty, but I realized these in the moment choices are very out of alignment with my long term goals.

So 80% of the time I began choosing and prioritizing home cooked meals over eating out, movement over being sedentary, and diet cokes and limes over alcohol. As much as I wanted to drink and eat out every weekend, I began to recognize doing these negative bank statement habits frequently and often over days, weeks, and months would not contribute to a healthier happier me, and my goal self.

Even though I have made healthier choices over the years with my nutrition and exercise- I am here to say that Balance is key. If socializing and drinking with friends does make you happy, and brings you happiness- it is okay to do it in moderation, but you need to really do some personal inventory and determine if you are doing this in moderation or in excess each month. Like I mentioned in tip #1 eating out with your family, celebrating holidays, and saying yes to desserts like your favorite piece of cheesecake will not derail progress if it is not being done frequently. But if this is being done daily, weekly, and a few times a week- it is time to set some guardrails for yourself- so that you can stay in better alignment with your goals.

Practice awareness with your in the moment choices, and make sure they align with your long term goals and health.

Tip #4 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays Don't Eat Different on The Holidays & Monitor Your Hunger and Satiation Cues

You heard me use the term presence, awareness, and alignment quite frequently throughout this blog post, and even in my other blog posts.

Something I didn't recognize during the holiday season when I was younger was my inability to listen to my hunger and satiation cues. The first mistake I personally made over the Holidays was wait all day to eat because I wanted to save my appetite for Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner. I completely ignored my hunger cues so by the time dinner came around I was a 1/10 on the hunger scale, and felt like I could have ate 10 meals. When you are hungry you usually eat at a very fast and ravenous pace to try to fill yourself up quickly. It usually takes about half an hour to feel a satiation cue so you overeat and gorge yourself to where you feel sick. So some strategies and tips that have worked with me over the holidays to listen to my hunger and satiation cues are the following:

• Prioritize 30g of protein for breakfast or a high protein breakfast. DONT SKIP MEALS. This will help your hunger cues and keep you satiated which will help prevent overeating with your holiday dinner. Example of a 30g protein breakfast- 1 egg and 1 cup egg whites with avocado and cheese scrambled, 1 cup greek yogurt with mixed fruit.

• Stay hydrated throughout the day. This helps with satiation cues as well

• Move after dinner. This helps with digestion.

• Use a small plate during Holiday Dinners, and load 2/3 of it with your protein and veggie. The other 1/3 can your favorite dish or sides.

• Eat slowly and use the hunger scale. Don't eat until you are stuffed, only eat until you start to feel full. With time you will notice the fullness progress.

• Use the hunger scale to gauge dessert, and ask yourself if you really want it or only want it because it is there. A lot of times we eat for the sake that the food is readily available. If you aren't hungry take your favorite dessert home with you to enjoy when you actually are hungry, or split a dessert with a family member.

I hope these four tips help you this holiday season. It's not about having perfect eating or being on a "diet" it's about making your daily eating a healthier lifestyle. It's about prioritizing healthy eating and fitness EVEN during the busy times. It's about making progress and better choices than your last holiday season. If you really want to see long term results start operating from a place of abundance, and not lack. Make sure those in the moment choices aren't just for short term gratification, but also for long term payoff.

Happy Holidays!

Julie

Hunger Scale for Reference: