On today’s solo episode we’re talking how the holidays can be a seamless part of your overall healthy lifestyle, and how you have permission to holiday differently!

Fed and Fit podcast graphic, episode 181 You Have Permission to Holiday Differently with Cassy Joy

We’re back with our 181st episode of the Fed+Fit Podcast! Remember to check back every Monday for a new episode and be sure to subscribe on iTunes!

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Episode 181 Sponsors

Cassy Joy: Today’s show is brought to you by Capilano Beeotic Honey! Beeotic Honey is 100% pure Australian honey that contains naturally occurring prebiotics. It’s my favorite sweeteners for tea, a key ingredient in my jalapeno lime margaritas, my secret to chewier cookies, and it’s perfect for dressings or for drizzling over my morning yogurt. Best of all, Beeotic helps support gut and digestive health with 340 mg of naturally occurring prebiotic oligosaccharides per serving. These prebiotics nourish good gut bacteria, which is even more important for keeping us healthy during the winter months. You can grab your own Beeotic Honey at Walmart and Walmart.com starting at just $9.98.

Cassy Joy: Welcome back to another episode of the Fed and Fit podcast. I am your host, Cassy Joy Garcia. Thank you for being here! How nice that is! How nice it is that you decided to be here right now, listening to this show! I’m very honored.

Well, allow me to be one of the people wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving, if you are in an area of the world that celebrates Thanksgiving! It’s a really special time of the year, and I wanted to kick off Thanksgiving week. Well, if you have kids, you kicked off Thanksgiving week probably two weeks ago because of all the school activities. {Laughs} But allow me to kick off Thanksgiving week the official Monday before Thanksgiving with a mindset episode.

Every once in a while, if you’ve been a longtime listener, you’ve heard several of these episodes over the years. And every once in a while I just like to hop on, and do a quick; how are you doing? How are you doing over there, show. And maybe just offer a little encouragement as the year goes on in different seasons and things.

So what I want to talk about today; for those who are looking, maybe, for a way to approach the holidays differently. I want to talk with you. Now, there are some of you listening, and you are probably thinking; nope. Cass, I have my holiday game plan. I do the same thing every year. And I love it. And it makes me tick. And it’s what makes my world go round. That is great. I have no desire to tell you that you are doing it wrong. If it’s working for you, then by golly, it’s working for you and you keep doing it.

This episode is meant for those who are kind of nervous about the holiday season. Because maybe they have seen the cycle over the years of; oh my goodness, we’re gearing up for Thanksgiving. Everyone is getting very excited about all the food and all the recipes! And maybe we go in thinking; everything is going to be a cheat day. Or I’m going to use it just as an aside from the way I currently eat my diet. And then we indulge in Thanksgiving, or the Friendsgiving, or the 14 Thanksgivings you attend, if you have a whole bunch of family and friends. What a wonderful, blessed problem to have, right?

Then all of a sudden you think; gosh. My cheat day; I don’t know when it started. I don’t know when it ended. So I guess we’re just going to do a cheat month. Oh, now we’re in Christmas cookie season. I’m just going to keep eating all the cookies. They’re for Santa, they’re for the reindeer, we’re going to keep baking them. We’re going to have another big meal after meal after meal after party. And all the cocktails, and all the cookies. And then, next thing you know, December 25th rolls around, and you’re like; well, I have 6 more days of December. We might as well close this month out with a bang. Let’s finish off the eggnog. Let’s put an extra glug of whiskey in there. Because January 1st is just around the corner; diet starts Monday.

And then, comes January 1st. Or whatever day that falls on this year. And your living for January 1st. It’s almost like, you’re telling yourself you can have that extra cookie. Or seven. And that extra glug of whiskey, and the eggnog, and whatever else it is that your personal choice of indulging is. Maybe your indulging is not going to workout. Maybe your indulging is to not drink as much water as you know you should be, or need to be for your body to thrive and feel really great.

Maybe your indulging; you know when you say a word so often, you forget how to say it? {laughs} Maybe your indulging looks a little bit more like you’re just not eating as many fruits and vegetables as you normally do. Whatever it is. The wheels have come off. They’re all the way off, and you’re telling yourself; that’s alright. We can keep running at full speed with these wheels totally off. Because January 1st is around the corner.

Then January 1st hits, and you throw yourself into an uber-restrictive diet. An uber-restrictive program. You’re going to drink all the water. You’re going to go to bed on time. You’re going to get up and you’re going to go workout every single day. You’re going walk more. You’re going to clean your house more. You’re going to minimize your wardrobe. You kind of snowball all the things that you can do to feel better about whatever it was you weren’t doing for the last two months.

