episode 153: stop planning a january juice cleanse
The holidays are here again. Time is the craziest thing, isn’t it?
So many of us head into the next 6-7 weeks stressed about all of the parties, holiday dinners, family gatherings, school events. Thinking about what to wear for everything brings up a lot of body image issues and makes you question your body confidence. We’re worried about getting off track, gaining weight and sometimes just feel like the easiest way is to say screw it, I’ll just deal with it all in January and do a diet.
But you’ve done that before and here you are again a year later still feeling the same kind of way about things.
How can you boost your body confidence this holiday season?
Today’s episode is talking about a different way to approach the holidays. I offer some specific skills and strategies that you can use everyday to move through the next 6 weeks feeling great, not just counting the days till its over.
I also talk through Nourishing Notes which is my free 6 week email support program. Each week has a specific theme and you’ll get 3 emails over the course of the week with simple skills you can use right away to help navigate stress around weight gain, over eating, getting dressed for parties and more. The 6 weekly themes are:
Mindset
Nutrition
Body image
Exercise
Emotional eating/cravings
Behaviors
Click here to sign up—it’s totally free.
For more support with body confidence and negative body image, check out episodes 139 and 151 of The Diet Diaries.
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[00:00:00] Hey friends, it's episode 153 of The Diet Diaries. Um, this episode gets published on Monday, November 13th. So we're getting pretty close into the holidays now, which is crazy. We see this every year. Time is, I don't know, time is like a mindfuck sometimes, you guys. Like, I just, I don't know. Um, it's wild. I think we all experience that as humans.
[00:00:33] Um, it's like we are rushing to get through our days and get things done, and we're like, Waiting for stressful times of our lives to be over, but then yet it's like the same time we're kind of like rushing things by and it's like literally our life is passing before our eyes as we're waiting for something to be done or dreading for this time to be over.
[00:00:51] Um, anyway, those are my musings on time today. Thanks for listening to my TED talk. Um, so I wanted to talk today about nourishing notes, um, but I also just kind of wanted to talk about the holidays in general. Um, so Thanksgiving is next week, and then we're rolling into Hanukkah and Christmas and New Year's and school breaks and holiday parties and family dinners and dinners out, and there's just more food around in general.
[00:01:22] There are more food centered focused events. It seems kind of like every weekend there is something. Um. And the holidays, we're told, are supposed to be like this joyous time of year, right? Some people love the holidays, some people hate the holidays for lots of different reasons, not getting into all of that today.
[00:01:39] Either way, we all have to get through them, right? And There's, collectively, for a lot of people, I hear this, I have felt this myself, a lot of stress and anxiety around food, around fear of gaining weight, around drinking too much, around being out of your routine. Um, and it's, it's a lot. And again, at a time when we want to be hopefully enjoying the holidays.
[00:02:02] And enjoying, whether work time off or school time off, if you have kids, it tends to kind of be the opposite. It tends to be the stressful thing. We're like, let's just get it over with. And we tend to have that, right? Because then it's also coming into like the new year, right? In the New Year's resolution thing, we tend to have that, let me just get through this and then I'll deal with it in January.
[00:02:19] I'll start over in January. I'll be good in January. I'll start eating clean in January. I'll reset in January. It becomes this period of time that we're just trying to get through. Except here we are, another year has passed, I did the first round of nourishing notes a year ago. And it's like, oh my god, here we are again.
[00:02:36] We're still talking about the same things, and that's okay, because we're humans and we're always going to have these challenges. But we want to try to be making progress. We want to be trying to be giving ourselves more skills to cope through this. That's each year as the holidays come, it's less about, oh my god, I just have to survive this.
[00:02:52] And, okay, I feel confident that I can navigate these challenges and try to enjoy this as much as I can. Um, what I will say is that, you know, I talk a lot about skills. That's basically my entire ethos around coaching is learning skills so that you can feel at ease around food and your body. Not following rules, not being rigid, not going all or nothing, but learning skills.
[00:03:16] Now, There are certain times of the year when learning skills are definitely gonna be harder than others, and this is one of them. So I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that between now and January 1st, you're gonna learn the skills to cope with emotional eating, to not overeat at meals, to feel comfortable having lots of sweets and leftovers around your house.
[00:03:36] No, that's not realistic. What is realistic is maybe focusing and honing in on one to two skills. Um, that feel doable that are maybe building on something that you've already been working on where you kind of lean into what might already be working for you. And even if that doesn't feel doable, I think one thing that we can all always work on is how we talk to ourselves.
