episode 108: how to enjoy the holiday week, not just survive it

Dec 26

Today’s shortie episode is all about how to get through this holiday week which often feels like a black hole where we don’t know what day or time it is and lack all sense of structure or routine, wondering “am I addicted to sugar?”

You may have a tendency to go into that all or nothing place and say screw it, I’ll get my act together next week, but in today’s episode I talk about why that may ultimately make things harder for you in the long run.

Here’s what we’re talking about in Episode 108 of The Movement Diaries.

A simple yet powerful analogy that will get you re thinking the “eff it” mindset around food this week
How to maintain structure will still feeling like you’re getting a break over the holidays
The question that can help you stop emotionally reacting and start thoughtfully responding

This blog post talks through some key skills that will be super helpful as you navigate the holiday week.

Hi friends. It's episode 108 of The Movement Diaries. Today is the last time that I will ever say that because as of next Monday, January 2nd, we'll be officially in the Diet Diaries era. And it'll continue on. It'll be episode 109. I'm not starting from the beginning, I'm just updating, refreshing. So when you get your, when you go to listen next week, you will see the new artwork and the new name and all of that moving forward.
So just a reminder that that is coming. So I recorded this entire episode and then realized after the fact that my microphone was on mute. So I went to play it back and there was no sound. The good news is it's a shorty episode, so it's not a huge deal to rerecord it, and I would've, even if it was a long episode, I would've redone it.
It just works in my favor that it happened to be a shorter episode. And so what I wanna talk about today is this week, right? If you're listening on the day that this goes live, which is Monday, December 26th yesterday was Christmas. Hanukkah just finished. If you have kids, they're definitely off of school and a lot of people are off work or have different hours or just, you know, not as much going on.
And if you're someone who is working, if you're, a doctor, a nurse, a firefighter, a cop, anything where you don't [00:02:00] get this time off, thank you for doing the work that you do and all the other people that I did not mention. All of you, I recognize that not everybody has a corporate job and gets time off this week.
So thank you for your work and for being there when the rest of us don't have to be. Um, all that said, a lot of times people will refer to this week as like this black hole, not knowing what day it is, what time it is, what's going on, because things are just off, right? It's just everything is different right now and when that happens, it tends to throw off everything.
When our schedule's different and our, we don't have that structure that we're used to. It tends to make everything else harder, including food, including exercise. And then layer on top of that, the fact that there's all these leftovers around it's holidays. You probably, you know, New Year's Eve is coming up.
You might have some plans for that. And so it's very easy to get into this all or nothing place where it's like, you know what? This week is already kind of shot. I'll just reset next week. I don't feel like putting in the work. Everything's a mess. I can't control everything. We're going here, we're going there.
The kids are home, there's stuff all over the place. [00:03:00] There's leftovers everywhere. I'm just gonna like, I don't wanna deal with it. And then that's gonna make next week really hard on you.
So I want this episode to be about just giving you a chance to think about what can I do this week right now that will help make next week easier and better for myself. Can I think about my future self?
And that can really be as simple as thinking about one to two actions. It could be around food, it could be around exercise. It could be around some part of your routine or your schedule.
Something to keep you grounded that you can kind of anchor to so that when next Monday or Tuesday rolls around, whatever day it is for you, where you kind of get back to your usual routine, it's not like jumping in a cold shower. It's not like a shock to the system because you've maintained a couple of things.
So it's kind of like striking that balance between like enjoying the downtime and kind of taking a break. Because let's be [00:04:00] honest, a big part of progress is taking breaks from time to time, but taking a break does not mean that it becomes like a free for all where you say, oh, I'm taking a break, so I'm just gonna go and like do whatever I want.
It means kind of like dialing back on certain things. Whether that's in frequency or intensity, there's lots of different ways to kind of think about that, but it's not, again, it's moving away from that. I'm either doing everything or I'm doing nothing place. And there's a really great analogy out there around this.
I didn't come up with this, but I think it's super useful and I wanted to mention it specifically in this episode. And that's the car tire analogy. So imagine you get a flat tire, you wouldn't go and then slash your other four tires and say, well, one tire shot, I might as well just get rid of the rest and get all new tires and just start over.
No, you'd leave the other tires alone and you'd fix the tire that was broken. It's the same thing when it comes to our mindset around food and exercise. We tend to think if [00:05:00] we have one meal or one day, or even one week or even longer, that is "off" where we're not doing what we usually do. We're not taking action in alignment with our values.
We're not taking action in alignment with our goals. That's like, we'll just fuck it. I'm just gonna keep going. I'm just gonna keep doing this. And I feel like this week, this holiday week, it can be very easy to fall into that. Um, for all the reasons that I've kind of already shared around being off routine kids, school, food, all of this stuff.
And then you kind of think to yourself, I'll just deal with it next week. I'll just quote, get back on track next week. But it is gonna be so much harder to do that if you've let go of everything that feels good for you and that you know you need to do, now, this week. So what are a couple of things that you can think about?
I'm gonna just throw off some random ideas. These may or may not feel relevant to you, but I'll just give you a sense of like, what to think about. [00:06:00] Closing the door over here. Cause I hear Izzy barking downstairs. She woke up at one o'clock today, one o'clock in the afternoon. That's a 14 and a half year old dog for you.