And then all of a sudden, January 2nd hits, and you’re thinking; goodness, gracious, I have committed myself to quite the laundry list of resolutions and I’m going to be betters. And then the days tick by, and you start to feel really, really bad about yourself. Because the expectations you have set for January and expecting to continue all the way into 2019 start to look a whole lot more impractical than you originally thought. You told yourself it would be over that eggnog and plate of cookies. Right? And it starts to break your heart a little bit. Because you feel like you’re breaking a promise to yourself. And that’s the worst kind of promise to break.

Then, all of a sudden, we forget about it. We say never mind. Never mind, I’m just going to go back to eating healthy. But you went through this really dramatic rollercoaster in order to get there. Maybe Valentine’s hits. Or maybe you were successful on your diet, but your dieting. You’re still not at a great place where you have a great relationship with food. It’s not intuitive.

Valentine’s hit. It’s another cheat day and as soon as valentine’s over, I’m going to rip the Band-Aid off again, because we’ve got to get bikini ready for spring break in March! You know? It’s this vicious cycle that leads you through into summer. Then I’ve got to get ready for vacations. And then I’ve got to get ready for surviving the kids being at home for the summer. And then all of a sudden the holidays are back. Halloween, and Thanksgiving, and we’re in this cycle again. And then January 1st hits, and all your hopes and promises are on that day. And then it’s hard. Really, really hard. Because you’ve put the weight of every piece of pie, every cocktail, every thing that you felt like you shouldn’t be having on that month all over again. And it’s heartbreaking.

It breaks my heart, because I’ve been there. It breaks my heart to see friends go through it. Constantly yoyo dieting. That’s essentially the definition. This is a very unabridged definition of a yoyo diet.

So, today’s episode. That was the longest introduction I’ve ever had. Today’s episode is meant for anyone listening that identifies with that cycle, and is a little nervous about it. Maybe you’re not currently thinking about it because your mind is probably on more important things, like Thanksgiving shopping lists, and what are you going to serve, and who is going over where. What are you going to wear? All very worthy things to puzzle over.

But I want to just press the pause button really quickly on this shorter episode to just encourage you to go into Thanksgiving with a different kind of mindset. And guess what? Spoiler alert, I’m not going to tell you to skip the eggnog. I’m not going to tell you to skip the cookies. In fact, I’m going to tell you the opposite. I’m going to tell you to go for it.

But I think there’s a way we can approach these holidays that will actually stop that desire to rip the Band-Aid off in January. So that’s what we’re going to talk about. In fact, the body of today’s podcast is probably going to be shorter than the introduction.

So if that resonates with you; cool. If you just heard what I described and you thought; well that’s what I do, but I love it, and it works for me. That’s also cool. You go. You go, Glenn Coco. I think that’s wonderful. Also I had a baby sitter over recently, and I made that quote, and she didn’t know what I was talking about. And then I realized; I’m an elder millennial, just like that comedian. That awesome comedian on Netflix.

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Cassy Joy: Alright, let’s get into it. So how are we going to rewrite the script this holiday, and proceed mindfully, but also be able to indulge? How is that even possible? It sounds like I’m proposing we can have our cake and eat it too, and the truth of the matter is that we can.

So, I say, in case you need it, what I want to tell you is I want to give you permission to realize that how you live through the holidays can look different than how you live in other times of the year. Right? Because in April, and May, and June, you probably are not going to 4 parties a month; plus. Four to eight parties; who knows. You may be very social. You may leave my social calendar in the dust.

Who knows how many parties you’re going to and where everyone has made a pie. You’re not going to show up at someone’s party in June, party after party after event after family gathering, whether it’s pies and cookies and cocktails, and it’s my grandmother’s favorite recipe. Right? You’re not going to be confronted with that like you are during November and December.

So because the context is different, our lives look different during the holidays. I want to give you permission to make different kinds of decisions. And it does not have to be counter to how you live your healthy lifestyle. Don’t think of November and December as time away. Or time that I’m going to make up for in January. It’s not contrary to your healthy lifestyle. It’s a part of it. And it just looks different this time of year.

It doesn’t mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. Because we had an extra slice of pie; well, forget it. I over indulged past what I said I would indulge in. And so therefore I vow to not eat anymore kale in the month of December. Or whatever your form is of baby out with the bathwater. And your healthy lifestyle.

I say; my attitude in November and December is, I’m going to enjoy the heck out of it. I’m not going to eat wheat gluten because that is where I have to draw a hard line. Because the migraines for me are not worth it. If I didn’t have migraines, and I just had a couple of stomach cramps, they might be worth it. I might go for my friend’s grandmother’s famous pie recipe.

