Balancing Looking After Your Health and Enjoying the Christmas Holidays

Ready to enjoy the festive season without compromising your health and well-being?

In this episode, I guide you through maintaining a balanced lifestyle during the extended holiday season. You can fully engage in the celebrations, while still making informed decisions about your food and alcohol intake.

Say goodbye to the shame spiral that often follows overindulgence, as I'll be sharing strategies to avoid falling into this trap. This episode is all about helping you prioritise self-care and make wiser conscious choices during the festive season.

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Learn more about Fiona's speaking, radio and consultation services at Informed Health: https://informedhealth.com.au/

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Credit for the music used in this podcast:

The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:32

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection podcast with Fiona Kane. I'm your host, fiona Kane, and today I'm going to be talking about Christmas and the Christmas season, particularly in Australia, because in Australia we do have a long season because it's our summer holidays. So it might only be a short season for you guys in the Northern Hemisphere, but for us here in Australia it is a long season and it's parties pretty much from we start having Christmas parties in November through December and then we have Australia Day at the end of January, so then school goes back. So there tends to be this kind of anywhere from four to eight week period where we party over the summer and over the Christmas period, and that can be quite challenging from a health perspective. So I'm just going to talk about some tips in regards to that today. Firstly, I would say enjoy your Christmas. This isn't about being the Christmas Grinch or telling you you can't enjoy yourself or can't enjoy yummy food or anything like that. Not at all. Just some, just general tips to help you to manage yourself over the over the season. Because if you think about it, if you, what often happens is is we do the all or nothing thing right, and because we do the all or nothing thing when we decide we're off the diet or we're off track or whatever the language we use around it. Once we decide we're off, we often go all out like, all off. It's just like we do everything. So the problem is that if we do that and if we kind of go off and then we stay off four to eight weeks over once a year, that can do a lot of damage to your health in that time. So you know, having a few days here or there where you over and dulls, no big deal, but being sort of off like and just deciding that you know, with health we're on or we're off, and when we're off we just trash ourselves. It's a weird phenomena anyway that we do that and so we can do a lot of damage over that time. So the first tip that I have really is to you're not on or off, it's only ever about your next choice.

Speaker 1: 2:41

And Christmas time isn't just another reason to trash yourself. It is a time of celebration and whatever you, whatever your however, you celebrate that. Whatever your beliefs are around. That that's fine, but essentially it's a time of often coming together with our family, and celebrating Now is food and alcohol and things like that. Part of that, yes, of course. It's just that we have to consider that it's just another day and our body still needs to be looked after. So, whether it's Christmas season or whether it's not Christmas season, or whether it's Monday or whether it's Friday or whether it's Sunday, it's still we need to look after our bodies. It's not like, oh, it clocks off for the weekend and over the weekend we don't need to look after ourselves. So we just have this all nothing thing, all this kind of decision that this day we don't look after ourselves and that day we do. In saying that Christmas or weekends or whatever you know I might, I tend to be more relaxed and I'll be more likely to have something, has some chocolate or have some ice cream or whatever, it's fine, but I also don't give up everything else that's good for me at that time as well. So so just be aware of that.

Speaker 1: 3:53

If we have this all or nothing attitude, then when we sort of have a few drinks or when we eat that box of chocolates, or when we indulge, when we feel like we've overindulged, often we just just plumber into this abyss of just self sabotage, and I think one of the reasons that happens as well. One is because we have now mind that we're on or we're off. We're not on or we're off, we're just. It's only ever about your next choice, your next meal choice, whether or not you're going to go to the gym or go for a walk, or whether you can have protein with that next meal, or whether you're drinking enough water. It's only ever about your next choice. But secondly is because so much, so many of us have so much shame around food and we've been and the being on and off, and they're feeling like we're not good enough, all that sort of stuff is when we do transgress, when we do eat, the thing that overindulged, the thing that triggers the shame for us, then we go into the shame spiral and then shame spiral. Often we use food, we do the emotional eating and we use food to manage our shame spiral. So you can see that just going on and on and on right, that's just a self fulfilling round and round. So all I can do, so what I would say to you is yeah, just, you're not on, you're not off, it's only about your next choice.

Speaker 1: 5:14

What I encourage my clients to do over the Christmas period or the holiday period is just to be conscious. Being conscious simply means that you will say all right, I am going to three or four parties this week. You might ensure that you're reading really, really well in between that on the other days, and you might be having smaller meals, if you know you're going to a party and you're going to be drinking a lot, or you're going to be eating a lot of food that you don't normally have a lot of. So it's just like you monitor it and not stress about it, not obsess about it, just monitor it and say, okay, I'm going to make sure that I drink plenty of water for the next few days, I'm going to have protein with every meal, I'm going to eat plenty of veggies, and so I can enjoy myself at these parties. I'm still going to go for a walk or go to the gym, go for a swim, whatever it is, I'm still going to look after myself. In between, when you go to the parties, you might say, all right, well, I'm going to go three parties, I might only drink two of them, or if you want to drink all of them, that's your choice. It's all a choice. But then you might say, all right, what I will do is I will have a glass of water in between each drink and that will slow me down, keep me hydrated and I'll probably have less drinks at the end of the night, because if there's a glass of water in between each one, you'd usually be having less right. Save money too. Just might be strategies like that.

