Episode #346: Navigating Social Events at the Holidays

Hey there beautiful ladies, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. And for hanging out today, we’re gonna hop right in, because if you were here and you press play, you want to know the nitty gritty of how to get through and enjoy the holidays, but how to do it healthfully and without packing on the pounds. Viewer around last episode, I gave kind of just an overarching view and theme of Alright, this is kind of the mentality, and some really practical tips about how to approach the holiday season in general. And today. So do go back and listen to that if you haven’t yet. But today, we’re gonna dive into specifically like holiday occasions, and how I approach and this is absolutely personally what I do, I would never tell you anything differently than what I do. You know, obviously, we call personalized things do what works for us. But I’m not you know, saying do this, and then I don’t need anything and holiday parties. Like that’s not my jam. I you know me at all, you know that I am absolutely you know, transparent about the choices I make and enjoying things and all that. So, here is what I do on we’ll start with talking about a day that you have a one event kind of situation. So maybe for you this is what’s coming up first, like All Saints Day or Halloween, if that’s stuff that you celebrate, or say even all the ways for Thanksgiving, or even if you know in this coming month you have a birthday or an anniversary or any of these things, there’s kind of a one event shindig like this could apply for me. Also for just going out for date nights, okay, but I’m thinking a little bit more big scheme here where, you know, it’s like Christmas Eve, and we have one big dinner or something like that. Alright, so de have a one event party. And then next we’ll talk about multiple event days. But so say it’s day of a one event shindig number one eat, as per your normal schedule before and after the event. So you’re gonna prioritize protein and vegetables, you are going to maybe slightly hold back on the carbon fat and take like, say you’re eating normally, but maybe you usually have a shake for breakfast and you put a bunch of peanut butter in it and a bunch of fruit, maybe I’m just scaling that back a bit, I’m still putting in the same amount of protein, I’m still putting in the frozen spinach. But I’m doing one tablespoon of peanut butter instead of two, and things like that. So I want to be satiated that I want to be definitely trying to still hit my protein and veggie targets. But I am going to scale back a little bit on the carbs and fat department or maybe I’m having like eggs and bacon and I usually have toast. But I skim back on I on the toast I have one piece instead of two I am one strip of bacon instead of two that kind of a thing. So eat as pretty much normal but it’s okay to scale back a little bit in the carbs and fat to permit. Number two here is to hydrate as normal. Okay, this is big. If you just get these pillars in place where you’re keeping protein, regular your vegetable and takes good, you’re still hydrated, you know, you’re already covering a lot of good healthy ground, where even if you accidentally overindulge at the party, and you have this great plan and you try to apply all my tips, but you you know, go a little bit off the rails, you’re still going to be in a better spot than if you didn’t employ these other tips have the protein, the veggie and the hydration. So if you just follow those first two tips, you’re setting yourself up, hopefully for success here. Okay, next step is to for the party for the one event Shindig. Yes, I’m using the word shindig today. Don’t show up starving, but also don’t stuff yourself as you go. I’ve seen these kinds of tips given like as a way to hopefully not, you know, over indulge in a party. I’ve seen the tip and diet magazines like well just eat before you go or I’ve seen the tip that’s like, well just don’t eat all day, save your calories and fat. I want you to find a middle ground here. And don’t walk in the door. Absolutely ravenous because you’re just gonna fall face first into the appetizers that maybe, you know, we can’t make the healthiest choices when we’re hungry. It’s like being at the grocery store. When you’re hungry. You come back with all this stuff that you really didn’t need. I’m the first one to do this. I did this couple weeks ago where I was at the grocery store hungry and I grabbed like protein cookies and some things I do not even normally buy because I just was really hungry. So be reasonable. You know, again, you’re keeping the day as normal as possible. If think about any other meal if you’re getting to dinner, you would hopefully be hungry for dinner but you wouldn’t feel like you needed to eat right now or you’re gonna die. Okay. Now next tip if you are bringing something, bring something you know you’ll eat so that you have a healthy option. Now, you can make this as lovely and delicious as you’d like or as basic as you’d like, you know in this summer. Like what I typically this was my A slight up leveling was summer. Usually if I’m