[00:04:06] Right, we have a lot of negative self talk that's going to come up around how we're eating, how we're feeling in our bodies, how we look. There's a lot of like events and parties and things where you have to get dressed up more than usual and you're looking for outfits. And so there's going to be a lot of stuff that's going to come up.
[00:04:22] And the way that you respond to those thoughts. It's absolutely something that you can work on. Just noticing what is the language you're using to talk to yourself when you're putting on an outfit for a holiday party, when you've noticed that you've eaten more cookies than you wanted to. Are you being cruel to yourself?
[00:04:40] Are you beating yourself up? Are you swearing off something? Are you going to punish yourself with some future behavior? Or are you noticing it and saying, okay, I'm noticing how I'm talking to myself. There are those thoughts again. Here's what I'm going to do next. I am worthy of love and kindness. Um, I care about myself.
[00:05:02] I wouldn't talk to someone that I love this way. Here is the next thing I'm going to do to take care of myself. Not to punish myself, not to be cruel to myself, not to beat myself into submission to try to motivate myself by being mean to myself, but to be kind, right? That I believe is something that we can work on.
[00:05:20] all the time. It doesn't mean that the negative, harsh, cruel thoughts are not going to come up. They are because that's what our brains, that's how they are wired. That's how they know to respond. But then you get to respond to those thoughts and that's where the opportunity is. So I wanted to kind of just share that overall.
[00:05:40] Um, and just notice if you're, if you're hanging on to a lot of rigid all or nothing thinking. Are you going to the holidays saying, Oh fuck it, I'm just going to eat whatever I want for the next six weeks and then I'll go on a diet in January. I get it. I get that there's a certain amount, that in a way kind of feels easy.
[00:05:58] Then you don't have to make any decisions, you don't have to think about it, you've just already decided up front, this is what I'm doing and I'll deal with it in January. But when January rolls around, how are you going to be treating yourself? Is that going to be with kindness? Is that going to be, is that the way you're going to eat in January, a form of self care?
[00:06:13] Or is it going to be a form of punishment for everything you ate the last six weeks? Um, And again, that's not to say that like every meal that comes in front of you, that you are going to feel confident in the skills to like make a decision about everything that's in front of you. I get it. You may need to go in with more structure.
[00:06:31] You may need to go in with more guidelines than usual this time of year. That's totally okay. But there's a difference between structure and guidelines and complete abstract black, er, not abstract, concrete black and white all or nothing thinking. And you know the difference because you know if it's coming from a place of restriction and fear or is it coming from a place of care and support, right?
[00:06:57] A behavior, a guideline can look the same on the outside, but be done for two very, very different reasons. So, and only you know why you are doing that thing. Um, but you've really got to be honest with yourself because I will tell you unequivocally, I will speak in absolutes. If you go into the holidays saying, fuck it, I'm just going to eat whatever I want because I just, want to, quote, enjoy it.
[00:07:20] Although when you eat whatever you want and feel like shit, you're not really enjoying it. You're going to feel pretty gross. Um, and I'll deal with it in January. That is not going to go well. That is all or nothing. Yo yo dieting. Um. thinking and behavior and it's gonna backfire. So you're gonna go on that diet in January, a few weeks in, you're gonna be like, God, this sucks.
[00:07:40] Whatever you're doing, whatever extreme behavior you're doing to make up for what you just did the last six weeks, it's not gonna be sustainable. Just like saying, fuck it, I'm gonna eat everything I want for the next six weeks isn't sustainable, right? Nobody wants to live like that. Nobody wants to just say, fuck it, I'm gonna eat whatever I want because we're so afraid of the food and we don't have the skills.
[00:08:00] We want to be able to make those choices. So just if you notice yourself going into the holidays without all or nothing thinking, just notice that. Can you shift the language? Can you speak kindly to yourself? Can you say, I'm nervous about going to the holidays. I'm kind of scared about how much I might eat.
[00:08:16] I'm scared of gaining weight. And then acknowledge that, hold space for it, be kind to yourself. Accept that those thoughts are there. And then pick one thing to take action on. Maybe it's focusing on protein. Maybe it's focusing on going for X number of walks a week. Maybe it's focusing on having a consistent bedtime.
[00:08:34] Pick one, literally one. I just listed off three things. Pick one of those or one of any other ideas that you come up with and do that. So that you have something in place, you are grounded, you have a skill you are working on, so that it's not all or nothing. Um, that is doable. Practicing one thing is absolutely doable.
[00:08:55] Um, because there's a range of what that one thing could be. So, I kind of wanted to just walk through that a little bit. Give you some support let you know that I see you if you are having these thoughts if you're afraid if you're stressed if you're Worried about gaining weight and what you're gonna eat.