Speaker 1: 6:39

Or it might be saying that I know that at Christmas time I really love pudding. I don't, but I know a lot of people who do. I like eating chocolates or I like eating pavlova or whatever it is, whatever your traditional Christmas food is Might be saying I really like those things or I really want those things, so have them, that's fine, have them, but don't have them. And 12 beers and a whole bag of chips and this and that and 20 other things, right. So it's kind of choose the things that I will feel really happy if I get to have a Nana's pavlova or whatever it is, and when I have that, I really enjoy it and I feel really good and it reminds me of all these beautiful memories and things like that. That's what Christmas is about, whatever it is, whatever that story is for you do that, enjoy that, but you don't need to do that plus 50 other things on the same day.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Or, if you do, if you just have a big day where you're just completely overindulged, I would say the next day, back right off, drink plenty of water, look after yourself, right? So it's just about getting that balance right. If it's only ever about the next choice, you can always make a different choice for your next choice. And just because you may or may not have trashed yourself earlier doesn't mean you need to just stay on trash mode, right? So it's just about that sort of mindset of saying, okay, I'm a grown-up, I can make decisions, I will stay conscious, I can do what I like. However, I do live with the consequences of that. So just deciding how many consequences you do or don't want, what's worthwhile to you, what's not, and just managing your health in between, that, right. So it's just, if we're conscious, we just make conscious decisions and also we're less likely to feel shame, right?

Speaker 1: 8:27

So if you say, whatever I'm going to do, I'm going to go to the party but I'm not going to eat anything bad because I'm being good, and all of this language, that if you've heard any of my podcasts, you know I talk about language a lot, and the problem? The problem is associated with being bad and being good. Anyway, if you go to a party with that in mind and then you, you know, you crash yourself for you uh, indulge or you do whatever it is that makes you feel like you've fallen off the wagon or gone off track, then you are more likely to feel a whole lot of shame around that right and that's going to lead to the shame spiral. Whereas if you go to the party and you kind of know, look, I'm going to be, all these things are going to be around me, how am I going to manage this? Um, now, you could eat really, really well before you go, so that you're not hungry. That is an option, and that mail may not work for you. Or you go and you choose what you're going to indulge in and you really, really enjoy it. And you do that. You enjoy it, you eat it. That's fine, but there's no shame attached to it because you consciously chose that right.

Speaker 1: 9:26

So a lot of this is it's not necessarily about what you do, it's the attitude you have around it, it's your thought process around it. So, essentially, if you say I'm not going to trash myself, I'm going to largely nourish myself over the holiday season and Christmas season. However, I really want to enjoy myself as well, and this is what enjoying myself looks like. And you just plan that right and knowing that next choice is, or you can always make a better choice or a different choice next time. There's no reason that just because it's that's the silly season, that we can't generally look after ourselves, because you're going to enjoy the season more actually if you feel better, because if you feel hungover for the whole, like for a month, that's not an enjoyable feeling, I would argue. It's not an enjoyable feeling. Anyway, that's just my choice.

Speaker 1: 10:11

The other thing is in regards to the alcohol. I would just say look, I haven't had alcohol for 29 years, so you know I do without it. Now, I'm not saying that you can't drink or you shouldn't drink. I didn't stop drinking from any moral reason. That's just my health wasn't coping with it, right. But what I would say is a lot of people say to me oh, you have to drink, or someone bought me the drinks, or I had to drink, and that's just not true, right. Again, it's a choice and it's nothing wrong.

Speaker 1: 10:40

Like you, make your own choice. You're an adult, so you choose whatever is right for you, but don't justify around. I had to, you don't have to, you choose to Right, so so you choose to drink. You do that consciously, you enjoy it and you know and you're sensible around it. You don't drink and drive whatever you know.

Speaker 1: 10:59

Fine, or you choose not to, or you choose how much you're going to have to drink, but don't don't pretend that it's not a choice, because ultimately it is a choice. And if you do that, then what tends to happen is we hang around a lot of people. If you are sort of a very social person different social groups, everywhere you go people will be handing you things or saying, oh here I have a drink, or whatever, and you will apparently have to do everything and eat everything and drink everything they offer you. No, you don't Right. So just be a grown up around that and kind of make your own choice and that's fine, it's your choice, not wrong, not right. But it needs to be your choice and not about you know, this is what somebody else said or did. Therefore, I couldn't help it. I had to do it Right. So I'm just checking my notes to see if there's anything else in particular that I've missed out, but I don't think so Largely.

Speaker 1: 11:55

It's about pacing yourself. It's about being honest with yourself and being present and conscious with your choices. So I think if we do that, it goes a long way towards towards maintaining our health over the Christmas season. The other thing, too is, as I always say, just make sure you have protein with every meal, because if you have protein with meals, it just keeps you full off for longer and you're less likely to have those blood sugar drops and sort of crave all of those Christmas treats. The other thing, too, is essentially yeah, look, just getting back to the mindset thing. I think that if you get back to the mindset thing and you say I really want to enjoy this Christmas period, all these parties, all this event, this is how that looks, this is what that looks like for me, this is what I choose to do, you do it, you enjoy it and then you move on and it's only ever about your next choice and you make different choices throughout that period that support your health. If you do that, you will do really really well over this time period.