invited to a barbecue or something, I’ll bring a veggie tray or fruit tray or something pretty basic that is pretty healthy that I know my kids and I will eat my family and I will eat. But I actually stole this. I’ve talked about it on the podcast couple times. So I told her that I talked about it. One of my friends makes us really delicious mango salsa. So then towards the end of summer, I remembered about it and was like, oh my goodness, because she brought it to my house. So it reignited it for me. And I was like, You know what, that is such a good healthy thing to bring. That seems a little bit nicer, a little bit fancier, a little bit like it did something than just my basic food tray or whatever. Like I actually chopped some things threw them together, you know, that kind of stuff. So you could bring a shrimp platter, you know, to Christmas eve dinner or you could bring, you know, some healthier appetizer like I have a couple of these, if you’re in the chasing greatness group, I have all the old healthy through the holidays program, I suppose on there and I did a lot of purposeful like orders and appetizers and things like little stuffed peppers wrapped in bacon can be really good because you can make those lightened up, you don’t have to just make it straight cream cheese. I think that recipe that I use, I probably don’t use cream cheese because my husband can’t eat it or I just made it and said well, he can’t eat these ones. But like you know, bacon wrap something is great, you get your protein, your fat, everything gets better, I’ve even brought have taken before like bacon wrapped asparagus, and you get you get your vegetable, your protein, your fat. So, you know, if you’re bringing something, make sure it’s something that you would eat, that’s healthy, etc. And then last tip for this one event party is at the party, scan the offerings, fill up your plate, you know with veggies protein, and then pick your treats, pick and choose okay. So pick something this could be in any department. If there’s seven appetizers out, pick a couple that you want to try and take moderate portions of them. And then also if it’s not great, like take a small portion, so you don’t waste calories on it. If it’s not great if I’m grabbing something that I don’t know if I like it or not, or I don’t know if I like this one or not. I will just take a little bit you know and even if it’s something you’d have to take like a slice of, I’ll try a bite or two and if it’s not worth it, I stopped eating it like that is also okay, don’t feel like you have to finish it because you took it. You know if it’s desserts when desserts out, try a few bites of things you really want to try baby that looks like you’re gonna have two different cookies and a glass of wine. Or maybe you’re gonna say You know what, instead of a drink tonight, I’m going to have more of the dessert options like it’s picking and choosing. That’s the difference between like indulging and overindulging we cannot have if there was a huge buffet of appetizers, the main meal and the desserts and the drinks, you just cannot have every single thing without leaving feeling stuffed, pretty gross the next day just sugar wise bloat wise, etc. And sometimes those days to happen, we don’t beat ourselves up over it, we just do the next best thing the next right thing. But there’s the caveat like you can still enjoy yourself like that’s always my goal going into these events and parties and whatever even out to dinner or special occasions vacations is I want to be able to indulge and maybe dabble in some things I don’t normally have especially those kinds of foods and items that come out just like once a year, but I never want to feel like I need to unbutton my pants and lay down like good immediately taken out. Like that’s not my goal. Same thing with drinking like I want to be able to have a drink and relax, I don’t want to feel out of control and then hungover the next day like you know just keep it between the rails and we all feel much better. Okay, now a couple notes if you have multiple events in a day. So this you know happens a lot of the time or at least you know we kind of make things an event like for us. Christmas is really could be like a one event day we do like Christmas dinner with our family but Christmas morning I make mimosas and cinnamon rolls and those kinds of things. Do I do actually know I do coffee cake cinnamon rolls is usually Thanksgiving and Easter but Christmas I usually do coffee cake so I can make it ahead the day before and I don’t have to like try to do the whole make sure they rise the proper time and all that so anyway, I do coffee cake and mimosas and then I do some kind of fat and protein. I’ve done like baked egg cups with spinach or I just tried to do something I can have prepped and I throw in the oven while we’re doing gifts and then we can enjoy that usually after gifts sometimes we’ve even eaten before but as the kids get older, I feel like they’re gonna be too excited for that. We’ve had like I had our kids right now just don’t not don’t care about gifts as much but they’re like totally fine with the Oh yeah. 

