3 Things You NEED to Avoid Doing this Holiday Season to Feel Better in Your Body
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I know the holiday season is HARD for those of us who struggle with our relationship with food and our body. With all the holiday treats, it’s easy to be tempted to eat way more than our body needs. This leaves us feeling sluggish and unmotivated to finish the year strong. That’s why, I want to share three things I suggest avoiding this holiday season so you can actually feel good in your body, while still enjoying your favorite holiday treats.
If you do happen to over-indulge and you experience food guilt, I have an episode for you…
Episode 185: 7 Important Reminders if You Have Food Guilt Over the Holidays
This will help you food budget and navigate the holiday treats with great ease!
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey, Hey, beautiful human. Can I steal five minutes of your time? I have something super important to share with you, but I promise I'll be really quick. You're listening to my weekly bonus episode of Embrace your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter. I'm about to give you a quick tip for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get it, let's go.
Hello, and welcome back to another bonus episode of the Embrace Your Real Podcast. Really excited about today's episode: three things you need to avoid doing this holiday season to feel better in your body. I know that the holiday season is hard for those of us who struggle with our relationship with food and body. And so that's why in this episode, I wanted to share three things that I suggest avoiding this holiday season so that you can actually feel good in your body while still enjoying your at holiday treats. But before I dive into this bonus episode, I wanted to ask you a favor. For those of you guys who've been tuning in, you're already subscribed to the podcast, you've left a review. I just ask that if you have one or two or three girlfriends or sisters or coworkers, women in your life that you feel like would really benefit from this podcast, that you share this podcast with them. You can copy the link to the podcast directly, send it to them in a text message. That is truly one of the best ways that you can bless this show.
I know so many people always ask me, "Hey, Julie, how can I help you? Is there anything that I can do?" And if you've already left a review, if you're already subscribed to the podcast, I just ask that you share it out. And if every single listener shared it with one to three people, that would make a massive difference in just helping women across the world, empower them to authentically show up as themselves and embrace their real. So please, please, please, that is my one ask of you. We are coming up on 200 episodes. I can't even believe that, but if you could share this podcast with a friend or a coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would benefit from this show, that would bless me tremendously this holiday season.
Okay, let's dive into the three things that you need to avoid doing this holiday season to feel better in your body.
Number one, getting serious in the new year. I want to encourage you to not throw out all of your healthy habits and tell yourself, "I'll get serious with them in the new year." For most of us, we are in this cycle every single year of letting go of the habits that we work so hard. The rest of the year, around the holidays, we skip our workouts, we eat all the cookies and treats, we drink all the holiday cocktails, but then when the new year comes around, we regret doing this. We're mad at ourselves for "letting our selves go". We're frustrated we can't lose the weight faster. We feel gross, unenergized, and weighed down in our bodies. So we go on some sort of diet, but that typically leads us to making us feel worse again, I not only want us to avoid this toxic cycle. I want us to break this toxic cycle this year.
So instead, I want to encourage you to stick to those healthy habits. Commit to just honoring your body for 30 minutes a day. Commit to nourishing your body with what it needs. That during the holiday season can be, "I am going to prioritize eating protein at every single meal," because that for a lot of people is something that people struggle with to eat enough of. And the beautiful thing about protein, you guys, is not only does it have so many benefits in helping us build our muscle, it also is the most satiating of the three macronutrients, which means you are going to feel fuller longer. So those are just some small things that we can commit to.
Again, it might not look like your normal schedule for the rest of the year. So maybe from January to November, you are on a schedule, very consistent schedule, but maybe during December, you're traveling, you're going to different houses, you're going to the in-laws, you're going to your family's house, you're going to your friends' houses, holiday parties, all of those things. So instead, I want you to look at the month of December and say, "Okay, how can I show up this month? My routine might look a little different, but I'm going to try and stick to this modified December routine that will still allow me to feel my best."
Tip number two, overindulging. Overindulging and enjoying treats over the holidays are two total separate things. Let me say that again. Overindulging and enjoying treats over the holidays are two separate things. I am a huge advocate for eating the foods that you want over the holidays and never depriving yourself of the holiday treats that you love, but I am not an advocate for completely overindulging because here's the thing. You can enjoy favorite treats without overindulging. You can have one or two Christmas cookies and still reach your goals. You can have that cup of hot chocolate and still reach your goals. It's all about moderation.
You can actually fit work treats into your macros. When you do, you're still getting enough protein, carbs, and fats that your body needs, but those protein, carbs, and fats include the holiday treats. So if you're struggling with overindulging, I highly suggest that you just take a look at what your body needs to function at its optimum, because I know in my particular story, when I started eating what my body needed, the amount of protein, carbs and fats, I was less likely to overindulge. That doesn't mean wasn't still enjoying my favorite foods though. I was completely enjoying all of my favorite foods in moderation, but I just didn't have the urge to overindulge because I was properly fueling my body.