[00:09:10] I get it. It is totally normal. It's okay Be kind to yourself and how you respond to those thoughts. You don't have to just, quote, give in to them. They don't have to run your world and run your life. Um, and so that's part of the, not part, probably the main reason why I created Nourishing Notes. Last year we did a daily email for 30 days.
[00:09:33] So it stopped before Christmas and New Year's. And, Like, over 40 people signed up, I got so much great feedback, so I did, um, a body image edition coming into summer, which was also a daily email for 30 days. And I changed that. I kind of did a weekly theme and I did a recap each week to try and make it a little bit tighter.
[00:09:51] And now we're coming in a year later, because there we are, time doing its thing. And I decided to make it longer, but less emails. So I decided to, we're starting Monday, November 20th, a week from today. We're going to run through January 1st. We're going to go all the way through New Year's. Because last year we stopped before Christmas and that left off winter break, which can be really a really tough time if you've got kids and your kids are out of school and you're way out of your routine.
[00:10:17] Maybe you're traveling, you've got house guests, you're trying to fill the days and food is like all over the place. Your workout routine is all over the place. Maybe you're trying to cram in work here and there. Who knows what's happening with meals? Like it's the wild west out there. So let's get support this year all the way through that time period.
[00:10:33] But daily emails can be a lot. I think that they, I think for some people it's awesome, and for some people maybe not so awesome, and you can always choose what you open and read. But I decided to do three emails a week. Probably gonna be a Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It could be like a Monday, Wednesday, Saturday.
[00:10:46] We'll see. Three emails a week, and each week is gonna have a theme. So it's going to be really focused. I did that again for the body edition in last summer. So we're going to carry that through because I think it's a lot more helpful for each email in the week to be focused on one specific topic. So the first week, which is the week of November 20th, that is Thanksgiving week, is going to be about mindset.
[00:11:08] And I'll tell you, I've already worked on the content for this. We're going to be talking about all or nothing thinking, the kind of thoughts and behaviors around Good food and bad food or being good and being bad and then the story that we tell ourselves around having no control around food Right. So one email each around each of those topics which all kind of like intersect with each other Week two is going to be about nutrition One day about protein, one day about veggies, one day about meals versus snacks.
[00:11:37] Again, so they're all going to build on each other. Week three is going to be about body image. Week four is going to be about exercise. Week five is going to be about emotional eating and cravings. And week six, which is going to be the last week of the year, so basically winter break year going into January 1st, are going to be about um, kind of behaviors.
[00:11:56] How we think about sustainability, how we think about repetition, how we think about consistency. and how you're kind of thinking about moving into 2024. Um, and as always, like you can reply back, I'm here and this is totally free, right? This is like my gift to you guys. I love writing these, I love creating this content.
[00:12:14] It's good for me, right? I still have to work on all these skills. Um, and it's just nice to have the support. It's nice to not be alone. I don't want you to walk into January feeling like your only option. is to do a juice cleanse or to do some hardcore restrictive diet and be miserable, and to feel like you have to make up or pay for what you just ate the last six weeks.
[00:12:36] That's not a fun way to start the year. Whether you're a resolutions person or not, that's not a fun way to start anything or ever do anything. But going into a new year where very often if you if you don't start resolutions, there's a sense of like renewal and newness. For a lot of people that clean slate idea can be really helpful.
[00:12:52] There's some research that backs that up. So you want to go into the new year feeling good, speaking kindly to yourself, having some sustainable skills. Mapped out that you can work on. Not going into this all or nothing place. Not feeling guilt and shame for what you've eaten in the last six weeks. Not feeling like shit in your clothes, putting on your pants and being like, oh my god, everything feels tight.
[00:13:18] That sucks too. And so there is a way to move through the holidays, speaking kindly to yourself, and feeling good, enjoying all the special foods that come around, without feeling like Oh, my God, I have to eat everything right now without feeling like I'll just deal with it in January. Um, it's in that gray area that we talk about.
[00:13:41] So that's really what I wanted to share today. I'm going to keep it short. Um, reach out if you've got questions. There's a link in the show notes. To sign up for Nourishing Notes, registration will be open. I mean, you can really join it anytime. I probably won't close it. Um, so if you want to join after it's started, it's totally fine.
[00:13:56] You'll just miss out on those, you know, the emails that came before. Um, but again, it's totally free. Share with any friends or family that you think could use the support. And thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Um, I will be back, of course, next week. And, um, yeah, that's it for today.