Happy holidays! It’s an unusual holiday season this year for sure. From what I can tell a lot of people started decorating earlier than normal. Which makes sense right? We’re staying at home and we want some joy around us - something festive. Something to look forward to. And so who knows whether we’ll be able to see our loved ones this year during COVID. Currently that’s up in the air. But whether we’re seeing friends and family or not, the holidays still have a feeling right? There’s still a collective mood that we tap into. Whether it’s that or simply that you have some time off from work and it’s dark and cold outside, sticking to a weight-loss program is especially tough during this time. 

So in this episode I’m offering self-coaching tools for you to handle the holidays this year without going off the rails so you can feel amazing. We’re going to talk about how you can approach the holidays with a plan that you can actually stick to, what to do with scarcity thinking and how to handle it when you’re faced with pressure from your loved ones to eat all the goodies. So, settle in, relax and let’s get started. 

Your first step is to plan in advance what you will do. 

What do I mean by that? This can involve how much, what and when you’ll eat and drink. Including how much water you’ll be drinking and how much alcohol you’ll be consuming. Now don’t get scared off. It doesn’t have to be super detailed. You decide what works for you. Your plan could simply be: not overeating. Listening to your body, paying attention and when your stomach starts feeling full, you stop. But you get to eat whatever foods you want. 

And if you even start to think about planning and feel defeated before you even have one and think, screw it - it’s the holidays, and your plan is to eat and drink everything, just notice that inclination. It’s just your brain trying to make things easier for you - providing less pain, more comfort. But how would somebody else who didn’t have mind drama around this respond? Maybe you don’t think you are this person, but you can probably imagine someone else who is and then you have a template to work from. You can start ‘acting as if.’ Acting as if it’s no big deal to think ahead of time about what you want to do, how you want to show up for yourself. 

Now a lot of you won’t want to make a plan. You have resistance to planning. Seems like a lot of work right? It’s fairly simply to coach yourself through that. Ask yourself, “How could a plan help me?” This is the power of questions. Your brain will start to come up with answers immediately.  You’ll start making the case for it and find yourself actually wanting to do it. 

So I’ll walk you through it now in case you simply want to sit back, listen and save any heavy lifting for later. So, for example - How could a plan help me? 

• If I have a plan, my brain won’t be confused about what it’s supposed to do when I get to dinner. 

• If I have a plan, I don’t have to dwell in mental drama around what or how much I should eat of this or that.

• If I have a plan, I won’t feel overwhelmed around all of the food that’s available.

• If I have a plan, I can relax more and focus on other aspects of the holidays - being cozy on the couch with my partner watching Netflix, enjoying a good book, sleeping in, having the time to go for a brisk walk or run in the afternoon. All those nice things. 

Conversely you can also uncover what’s going on underneath the resistance by asking, “Why might I not want to plan?” You might find that the thought of a plan feels really restrictive. That you really DO want to have the pleasure of eating desserts and getting tipsy over the holidays. If this is the case, be honest about how committed to your plan you are. If you look over your plan and you’re like, “I’m a 5 out of 10 here,” That’s a plan doomed to fail. You need to keep modifying your plan until you can at least say you’re at a 9 or 10. You're extremely confident you’ll actually follow through. Now if you need to modify your plan to include a seconds or thirds of the pumpkin pie, so that you can feel confident about sticking to your plan, then ok. I would rather you overeat when it’s intentional and you’re overeating on your plan than to go against your plan and erode the relationship with yourself. This is how we build trust with ourselves. It’s so much more important than how much pie you eat. 

Two or three pieces of pie is just not worth beating yourself up over. If you’re going to overeat, why feel guilty about it? I think you’ll find it’s a very freeing feeling when you are intentional with how you are around food. I mean think about it, if you’re going to indulge in something, why not plan ahead to enjoy it thoroughly than to go through the mental anguish only to carry the guilt around for days afterward. 

Okay so now that you have your plan, and you’re committed, how do we ensure you’ll have tons of success with it? Let’s start by going through some of the obstacles we run into here and then solving for them.

This one seems kinda funny, but oftentimes clients simply just forget! 

When I ask them how it went, they’ll say they started off great and then over a few days, they just lost track and forgot about their plan altogether. 

And I get that. My brain’s likely to forget too. My brain’s like, “What plan? Did I have a plan? What was the plan again?” Depending on what’s going on, especially when you’re out of your routine like during the holidays, it’s understandable that things slip and that your mind is not 100% on your plan 100% of the time. So one of the things you can do to keep it top of mind is to write your plan out either in your notebook or on your phone and then set a daily timer for when you most likely won’t be too busy, or maybe it’s right after you wake up, or right after you eat lunch. But pick a set time when you will review your plan daily. 

This isn’t some weird diet-mentality thing either. This is how you rewire your brain to think the thoughts and feel the feelings that are required to actually get yourself to do the actions that will give you the result you want. It's just like, hey, if we don't like the way that we've shown up in the past in situations like this, like last Christmas, how can we change that? That’s all it is.

The next one is around scarcity.

The holidays can be an especially heightened time for scarcity. We tell ourselves, “We can’t have that or we shouldn’t have that,” but then the other side our brain is like, “That looks amazing and it’s the holidays - now is the time to enjoy these kinds of things.” And we’re in this tug-o-war with ourselves. Overdesire on one hand and commitment to our weight loss goals on the other. 

