125. Weight Loss and Fail Safe Holiday Eating Plan

Do you gain weight over the holidays every single time and it makes you crazy? You want to stop that? Well, I got you. I’m Dara Tomasson and this is Love Yourself Thin, episode 125, weight loss and holiday eating.

Okay, so today’s episode we are going to talk about how do you enjoy the holidays? How do you even enjoy the food in the holidays and not feel terrible and not feel bloated and not get a bunch of weight and not feel like you’re constantly like fighting in your head and debating and then you feel like you just need to give up and start January 1st and then you give up and so what do you do? You just gain a bunch of weight. So we’re gonna work on not having that experience. We’re going to work on learning how to enjoy your holiday, how to eat the foods that you want, but not feel terrible. Okay? It’s going to be great. I promise.

But before we do that, I want to share a win from one of my clients because when you learn how to celebrate yourself, when you learn how to go into your brain and look at all the evidence that you do have the successful strategies, that you are a person that can finish things, then you can create the results that you want. Now how you do one thing is how you do all things. And the problem is when you feel disabled by diets and you feel disempowered and, and feel like you’re such a failure, your brain doesn’t even allow you the opportunity to believe that you could solve things. So this is a simple example, but, and this is something that a lot of my clients end up doing is they end up seeing, Oh, look, I’m actually more capable and they start looking at other areas of their life where they’ve been successful And then they implement those strategies into their eating protocol and one of the ways that they do that is looking at how did they learn how to quilt? How did they learn how to make a block that was difficult and challenging?

And so I had I had one client and she loves making bags and purses and zippers and all these things and it was interesting because she would watch these YouTube videos and feel like, okay, I should be able to do this. But then she saw this course that was offered by a pretty prominent quilter. And it was, it was more money than she would have liked to have spent, but it was interesting because she thought, okay, I shouldn’t really spend that money. I haven’t been able to figure it out. She seems like she’s had a lot of success. So she ended up paying for the course and taking it. And now she makes these zipper bags for everybody, even me included, which was so fun. But now she realizes, okay, it is valuable for me to pay someone to teach me a technique that they have mastered and then I can bring my expertise to that and I can now add that to my arsenal. I have that now as a tool in my toolbox. And so she enjoys making those pouches a lot more. She has a lot more enjoyment.

And so it’s the same thing with weight loss. So you think, well, this is my body, I should know how to do these things already. But it’s like, you haven’t learned these tools. And yesterday to quote one of my clients, she said you don’t know what you don’t know. And so that’s why she loved the Me-tober because she’s just always learning so much and she has sticky notes all over her house with Dara-isms and she just loves it. So that’s a huge win.

All right. So what we’re going to talk about today is, as I stated, holiday eating. Now, do you gain weight over the holidays? And if you do, why? I have a question here on the worksheet, what is different about eating over the holidays and eating throughout the year? Now, holiday eating, road trip eating, vacation eating, very similar to holiday spending, vacation spending. One year my husband and I took our kids to the East Coast. We were living in Toronto at the time, so we went down to Boston and Maine. We went out to the Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia. And we had a great vacation. But when we were in Halifax, which is where my great great great grandfather was stationed as a soldier and then he ended up retiring and then staying there. He was from Scotland. So we were there and we went to the grocery store, we were gonna go on a picnic and the kids, it was adorable, the kids were like, can we have this and we’re like, yeah. Can we have this? And every time they asked for something we just said yes. It was our yes grocery shopping. It was so funny and the kids were just like what is happening? What is like? It was so adorable. But it was my husband and I were just we just always joke about it cuz we’re like, yeah, it was vacation grocery shopping. It’s like yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, of course.

So what is the story we tell about going on vacation or a road trip with our spending or with our eating? And why do you think that happens? And so as you think about it, and as you think about your relationship with your body, with food, with money, with like consuming anything in any way, right? Shopping is consuming. What about watching movies, binge watching you know, over the holidays, do you just watch like so much TV or like, what are you doing with the time that you have? What’s the attitude towards it? So you might find yourself saying things like, well, it’s the holidays. Well, you know, we only do this once or, if you can’t do it now, when can you loosen up or whatever that is, what is the story? And I want you to ask yourself, is it a benefit to you? Even thinking about money over the holidays, when you shop and overspend, eventually it’s going to catch up on you. Eventually you’re going to get the credit card bill. Eventually you’re going to have to deal with the overspending, and it’s the same thing with overeating.

