How to Eat on Thanksgiving Without Derailing Fat Loss

Nikkiey: Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.

The most important thing to remember on this holiday is to be present, to be mindful, to experience and fully engage in the holidays, in this day. I fully believe in memories over macros.

What's up, you guys? Welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to episode 105. Today we are going to dive in to talk about how to tackle the holidays with confidence.

Every single year, this question gets presented to me: How do I eat on the holiday? And then I'm either coaching or giving support or helping clients through the aftermath of a holiday, reframing their experience, but also resetting expectations and reminding them that one day is not going to derail the progress that you have made in the last so many days and months, and possibly even years. Okay?

So on this podcast today, I want you to walk away understanding the mindfulness of this holiday, and getting some tactics you can implement with a holiday in a couple of days. With Christmas coming up too, these same exact strategies I'm going to talk about today can totally be implemented for that holiday in another month. But I want you to walk away with the understanding and the confidence that you can enjoy yourself on this day and this holiday, and you don't have to think about anything else other than that. Okay?

So let's dive into it. Let's get right down into the five things I want to talk about today. Five specifics that are going to help you with mindfulness, help you with some tactics, and help you understand that you are fully in control of this holiday and in control of how you get back to it afterwards. And then I want to remind you of the overarching thing I always hear clients talk about after this holiday. I just want to send you off with a reminder around that specific thing. Very broad there, Nikkiey, but it's going to be a reminder. I don't want to talk about all five right now and then the podcast is done, because I want to dive into each of them. So let's get down to it.

The first and most important thing to remember on this holiday is to be present, to be mindful, to experience and fully engage in the holidays, in this day. Being in the company of your loved ones, being in the holiday spirit, appreciating the food, immersing yourself in insane gratitude for these experiences that you are a part of. Right? The conversations, the memories, the family members that maybe you haven't seen all year and you get to catch up with on this day. The friends that maybe are traveling in from all around the country to see you and your family and the kids, all of these things. This is your time to be fully engaged in this experience and to be extremely present for this day.

So I don't expect any of you to worry about your nutritional choices on Thanksgiving or Christmas or Hanukkah. I don't expect you to bring your scale to these outings and weigh your food. I fully believe in memories over macros for these days. Okay? Let go of worrying about whether this is in alignment with my goal, or I'm eating way too much today, or I'm having so many carbs and so many fats, or I'm having this dessert. Let go of that. Let go of worrying that this is going to derail your progress. Let go of it.

Focus fully in the moment. Be fully engaged in the experiences that you're having. Be fully present. That's the first one. And be fully grateful. This should be: be present and be extremely grateful. This holiday is all about gratitude, so really focus on that. There are so many scientific findings and so much research around the emotion of experiencing gratitude, and how it can help with stress relief, with your mood, with so many things. So really focus this day on being present, fully experiencing the experiences you are having and being grateful for them all. That's number one.

Number two is a tactical thing you can implement on these days, on Thanksgiving and Christmas and Hanukkah and all of the holidays that are coming up. Okay? Eat protein around or in between your big meals. Let's use the example of you having Thanksgiving dinner in the afternoon, or the traditional setting of dinner. For the rest of the day, make sure you are eating protein throughout, with protein as the majority of your food. What I mean by protein is: have eggs for breakfast. Have chicken breast, or yogurt, or a protein shake or a protein bar for lunch. Then you can have those options again a couple of hours after lunch. Just make sure you get enough protein in the day.

Now, I know I just said don't worry about your food choices. But if you are somebody who wants to make sure you're still fueling your body with enough food, you don't have to track. You can just be more consciously aware and intuitively eat more protein. When you wake up, eggs. In a couple of hours, some yogurt. In a couple of hours, maybe some chicken you have lying around from your meal prep. In a couple of hours, a protein shake. And then you're going to have your big freaking meal, which is going to consist of protein, fats and carbs. A shit ton of fats and a shit ton of carbs.

You are going to have stuffing, maybe. Who knows? Stuffing is by far one of my favorite dishes at Thanksgiving. But the majority of those things outside the turkey are all carbs and fats. Not to mention the desserts you're going to have, right? That's all carbs and fats. So you're definitely going to hit your fats in that meal, and maybe some, if not the majority, of your carbohydrates in that meal.