And so when you are educated about that and when you know what your body needs, in terms of protein, carbs, and fats and overall calories, it becomes a lot easier to be able to nourish your body, but still eat the foods that you love so that you can get to January 1st and not feel gross in your body. You can get through the holidays, enjoy the foods in moderation, and not come to the new year, completely discouraged because you completely fell off track.
If you're interested about learning more about macro counting, I do have an online course. It's called the Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy. We have a huge discount going on right now through the month of December. You are not going to want to miss it. It's 50% off. Yes, I said 50% off. So go to macrocountingmadesimple.com. You can learn all about it. And in that course, we are literally going to teach you everything that you need to know.
And just remember this, macro counting is a tool in your toolbox. It's going to help empower you around food. It's going to teach you the fundamental things about nutrition. This is not a diet. This is empowering you about nutrition so that you can make food choices that both honor your body, bless your body, but are delicious, and you are not depriving yourself of food because it's not making you go on an all-or-nothing diet. It's not making you eat a significantly less amount of calories than your body needs, thus, you wanting to overindulge or you feeling the urge to overindulge. Again, if you're interested, go to macrocountingmadesimple.com. I will link that in the show notes below.
And reminder number three, not allowing yourself to enjoy your favorite foods. Food restriction leads to overindulging, plain and simple. When you don't give yourself permission to eat your favorite holiday treats, your craving will only build, build, build, more and more and more, until you eventually cannot take it anymore. And then you completely overindulge and stuff your face.
Here's the thing. If you would've given yourself permission to eat whatever treats you wanted in the first place, when you wanted them, you wouldn't feel the need to stuff your face because you know you can have more treats whenever you want them. Like I said, overindulging and enjoying treats over the holidays are two separate things. You can eat the foods you love without overindulging. And if you think you can't, it's likely because you are not giving yourself permission to eat your favorite foods in moderation. The more permission you give yourself, the more control you have, and you won't feel the need to completely deprive yourself.
Remember, your results ultimately depend on what you do 80% of the time. You have 20% of wiggle room to fricking enjoy yourself. You don't need to eat perfectly to see results. That's not realistic. It's about what you do 80% of the time. So if you eat a few holiday cookies, you don't need to toss in the towel and give up and stuff your face with an entire batch of holiday cookies. You don't need to punish yourself by depriving yourself of food or working out for hours on it. You just need to return back to nourishing your body at each meal. It's that simple. And like I said, really prioritizing protein at each meal. Having about 25 to 30 grams of protein at each meal will make a significant difference in you feeling fully satiated and making sure that you're getting enough protein.
Let me quickly recap those three things that you need to avoid doing this holiday season to feel better in your body.
Number one, do not get "serious" January 1st. Instead, I encourage you to stick to your healthy habits, even if you stick with them in perfection. Remember that consistency trumps perfection every time. If you need to modify and make a December routine that you're going to try to stick to, that is modified than your normal routine, that's amazing. That will allow you the structure to still be able to do what you can with what you have.
Reminder number two, do not overindulge. This will not make you feel good long term. Instead, I encourage you to fit your favorite treats in moderation into your daily intake according to what your macros need. That is going to allow you to feel your best. And yes, there's going to be times, holiday parties, maybe on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, that you're not going to count your macros. I talked about this in my last episode. There are times where memories are way more important than macros, and that's really important to remember. But there's also times that you can eat in moderation and still reach your macros and feel both like you are satisfying yourself by eating the holiday treats that you love and still honoring your body with nutrition.
And reminder number three, do not deprive yourself. Remember that deprivation leads to overconsumption. So I want you to give yourself permission to eat the foods that you want when you want them so that you won't feel the need to stuff your face. If you do happen to overindulge and experience food guilt, I have an episode for you. Episode 185 that I actually just recorded; Seven Important Reminders if You Have Food Guilt Over the Holidays, I've linked it in the show notes that you can easily go listen now.
Also, if you are interested in learning how to properly fuel your body through the tool of macro counting, my course Macro Counting Made Simple for the month of December is 50. Yes, 50% off, and we will customize your macros for you. We teach you everything that you need to know so that you can feel empowered around food because when you are empowered around food, it truly does change things. I will link that in the show notes, or you can go to macrocountingmadesimple.com.
Thank you so much for tuning in. I hope that this episode helped you. I hope that you learn something from it or got something from it. If you did, be sure to screenshot this, post it up on your story. Tag me, Julia Ledbetter. I love seeing what you guys learn from these episodes. Thank you again for tuning in, and I'll talk to you in the next one.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the Gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.