So, there’s always a thought that we have right before we act. And, in fact, the thought creates the emotion, and the emotion is the fuel. So, if you have a thought like, well, I just want to make it extra special. And then you feel what? You feel entitled or you feel nervous… so then the action is you spend money because you want the thing to make you feel special and then the result is you don’t create your own happiness. And so then you always feel like you can’t make yourself happy. You have to keep buying more or to keep eating more to be happy So when we talk about thought errors, this is something that we’re talking about of thinking that things or food is going to make you happy, but what really makes us happy are thoughts.

And so I have this really good question. These two questions actually, they go hand in hand. How do you want to describe yourself? So when you think about your ideal person, when you think about like how you want to be in the world, what would you have to change to be that way? And one of the ways that I do this exercise is I say to myself, Who do I admire? Who’s someone that I really look up to, that I would like to emulate? And then I go further and say, Why? Why would I want to emulate that person? Why do I want to be more like them? What are their qualities and the things about their life that are really attractive to me? And the more that I can be curious, the more fact finding I have and then the more clues that I have about myself and what resonates with me.

And so last year at Quilt Festival there was a lady, she was probably I don’t know, in her late eighties and she wore the funnest clothes. She was just, it was awesome. And she was just so magnetic. And I went up to her and I said, I need a picture with you. Like, this is awesome. I just love that you’re like embracing your style. And it was funny because I thought I want to be more like her. So last year I bought four vintage quilts, one top and three quilts and for quilt market and festival this year, I made some really fun outfits and I just loved it. I enjoyed it all. I enjoyed making of them. I was a little nervous of course. And I’m okay at making clothes, but definitely buttons and those kinds of things kind of stressed me out, but I just decided like I, I want to dress the part. I want to embrace all the quiltiness in me and it just sounds like a lot of fun. So that’s what I would ask you to do.

Now the next part of this podcast, I made a promise to you that you can actually eat what you want to eat over the holidays and not gain weight. Now, how can I make such a promise? I’ll tell you. The first thing is, when you plan to eat something, you now don’t need to feel guilty about eating that thing. Also, when you plan to eat that thing, you just eat that thing, you just plan to eat it and you eat it. There’s not a lot of drama. You just decide I’m eating this. This feels awesome. This is yummy. And then you just go ahead and eat it. Now, when you do that you don’t have the guilt that shows up and you’re not overeating it, and then you don’t eat out of guilt because you just made that decision. When the number on the scale goes up the next day because you made that choice you’re also not fighting with yourself saying. Oh, look at you. You’re such a failure. Why’d you do that? You just say? oh, yeah, I made a plan to eat that thing and this is the result. But it’s not a big deal because I knew that that was gonna happen And I also know what happens, weight loss science is simple. I know what happens in my body It’s no big deal. I can do this. I can handle this.

So what’s happening is you are no longer feeling afraid of food. You are no longer worrying and stressing about food and you’re eating that food on purpose so now you’re not reacting in a way that is shameful. Anytime I talk about shame, we, you know, go to embarrassment or humiliation and we hide and we don’t show up as how we really want to show up and that feels terrible and we don’t want to do that anymore. So that’s going to be eliminated. Okay? And I do like to ask myself, do I like my reasons and do they feel like love? So if I decide that I want to eat the chocolate log, the Buche de Noel that my mom makes, then I make decisions about, well how much of the dinner do I want to eat? Do I want to have one or two servings? Do I want to eat till I feel full? Do I want to just eat until I feel satisfied? Like I’m just gonna make those decisions and then I’m gonna work at honoring myself as I do that. So as you think about your eating and as you think about what’s going on for you, what happens is you start feeling empowered in your own life and you realize that weight’s not happening to you, you are creating your results with your life. Okay?

So I have a challenge for you, I want you to fall in love with your life now Without having to lose any weight to do so. And this is really challenging for people when I say this, I say listen the more you can love your life now the less pressure you put on yourself to lose weight. The more that you, and people say, Oh, but that’s crazy. I’ll just, I’ll just be like on the couch eating doughnuts. Will you be? If you’re loving your life and you’re enjoying your life and you’re quilting and you’re, you’re being creative and you’re spending time with your family, are you going to be wanting to buffer on the couch with a bunch of donuts? Or are you going to want to do more of getting together with friends, inviting people over, or planning events for people, like doing things, gatherings, organizing things? Because if you really love your life, the more that you are active in your life and being proactive about it, then I promise you, the more the weight will just come off as a consequence of the way that you are treating yourself.