So if you're having protein all throughout the day, there are a few things I want to highlight. It helps stabilize your blood sugar levels throughout the day. It helps you feel fuller longer and reduces cravings, which then helps prevent overeating when you go into this big meal. It also gives you steady energy levels throughout the day. It just adds to the fact that you are satiated. A lot of people don't eat during the day because they're going to have this big meal. But if you want to keep practicing the habits you implement for yourself on a regular basis and allow your body to still experience the benefits of protein, then have protein and some carbs throughout the day leading up to this big meal. Okay. That's number two. Eggs, all the things I just said, those could be your little protein snacks throughout the day until you get to that big meal.

Number three is my favorite. I love saying this to all of my clients, but for the sake of the podcast, I'm just going to say a-hole. Don't be an a-hole. Okay. What I mean by that is don't eat until you are overly stuffed and uncomfortable and you're like, oh my God, I just ate so much food. You know what I mean? You feel like a bloated something after this big meal. Eat until you are comfortably full. The point with holiday foods is to enjoy them without overindulging.

Eating the protein throughout the day will help you go into this meal, be present and experience the meal for what it is, and not feel like you're just stuffing yourself. This is a really good opportunity for you to learn the body's signals of fullness. So stop when you're comfortably full, and I want you to experience and respect the signals your body is giving you when you are full. Because this is the thing: you'll eat this meal and you'll feel like you can keep going. But you have to be really aware of the signals your body is giving you. It's hard to explain because it's so personal to the person experiencing it. But if you can just listen to the signals it's giving you, your body will tell you to stop. And then 10 or 15 minutes later is when you will really start to feel full.

People always talk about having dessert now or dessert later. Allow a break so the digestion process can start happening and break down all the foods you have eaten, and then go ahead and have a piece of dessert. But mainly, and my clients know I joke about this all the time, don't be an a-hole. Eat till you're comfortably full and enjoy the moment. Don't overstuff yourself, because you're going to feel sick and horrible after that. So that's the third one. Enjoy the food without guilt, but respect the fact that your body is telling you, hey, I'm full. And listen to it.

Hey, I just want to drop a huge appreciation to you guys listening to the show. It means a lot. I hope you're enjoying it, and there's so much more to come. If you are enjoying it, hit the subscribe button. I'd appreciate that tons, and it would help this podcast reach others who need to hear these messages too.

Number four. Honestly, numbers four and five are, I feel, the most important ones to nail here on this podcast. Number four is to keep in mind that this is one day. This holiday, this upcoming Thursday, is one day. Thanksgiving is one day. Christmas is two, given that it's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But out of 365 days of the year, that's three days. This is one day, and the next day you return to reality.

What I really want to highlight is that holidays are temporary breaks in routine. They aren't permanent changes. So it's so important that the next day, when it's back to reality, you return to your normal workout routine, your normal eating habits and your normal goal-focused activities immediately. Because this is where people get stuck in a trap. There's Thanksgiving, and then they hit this, oh, it's the holiday season, December is such a busy month, Christmas is right around the corner. And their work ethic, which was maybe 90% before Thanksgiving, drops drastically to probably 40% going into December, or even lower than that. Some people just stop exercising altogether and wait for the new year to come about.

Listen, loud and clear: you are in control of making this happen. You are in control of recognizing that this is just one day. It's a temporary break in my routine. It is not a permanent change. I am not going to make it a permanent change. And so on Black Friday and the days around Christmas, I am going to enjoy this one day and then get right back to it the next day. I'm going to get back on my routine. I'm going to meal prep any food I have to meal prep. You can use some of the Thanksgiving dinner for your meal prep. There are healthy foods there. You just have to eat them in smaller quantities. And that's on you, okay?

It is entirely in your control to get right back to it the next day. I don't want you to be the people who don't exercise because they got too busy or it's the holidays, and totally blow out your month of December and wait until the new year starts. You staying focused right now, throughout this time, will put you ahead come the new year. Be present, focus on gratitude, enjoy this day, enjoy the atmosphere, enjoy the experience. Just recognize that it's one day. The next four weeks leading up to Christmas are entirely in your control to get back onto routine.

All of the days leading up to Thanksgiving, through this entire year, you've kept habits, you've built habits, and hopefully you've stuck to the goals you told yourself you would go after this year, for 2023. Well, don't let that slip right now. Because if you let it slip right now, it's going to be much harder to get back into it and start 2024. It's one day. Return to reality the next day. This is a temporary break in your routine, not a permanent change, okay? That's number four.