So it could be around, I'm gonna try and have protein every day at breakfast. I'm going to walk three days this week. I'm going to set my alarm and get up at the same time every day this week. Maybe it's not as early as you normally would, but instead of just like getting up at random times, you keep that structure for yourself so you can kind of put some parameters around your day.
Maybe you're continuing to read for 15 minutes every night before bed. Something to give you structure. That can be grounding, that can anchor you, that you can kind of rely on to just feel more familiar and kind of comfortable. In a week that often feels chaotic and just off and again, like what day is it?
What time is it? I don't know. Where are we going? What's happening? These can be, this can be really, really useful behaviors. Um, and a question that you can kind of ask yourself, right? We, we need to [00:07:00] pause. The tendency is just to have a thought or have a situation and boom, we react on, on autopilot automatically, we have a response to that thing.
And so much of this work around what I'm talking about this week and around sort of these bigger picture things that I talk about in other episodes around social media and emails or whatever is around pausing and giving yourself the space to make an intentional choice versus reacting and acting on autopilot.
And so a way to do this, and again this, I'm talking specifically about kind of this holiday week, but this applies to anything, is to pause and ask yourself, what would be the next wise or smart choice for me? And I really love that question. I will tell you that when I recorded the original episode, I started off by saying what would be the next right choice for me?
And I don't like the word right, because it's like right versus wrong. And then again, that tends to go into that all or nothing place. So I like this idea of smart or wise. And again, it's totally [00:08:00] personalized for you. What's smart for you might not be smart for someone else and vice versa. And that's where I think right or right choice can kind of get a little murky and feeling like it's very polarizing.
So when you think about, let's say you've got like a ton of leftover Christmas cookies in your house or latkes , as is the case in our house and we have a ton of dessert. So I'm recording this on Monday, December 19th, a week in advance. We hosted our family Hanukkah party this weekend you know, people do the thing, they bring their desserts.
Like, I don't wanna take it home. I don't wanna take it home. I don't wanna, I can't have that in my house. You know, you guys know the drill, which is another episode for another day. It's because nobody has the skills to have this stuff around and not feel consumed and obsessed with it, and either eat it all or feel compelled to throw it all away.
And sometimes that is needed, especially if this is new to you. Throwing it away can absolutely be a tool, but for that to be the only way that you ever have to deal with this, that's kind of a, a bigger thing, separate episode. So we have a lot of stuff sitting around. And even though I'm not kind of in this holiday [00:09:00] week, some of this stuff is still gonna be around.
I mean, I'll probably have frozen it or tossed it by that point because it won't really be good anymore. But it's like we have all this stuff around and if I want something, I'm saying to myself, well, what's the next smart choice for me? Right? If I'm hungry and I open the fridge and I see, oh, there's like a giant tub of Cool Whip, or this leftover dessert and whatever the other things.
Is it really smart for me to grab that when I'm hungry or do I need to make like a, whether it's a meal or a snack with like a protein, a fat, and a carb, and then go and have that sweet thing as a dessert? It's a really helpful question to ask yourself. What is the next smart thing that I can do?
And what I love about this also is it kind of takes away the all or nothing thing. It gives us a space where we can do something differently. Kind of immediately. We don't have to wait for like the next day or the next week, or January 1st or whatever, you know, in terms of like a New Year's thing or you know, next Monday or January 2nd or [00:10:00] third, because that's the day you go back to school or work.
It's just what's the next thing that I can do that's smart or wise for me. And keeping that in mind and taking action on that along the way, not only is like an amazing kind of big picture approach and strategy, but in the context of this often challenging week can pull you out of that all or nothing place and know that those little things matter and know that you have a choice so that next week you're not left in this place of like, oh my God, I have to do all the things now.
I have to eat all the protein and all the vegetables and do all the exercise and go to bed early and, and all of the things to feel like you're getting back.
What is the next smart choice can help you take some of those actions, just one or two, like now this week. Um, and you'll just feel so much better for it. Like it doesn't feel good. It's sometimes hard enough to feel like you have no schedule. If you have kids and the kids are off school and your work schedule, if that can be really unsettling for a lot of people.[00:11:00]
And so what can you do to maintain some element just enough, like a little sprinkle to help you feel grounded so that you can continue to make choices that feel good. And again, this isn't about like, oh, you can never like take a break. Of course you can take a break. But what is taking a break? Taking a break is not like swinging in the other direction and doing all these kind of extreme things that are really counterproductive to what you're wanting to do.
It's just dialing back a little bit on the intensity, the frequency with which maybe you're doing a certain thing. Maybe you're working out less, maybe you're not really being so structured on having protein at every meal. Maybe it's one meal a day, you know, this week. Things like that. So I think I'm gonna wrap it up here.
I remember the other episode finished up right around like 11 something minutes and here we are. Um, thank you for listening. Happy holidays. Happy New Year. I wish you a peaceful and healthy start to 2023. You being here means everything to me and, um, looking forward to [00:12:00] just being connected and sharing more soon.