you want to eat first? Okay, all right, then we’ll do gifts like I don’t know we’ve gotten six years so far out of that. I think that’s coming to an end. So anyways, that became a multiple event day and some of these other holidays have to wear, you know, it’s still a different meal than we’re used to, I don’t usually make coffee cake for breakfast on just a regular Wednesday morning, we’re also going to have a big, indulgent dinner and desserts, what not. So if that’s you, and this is a lot of people who are juggling both sides, family, and lots of family and all that. So tip number one for multiple events is to try to balance out things as you would making choices at your own home. So whether you’re hosting or not tried to kind of take some of those tips I mentioned with a single event meal and just do that at multiple events. So for us in that example, I do have control over the first meal. So I’m going to have a little bit of the coffee cake, and one mimosa, you know, and then I’m going to have a lot of the eggs in protein and vegetables within whatever, then that night, I will do the same thing where I will pick, you know, one or two appetizers I want to try, I actually usually do bring a shrimp tray. So I can have shrimp and cocktail sauce. For protein, I fill up on a lot of the salad, then we usually do Italian for dinner on Christmas. So I’ll have like the meatballs and a little bit of the pasta so that I can have dessert and more so instead of that and you know picking and choosing so and I remember the one year a year I hosted I remember, I made trays and trays and trays of Christmas cookies. And I didn’t have any Christmas cookies, because I’d probably been eating them for weeks. But instead I had like two glasses of wine sounds like you know what, now I’m gonna sit down, put my feet up and just enjoy this. The rest of this one’s like the main cooking was done. And I didn’t have any desserts. And I remember my dad saying like, are you gonna have this? And I was like, Yeah, I’m having my dessert right here. It’s in this class. That’s what you know, picking and choosing looks like now. Again, sometimes we feel like the pressure of people looking at our plates. And hey, try this or you’ve got to have this. I think though sometimes we overdramatize that. Like, obviously we want to be not accepting that’s not the word I’m looking for conscious of other people’s feelings in the effort they went into you know, making something if your grandma just spent all day making like this homemade pie and then you won’t try it because you want to fit in your pants while like, alright, well, is there a middle ground here? Could you maybe Give Grandma a few bites of the pie. Just try it out even if it’s not your favorite. However, there’s also the part where I think we can really overdramatize how much people care about what we’re personally eating. And you know, you’re still in control the fork at the end of the day, no one is forced feeding you. So be polite, have good manners clearly, but don’t feel like you need to overindulge because it’s expected or because other people are gonna judge you for not, you know, we do live in a culture that leans this way. You know, when people are eating healthfully? It’s like, Oh, are you on a diet like we have come so far in the bad not so great food. I like the bad food and the not so great food and the processed food and the junk food department that just eating a nutritious diet seems like you’re purposely dieting, right. That’s like what we consider, you know, oh, are you dieting because it’s just the norm is to eat all of the other stuff that’s should be sometimes foods like how I encourage it is 8020 80% whole thing food 20% treats. thing most of the world gets it the other way around where 80% of their intake is, you know, too indulgent. And then they’re having some healthy foods sprinkled in. So again, here like you have your goals and whatnot in mind and your how you want to feel just mentioned, I don’t like to feel like crap the next day. So try and keep it between the rails and not worrying so much what other people are going to think about it. Okay, a couple more general tips for you, then hang on with me. So I have a freebie for you that goes along with this episode. And we’ll close it out. So a couple general tips are to put food on your plate rather than Park yourself in front of the buffet table. This is a big one for being at like girls nights where we tend to just put food on the coffee table and bring it really central to where people are sitting. And it’s easy to just I’m a floor sitter. So if I’m in someone’s living room, Austin on the floor, and then I’m like real close to the coffee table. Just grab a bite of this and grab this cookie and like keep going back and forth or the chips and dip or whatever. And put it on your plate back off. Get away from it. This is another big one with like kitchen islands because it’s very inviting and welcoming and will like lean over the kitchen island and just snag on things and talk to people put it on a plate. Okay, then step two is to walk away from it. All right, don’t hover over exactly where the food is. It makes it too easy to just be mindless about it. We don’t want to be mindless about we want to enjoy ourselves. We don’t want to be mindless about it. Alright, and then next tip is to focus on the conversation on other elements of the party rather than hyper focus on On the foods, I do think there’s dangers on both sides. I have had clients who are so panicked about the food, and about indulging that