Speaker 1: 13:07

If you sort of just say, oh, that's it, I turn off all of the looking after myself stuff and now I'm in trash myself mode. Well, that's going to be a real problem for you, right? So we don't have to be in one mode or the other, and we don't have to. It's not on or off, it's on or off track, and we don't have to be perfect about anything. We're human and we're messy, and that's okay. And to add to that, for a lot of people there's a lot of emotional stuff around Christmas time. So, whether it is fights with family, for me it's just there's a lot of sadness around Christmas time because a lot of people aren't around anymore. So for me there's a lot of grief around Christmas time. There's lots of different complicated things that come up around Christmas time. So I understand that it's a bit more complicated sometimes with our food and drink choices and things like that. That's there, that's fine.

Speaker 1: 13:55

But if you keep doing the looking after all the things that you've learned about looking after yourself, so, whether it be doing a meditation or whether it be, you know, you've just listened to something relaxing or listening to some relaxing music, or could be, you know, going to the gym or going for a walk or checking in with a friend or whatever, it is all of the strategies that you use for the other times of the year. Well, don't forget to use some of those over this period as well, and maybe even more so if that's more, if that is a more challenging time for you, right? So just be aware that that's. You know, sometimes we just have more stuff come up over this period of time and rather than feel shame around it or or let it spiral into a trash myself for a month or so situation, just have an awareness around it. Make choices that help you to feel like you're celebrating and that you're nourished, but also make lots of nourishing choices that actually really do support your health, and if we do that, we can enjoy ourselves. We're going to have our moments here or there where we overindulge or we've done a bit of emotional eating or whatever it is, and then we just get on with it, but otherwise what happens is it just ends up being the shame spiral that doesn't help anybody.

Speaker 1: 15:11

So so just you know, christmas isn't some special time where you can't look after yourself or you can't make some healthy choices. It just might not be quite what it would be normally, because you're staying with family or you've got lots of commitments and everything that is fine, because the other thing I would say to you as well is, in planning Christmas, a lot of people go way overboard with what they feel like they need to do and how much they have to do and how much they need to look after everybody and how perfect it has to be. And you know, I think obviously Christmas is a lot about children and there's, you know, the whole whole Santa thing and obviously I think that's an important part of Christmas for families and otherwise it's really just about people connecting and getting together. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just focus on the things that kind of. There are things that you know need to be done for Christmas, or ideally would would be done for Christmas, and then there's all things that you can let go of.

Speaker 1: 16:08

A lot of people are now struggling financially at the moment to let go of whatever you don't need to do, because generally it doesn't matter. And I often find it's quite funny because I, my clients, will be talking to me about oh, I've got to do this, I've got to do that and I've got to have the thing and I've got to do the thing. And I say to them I bet if you talk to that relative that you know that you're doing. You both do this thing every year and it's family tradition, tradition. It's what we've always done. Often they go and talk to those relatives and you know what those relatives don't like the tradition either. They feel really stressed and pressured by it and everyone agrees let's just not do that thing anymore. So you'd be surprised about the thing that you feel like we have to do this. We do it every year, this is how it goes, which is what we do, and everyone just agrees because they think everyone else wants it and it turns out that nobody wants it. So just be aware of that too.

Speaker 1: 16:55

That sort of start having some conversations with some people. If you find if your Christmas is really, really stressful, there's a lot on your plate and we're not way too much and you know you're really going overboard and it's not very, very stressful, start having some of these discussions around what you can do about what that might look like in the future, because you often find that everybody is feeling the same way and nobody wants to say anything. And so the person who says, hey, let's just stop doing this, so let's just change the tradition, because it is about Having fun and connecting and and and and enjoying time with each other and, and, you know, observing for those of you who choose to observing sort of the religious, the religious things around the Christmas period, that's not about causing ourselves a huge amount of stress and doing it all perfectly and and and, you know, just, yeah, just taking on everything on that. We don't need to so just having awareness around that that you will often find when you start talking to people in your family about it, they are happier. When you take the, when you relax about things you know, instead of going to six people's houses Maybe you don't, maybe you don't go to anyone's house on Christmas Day, but you go the next day Instead of having a hundred people at your house.

Speaker 1: 18:11

Maybe you love that and you really enjoy that, or maybe you want to you're off, whatever it is, but start thinking about that, maybe for next year. Anyway, I hope you do have a lovely Christmas and and and and happy new year and I've my podcast will still be coming out regularly over the next few weeks anyway, so you'll still be seeing episodes coming out and. But just be kind to yourself on Christmas. Really, really enjoy yourself, but don't get, don't get caught up on the on or off perfection cycle or the shame spiral. Just make conscious choices, really enjoy those choices and then move on and continue to nurture and nourish yourself. So anyway, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a safe Christmas and, and like I said, there will be episodes coming out over the next few few weeks, but I'll be back talking to again in the near Okay, thanks, bye you.