So you have to choose that for yourself. Dairy doesn’t do super well for me, but during the holidays, you bet your bippy I’m having lots of dairy. I’m going to put that big old scoop of whipped cream on that gluten free pie, and I’m probably going to wash it down with some eggnog, with probably a touch of whiskey, as long as there are no babies living off of my body.

And so that’s how I approach the holidays. I go for it. And then I wake up, and I make myself a breakfast with kale. With fresh berries. With the things that I know make me feel great. I still drink lots of water. And I still eat foods that make me feel good. And I still do my best effort to go workout. But I’m not working out as often as I would during May and June. But I’m working out. I’m not saying; because I couldn’t go 5 times a week, I’m probably just not going to go at all. I’m not going to get down on myself. I’m going to go twice a week. If that’s what I can do, heck yeah! Good for me. I want to work out twice a week.

This week; every month of December, I average 2 workouts a week. Sometimes it was one workout a week, and I averaged 4 pieces of pie a week. That’s great. Good for me. That’s wonderful. Because that’s what December looks like for my healthy lifestyle.

And what is this mindset change that looks drastically different than; I’m going to gobble up. I’m going t punish myself by eating all the foods that I know are bad. I’m going to eat them, and it’s almost masochistic in how I’m going to keep eating all these things that I think are bad for me, and it’s contrary to how I vowed I was going to be living my life. And it’s all ok because I’ll punish myself extra hard in January by being a gym bunny, drinking all the green juice, and eating only fruits and vegetables and lean proteins and healthy fats. Right?

That does not jive for me. Because I know that’s a recipe for disaster. I know that I’m setting myself up for failure if I say I’m going to commit myself to this really flip my life on its lid; on its head kind of program. So instead, I look at November and December as; this is how my healthy lifestyle looks now. I workout less. I eat way more pie and sugar. And I indulge in lots of cocktails with my friends and my family members. I wear sparkly, glittery shoes.

And just as the seasons are different. Just as the months are cooler; it’s just a different season of my year. And it’s just different. It doesn’t mean that I have to make up for these wrong choices in January. Because they are not wrong choices. It’s like, looking at the cold air that blows in whenever you get your first cold front and telling the weather that it’s wrong. The weather is not wrong, it’s just there. It’s just a season.

So I say stop fighting it. If you’re looking to do the holidays differently, stop fighting the holidays. Embrace them. Understand that it’s ok. You have permission to indulge. And it’s ok for indulging to be a part of your healthy lifestyle. Absolutely ok 100%. It is ok for you to not think of Thanksgiving, or any other holiday occasion coming up, as a cheat. It’s just a part of it. You have permission to do this holiday season differently, and you have permission to not have to make up for it in January.

What do you do in January? You probably go to less parties with pie. They probably have less pie, and they probably have less cocktails. That’s it. You might have a slight sugar addiction. Just be mindful of that. Maybe just watch how much maple syrup you’re putting into your coffee. Realize when you get hangry and you’re craving pie at 9 p.m., it’s just because you’re coming off of a pie hangover. {laughs} But that’s it.

It doesn’t mean you have to go into crazy restrictive program. Just eat a few more vegetables. Enjoy some fruit to help you get over that hump. Detoxing from all the baked goods of the holidays. And everything is going to be fine. You’re going to start working out more because you’re going to have more time to workout. That’s it. That’s the secret. That is how you turn healthy living into a true healthy lifestyle.

That’s how, when you see these people who look so relaxed, and they never seem to diet, and they’re at the party with the plate of cookies and a glass of red wine, you look at them and you probably think; how do you do it? They do it because they just do it. It’s just a part of their lifestyle.

So I hope you found this encouraging. I hope you have a little bit of hope coming up for you this holiday season. You can do this. You really can. And relisten to this; what, we’re almost 16, 17 minutes for this episode. Relisten to it as often as you need to. You have permission to do that as well. Take some notes. Write it on a sticky note. Put it on your mirror in lipstick. Whatever you need to do, remember that you have permission to let your indulging this holiday season be a part of your narrative, not contrary to it.

I believe in you. I love you so much. Thank you for being here. Incredibly thankful for your support. I get goosebumps when I think about this is my job. I have the coolest freaking job in the world, and I get to speak to the neatest dang people on earth. You guys are the best. Thank you so much. Wishing you and yours a very happy, healthy Thanksgiving.

 



About the Author

Cassy Joy Garcia, NC

Cassy Joy Garcia, a New York Times best-selling author, of Cook Once Dinner Fix, Cook Once Eat All Week, and Fed and Fit as well as the creative force behind the popular food blog Fed & Fit.


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