Scarcity thinking goes something like this, “Well I only have it once a year so I better make the most of it,” or it’s your grandma’s favorite recipe which of course is entirely flour, sugar, butter, chocolate and eagle brand milk or something. And your brain says, “When else will I get to have Grandma’s dessert?” 

And what can happen here is that we build these foods up in our minds and build up so much overdesire. Then we have it (because say it’s on our plan - all good) but then it lasts what, 5 minutes maybe a bit more if we’re really savoring it? And then what? If there’s been an overaccumulation of desire build up we won’t feel satisfied by that. And we’ll think, “Hmmm, well that didn’t really do it, so maybe I need just a bit more, and a bit more and a bit more. Hmmm, still wanting more. Maybe I should have some chocolate or something - yeah that’s what I need.” 

And before you know it, you’re totally off plan and have been grasping for pleasure for the remainder of the evening. We’ve been trying to get that feeling we thought we were going to have in the beginning. 

So to avoid the overdesire, it’s helpful to remind yourself, you can make Grandma’s recipe any time of the year. You will have many deserts in your future. And if you can’t make something, there are so many delicious things you can buy. 

I used to really love these sour gummies - They’re called dinosours. I couldn’t get enough of them and I didn’t let myself have them too often so when I did, I was in a lot of scarcity around them. And I remember I offered them to a friend who also liked them and he turned them down saying, he already knew what they tasted like, so no big deal, he liked them sure, but he could take them or leave them. He hadn’t built up the overdesire for them that I had. 

So what if you don’t actually want to include Grandma’s dessert on your plan? How can you say no? You don’t want to hurt her feelings right? One option is to tell her you’re simply too full and you’ll take it for later. And what if she insists and you’re still worried about hurting her feelings. Guess what, you are not responsible for how Grandma feels. You actually have zero control over that. You cannot make anyone feel a certain way. You just don’t have that much power. They are responsible for how they think and feel. 

It's okay to NOT do what other people want you to do and let them own their emotions. Because your refusal of dessert doesn't determine how she feels. That's her thoughts about it. So when you change what you want to do or what's best for you and give in, in order to try to manipulate how she feels, that feels terrible for you and makes you really disingenuous because you're not doing it because you actually want to. You’re betraying yourself and end up building resentment toward her.

Now, do we want to be considerate, kind, of course. We need to have a tactful way of navigating these situations. But you really need to develop the skill of noticing when people-pleasing is coming up for you and not let it sabotage you. 

So have a response prepared for when someone says, “Is that all your eating?” You don’t need to have an extravagant lie. You don’t need to defend yourself. For some of us, this is a really good opportunity to stand in our own power. To say simply, “yes.” Leave all the drama. Notice any impulse to defend yourself or your actions. Is it necessary? Really? Something to think about. 

Now let’s talk about what we do afterwards.

After the dinner, after the get together. How did it go? This step can often get missed but it’s essential. I encourage you to really spend the time integrating your experience. It’s like the savasana pose at the end of your yoga practice. That’s when the body integrates all the hard work you’ve done. This is the same, for your brain.

What went well? What derailed? What would you do differently next time? Can you spot any thought loops or old patterns that came up for you? Can you be kind to yourself about that? We are often so hard on ourselves. If we didn’t stick to our plan, we beat ourselves up. Or maybe we stuck to our plan but we’re now feeling some guilt about how lenient the plan was - thinking of all the fat and sugar we consumed. All of these thoughts are totally normal. 

If you are self-coaching, here is your script - “Tell me everything, everything that happened and let’s figure out what’s actually going on so that we can sort it out and I can help you.” This is what a coach would say to you, and it’s also something you can say to yourself. A coach is never judging you - they’re your number one fan. So you want to do the same for yourself. Take away that layer of judgement and from there, decide what your next steps are going to be. 

Okay let’s summarize.

Have a plan, review and honestly assess your confidence level to your plan. If it’s not a 9 or 10, what needs to change? To make sure we’re successful with our plan, we need to remember it! Review it daily by setting a timer on your phone. 

Watch for scarcity thoughts, and have a response prepared. Remember, the food is always out there and you have an entire lifetime to enjoy it. You don’t need to have it right at this moment. Don’t let that overdesire start controlling you. Say, “No thanks,” if it’s not on your plan. I promise, no one is going to remember or care that much. Watch for people pleasing tendencies. Remember that their feelings are not your responsibility. 

And lastly, integrate your experience so that no matter how the night went, you’re learning from it. You now have more data than you did before about what’s going on with your brain around food. And around food during the holidays. Celebrate your successes and be kind to yourself about the missteps.

If you think back on what you’ve learned in your life, really learned - the hard lessons, I guarantee it’s not something you read in a book or even listened to on a podcast. It was a lived experience. That’s how we truly learn. That’s how we change for real. This is why I implore you to self-coach or work with a coach if you are serious about reaching your weight loss goals. Otherwise you will listen to a million episodes on weight loss and have limited or no progress. Coaching work is about experimenting and then reflecting through self-analysis and discussion so that you integrate your experience and learn from it. If you are ready, I encourage you to set up a free mini-session with me. This is a chance for you to see first hand what it’s like doing this work with someone else. 

So I’m wishing you a very happy holiday season, however that looks this year. I hope that you find these tools helpful and they provide less mind drama around food so that you can instead focus on relaxing and connecting to the people you love most.