Number five. There was an amazing podcast I just dropped this previous Friday. Hopefully you've already listened to it, but if you didn't, immediately following this podcast, go back to the last episode. Or you can just let this one ride, because it will probably roll right into that episode, which I highly encourage if you haven't listened to Friday's episode yet. Listening to that podcast, the one I'm harping on right now, is going to help your mindset drastically.

When you listen to that episode about the scale, fluctuations and understanding why it doesn't budge, it will greatly and positively impact your mindset in the days after this big holiday: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. If you are one of those people who steps on the scale the day after, almost to torture yourself, to see how much the scale went up, listen. First of all, you have to listen to that podcast. It explains a lot around carbohydrates. When you eat a ton of carbohydrates, your body holds on to water and you may feel puffier because of that. So you step on the scale and it tells you you're heavier. However, it is not fat. It is water weight. It is inflammation from the carbohydrates.

Because listen, in order to gain a pound of fat, you have to eat 3,500 calories in one day. And that's not to mention the calorie balance, right? If you're exercising and doing all the things you're doing, walking around and so on, you have to eat 3,500 calories in one day to gain one pound of fat. Ain't nobody I know doing that without intention. Okay?

So when you step on the scale the next day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'm just going to put this into your brain right now: that scale is going to go up, because you just overindulged in a big freaking meal. Your body is holding on to water weight and inflammation and all of those things, but it's not entirely fat. So go listen to the podcast I posted on Friday. Out of 105 episodes of this podcast, it is by far one of my favorite ones I have recorded yet, because it's going to educate you on what is actually happening when you step on the scale.

The scale is only telling you how heavy you are. It's not telling you what you're made up of: how much body fat, your organ size, your muscle mass, your water retention. All of those have weight. It's just telling you, here's a number, this is how heavy you are. That's it. Okay. So of course you're going to be a little bit heavier, because you had a ton of carbs and carbs hold on to water. You step on the scale and there's water weight and water retention. But you wouldn't know that just by stepping on the scale, because you need to be educated on that kind of stuff. That episode is going to educate you on that stuff.

So please make sure you understand that weight can fluctuate naturally, especially after a holiday, and it's important not to panic. Just make sure you return to your normal routine of working out and eating right, like I said in number four, the next day. Reality is reality the next day. So get right back to it.

All right, you guys. Those are the five things I hope you can take to tackle this holiday with the utmost confidence. Number one, be present. Experience the moment. Allow yourself to really accept memories over macros. Number two, eat protein around the big meal. Eat protein leading up to the meal. You're going to reduce cravings and go into the big meal without feeling like you're going to overeat. Number three, don't be an a-hole. Eat until you're comfortably full. Listen and learn the signals of your body trying to tell you that you are full. Enjoy the food without any guilt, but also respect that, hey, my body's full, I'm good, this meal was delicious.

Number four, keep in mind that this is one day. This holiday and Christmas are a temporary break in your routine, not a permanent change. So you get right back to it the next day, returning to the regular exercise, eating habits and goal-focused things you have been doing this entire year. You pick that right back up. You don't give it up for the whole month of December, and you don't wait until New Year's to start it, okay?

And the last one is to listen to episode 104, I think it was. Yeah, the last episode. Let this podcast roll right into it, because that's really going to help you understand that weight will fluctuate, especially after the holiday, because of what I explained and educated you on in that podcast. It's important not to panic and just get right back to it.

All right, you guys? Happy Thanksgiving. You know what I'm really, really grateful for? Every single one of you who listens to this podcast and then rates it, reviews it and shares it with somebody else who will gain so much value from it too. I appreciate all you listeners. I appreciate the love you give this podcast. You guys have no idea how much that means. It's so much more than I can put into words. I'm truly so grateful for every single one of you.

All right, you guys. Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have an amazing one. See you in the next episode.

Real quick, the only ask I could ever have of you guys is to help spread the word so we can help more women lose body fat, build muscle, reach their goals and feel insanely confident. And the only way we can do that is if you rate, review and share this podcast. So the single thing I ask you to do is leave a review. It will take you 10 seconds, and it will mean the absolute world to me and may change the world of someone else.