The last thing I want to talk about with weight loss and holiday eating is this concept of pressure. When you put pressure on yourself, when you say things like, I, I have to do this this way, and I have to do it that way. And I have to look this way before I can be happy. And you put all of these conditions on yourself. Okay that’s where pressure comes from. I have to do this. I have to do that. And a lot of it is subconscious, right? How many of us think I can’t be happy if I don’t have abs of steel, I can’t be happy if I haven’t lost weight. How is that possible? Which is a lie, right? And so when you can be more honest with yourself and you can say, ask yourself like what am I thinking and why am I thinking that way? Then the less pressure you have on yourself, the more happiness, the more joyful, the more creative, the more fulfilled you are going to feel. And when those joys come in your life, and when you feel all of those, then you are not needing to go to the food so much. You’re not needing to have to turn to that. If you’re not constantly being like scrutinizing in your own head or fighting yourself, then you will feel more relaxed in being you and then you’ll just be more and more who you really are.

And so when it comes to holiday eating, I want you to slow down and ask yourself, what do I really want over the holidays? Do I want to have more family connections? Do I want to just focus on the food? Because if that’s what I’m doing, just like one plus one is never going to be three or seven, it’s only ever going to be two. If you’re putting more pressure on yourself to create a result that actually is not possible, like food actually can’t make you happy. Your thoughts about yourself, your thoughts about your life, your thoughts about whatever it is, that’s what makes happiness happen. Okay? So when you put a lot of pressure on yourself, then you will never be able to have the kind of joy and relaxation and comfort in your body regardless of your weight. And so then you’re relying on willpower and think about what happens with your holiday shopping. How many of the decisions that you make with overspending come from places of, but I want them to like me or I, I, if I don’t do this, then it won’t work out and I need to have it perfect. That’s so much pressure.

So I love that you’re here. I love that you’re listening and I want you to make a decision right now, what do you want your relationship to be with holiday eating? Do you want to overeat? Do you want to make a commitment where you just eat until you’re satiated? Make a commitment, I’m only going to eat three meals a day. I am not going to do any snacking. I am not going to eat after six o’clock. Like just make those decisions. And then work towards building trust with yourself to do that. Okay, meet yourself where you’re at and show a lot of compassion.

This is just a side note. I remember listening to a training from Jody Moore, probably seven, six, six years ago. Yeah, when we moved here. And I remember she was talking about holiday eating and I was very intrigued because I’m really good about my Christmas spending. I’m very good about like this is how much money I have and then I plan for it. I feel really good about my ability to not overspend and to honor my spending goals. I’m not as good about my time on that and I’m much better than I am like, I’m not going to stay up late anymore and finish presents. I really worked on that too. But I remember Jody was sharing some tips and she said, you know, right now there’s a lot of pressure at the holidays and you know, we have this ideal of what we want for ourselves. And then she made five promises. She said, and this is, I’m kind of just remembering that she’s like, if you just drink more water, if you just move more, if you just decide not to snack and then was like late night eating. And then I think it was sleep. There was like those five things. And she said, even if you just promise yourself this holiday season that you do one of those things and you do that one thing really well, I promise you, you’ll lose weight. That was really insightful for me. It was really, really helpful because I thought, well, you know what, I can make sure I drink enough water, I feel really confident. And again, the water suggestion is half your body weight in ounces. So if you weigh 200 pounds, that’s a hundred ounces of water a day. I’m like, you know what? I could do that. And then I’m not stressing out about all the other things and so I can allow myself to feel trust and confidence in myself. And then maybe I do that for two weeks and I get really good on my water and then I say, well, you know what, Dara? Maybe we should just work on making sure you get like seven hours of sleep. And so even that idea has been really helpful for me and it’s made a big difference. And so I just thought of adding that to this podcast because, you know, the holidays are here and we really want to enjoy the holidays.

Now the last question I have on the the worksheet in the podcast is what do you want to do moving forward? And another way of answering that question is what is it at the end of the day, at the end of the holidays and you’re looking back at the holidays what are the things that you could say I really loved this about my holidays? I really loved that I went on those individual walks with the kids, I’m really glad that I took out each kid separately for lunch or Whatever that is. What is it that at the end of that time, that holiday that you are really proud of. And so when you can start with the end in mind, then guess what’s going to happen? You’re going to be a lot more directed on what you do. And so then food doesn’t have the same pull. Because like I said, food never creates your happiness your thoughts create your happiness and then your happiness is fueled by that emotion and then you create that result for yourself. All right. I love sharing this with you. I’m so excited about Christmas and I can’t wait to hear how your Christmas is going, your Christmas plans and I’m here for you. So if you want help, my program is always open and I would be so thrilled for you to join us. Bye bye.