they spend the whole day. Like an the event itself debating over what they’re going to eat, arguing with themselves, like, is this worth it? Is this not worth it? panicking. And then I’ve also had clients who are trying to be on the healthier side, but they’re so worried that people are gonna judge them or question them, that they can’t even relax and enjoy the event because they’re just so worried about looking too healthy. Okay, take a deep breath, relax, like shoulders away from the ears, always say, and enjoy the thing. Like I said, we are by nature, more self centered people, egocentric people where, you know, we try not to be obviously, it’s not a good thing to be self centered. But most of us like think about yourself at a party. Are you usually staring in other people’s plates tracking how much they’ve eaten or had to drink or whatever, like, No, you’re worried about yourself, you are, hopefully, like trying to be a good conversationalist, and visit with people and all that stuff. Like go throw yourself into the other elements of the party, and just try to take some of this pressure off the food because a lot of times if we’re just making it a bigger deal than it is, it’s like when I hear this at the gym, too, and I totally get it. Like, oh, I don’t want to look silly at the gym. I don’t want you know everyone to like think I’m you know, a newbie, or I don’t know what I’m doing, where most people at the gym are worrying about themselves, or worrying about their own workouts, their own form. And the most self centered people are checking themselves out in the mirror, they’re really not worried about you. So, you know, try to enjoy other elements of the party besides just a food Yes, enjoy the food. That’s a beautiful part of the holidays and socialization and community but you know, try not to panic either way about it. I know it’s easier said than done. But this is just you know, a good mindset to kind of go into it. Okay, last tip. Every day from now until December 31 or January 1, whichever way you look at it is not a holiday. Okay? I’m this is coming out. October 6, we do not have a straight 60 Something days, that’s how good my math is, is probably not. But 90 days, October, November, December, it’s not 90 days of holidays. So keep your average Tuesday, your average Tuesday. Okay? Eat your vegetables, to your workouts, drink your water, get your protein. We talked about some of these things in last episode, but you’ve got to keep the quote unquote, regular days or normal days regular. Where we this can be the difference between falling into trouble in this holiday time and coming out of it to pant sizes bigger, or pretty much having maintained it and feeling good at the end of the holiday season or maybe a couple pounds up. But we’re not far from where we were. Okay, every day is not Christmas. Do not dramatize this, do not blow it out of proportion. It’s like oh, it’s just the thing to commiserate over. Like I know, holiday season like haha, and then just eat a bunch of cookies by yourself at two in the morning. Like that’s not the same thing as enjoying yourself socially on New Year’s Eve with your husband like, or your friends or whatever that looks like so
do what you can here. But remember that you overall like have, you’re in control. So take ownership over it. No one’s forced feeding you and keep the regular days regular days that you really can enjoy those other days without feeling like oh my goodness, every day has just been a sugar fest. Because guess what, like that does take away from the event itself or from the holidays itself. If I eat donuts every day, it’s not special when I make them on, you know, Thanksgiving Day or whatever. So there’s a reason that the you know, we should have these special treats and whatnot at the holidays, but every day is not treat day. And if that’s you know how we’re going to treat it, then. That’s all run into trouble. All right, I use the word treat a lot. We’re gonna wrap this up here. I would love to see you join us in the chasing greatness group through the end of the year so that we can stay healthy and on this path together. If you Oh, did I? Yes, I did. Okay. Oh, I need to tell you about my handout. There we go. If you go to healthy Catholic moms.com I just made a little cheat sheet for you with some general healthy through the holiday kind of tips to maybe that’s a good visual reminder that you need to print it out put it somewhere so that you can take and apply these tips. So if you go over to healthy habit comsa COMM it should be right on the homepage. If it’s not for some reason, or you can’t find it just email me Brittany at healthy health. like bombs.com And oh, shoot it your way. And hopefully that is helpful to you. All right, next episode we’re going to talk about your protein sources, and why they matter. This is a really interesting conversation. I’m excited to dive into I have never covered anything like this specifically, I’m a podcast about what actual protein like the breakdown of the different amino acids and what they do for your muscles for your body and why you need certain varieties and just a little bit nitty gritty, I will try to, you know, make it interesting. And as always, I’ll try to kind of bring it down to a really tangible tactical level, but it’s an important conversation for anybody who wants to pursue fat loss or maintenance because protein is such a big part of that. All right, I’ll talk to you next episode. Have a great rest of your day. Bye

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