It’s near the end of November, and you know what that means: days are shorter, nights are longer, and there’s extra food everywhere you turn. Historically, you’ve put on anywhere from five to fifteen pounds in the final six weeks of the year, and you really want to change that. But how can you make it through the holidays without gaining weight? That’s exactly what we’re diving into on today’s podcast.
Hello, hello my ambitious, overthinking friend, and welcome to the podcast. Let me set an expectation for you, especially if you’re new around here. I know lots of weight loss coaches will take the opportunity this time of year to offer you “tips and tricks” to navigate all the holiday parties.
They’ll tell you things like, “Eat a salad before you go to a cookie party.” or “Limit yourself to just two drinks,” or some such nonsense.
But that’s not my vibe. In fact, that’s my anti-vibe. Limiting yourself, restricting yourself, reinforcing “good food” and “bad food” ideas – that’s all diet thinking. And around here, I’m teaching you how to detox from your dieting mindset, by paying attention to what you’re currently telling yourself and deciding (based on how it feels emotionally, inside your body) if it serves you.
Rather than white-knuckling your way through the holidays this year, let’s explore some of the unhelpful thoughts you probably have, that have created weight gain in years past, and start shifting into helpful thoughts that will change everything.
Quick note on that: notice that I said “start” shifting. Changing your mindset is not a fast or immediate process. You can, and during this podcast, probably will, have an epiphany that feels absolutely amazing. You’ll feel your brain opening up to a new possibility, and it’ll be super exciting and exhilarating.
But that’s temporary, and I want to normalize that for you. Recognizing that there’s another way of thinking about things is fantastic, but it doesn’t magically erase 50+ years of thinking the old way.
So my goal for you today is to start shifting your mindset, and your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to continue on with the work after your epiphanies here. The real untangling takes place inside your journal and/or with coaching over the long term.
And just so you know, my business, Get Your GOAL Coaching, is all about that long-term transformation. I have a mini-course, Journal the Journey, that helps you explore and move through your dieting mindset blocks. And the Get Your GOAL Coaching membership is the place to go deep in your mindset work. There are links in the show notes for both of these things.
So, let’s get into the first layer here, so you can start shifting your mindset and make this year the best and most easeful holiday season yet.
Here are the top 3 things you’re currently thinking that have you gaining weight during the holidays, and the mindset shifts you can start making right now.
Thought #1 is that you don’t have any control over what you eat when you go to other peoples’ houses.
Notice how you’re nodding your head, ready to agree with that thought. And I get it. It sounds so true.
But let’s put a little crowbar in there and start shifting your mindset.
The reason this thought sounds so true is because it’s possibly, partially true. You more than likely don’t have control over what is being served. Unless you’re going to a potluck, or a cookie exchange or whatever, when you bring your own thing. So, sometimes you have some control over what is being served, but here’s the real shift out of your “gaining weight” thought and into your “losing weight” thought: you absolutely have control over what you eat.
And you absolutely, 100%, have control over how much you eat. Stay right here for a minute and listen to your brain scrambling for a toe-hold, trying to find some reason why, even if what I just said is true, how you still can’t lose weight during the holidays because you’re not really in control.
This is what I was talking about, with how fully changing your mindset is more of a long-term project that takes place with journaling or coaching. What we’re doing here is just opening the door to possibility.
It’s possible that the thought “I don’t have any control over what I eat at other peoples’ houses” isn’t true. It’s possible that you have more control than you’ve given yourself credit for. It’s possible that you can eat anywhere without gaining weight.
Do you feel that? That’s the shift. Away from feeling definitely out of control, and into feeling a bit of control. Away from weight gain, and into weight loss during the holidays.
Thought #2 is that other people will be disappointed or have their feelings hurt if you don’t eat what they offer you.
Oh, girlfriend, I feel you on a deep soul level on this one. I come from a family who shows their love with food. And rejecting the food, historically, meant literally being asked, to my face, “You don’t like the food? Don’t you love me?”
I know you’re squirming right now. It feels SO uncomfortable to have somebody you love question your love for them. It feels so heavy to carry the weight of their disappointment and rejection.
So let’s start shifting that with this concept: your actions don’t create other peoples’ feelings.
You already have evidence on both sides here. On the one hand, you absolutely know that, like – you know when you’ve had a misunderstanding with somebody, and no matter how many times you apologize, they’re still mad? It’s very clear in situations like that, that you don’t create other peoples’ feelings, or else they’d totally forgive you and move on and feel fine.
But in other cases, you’ve literally been accused your whole life of “making” other people mad or sad or disappointed or happy or proud.
The real truth of it is that every single one of us is only ever creating our own feelings. Always. Every time, every feeling.
This is a concept I coach on, honestly, every week inside the Get Your GOAL membership. It’s a tough concept to fully take onboard, and really allow other people to have whatever feelings they have, while owning your own. That’s the long-term work.
But right here, right now, this holiday season, here’s the first shift: It’s possible that other people create their own feelings. It’s possible that eating the way I want to for weight loss doesn’t make somebody else feel loved or unloved.
It’s okay if you don’t feel completely free of the burden of other peoples’ feelings right now, what we’re doing here is just the first shift. That first baby step, away from holiday weight gain, toward taking agency of your own feelings while you lose weight.
Thought #3 is that you just don’t want to worry about what you’re eating during the holidays. You want to relax and have fun and not think about it.
You and me both, sister. But here’s the difference between you and I. You and me. Whichever one is grammatically correct.
I know, deep in my bones, that worry isn’t the mechanism of weight loss. I have complete certainty that relaxing and having fun are actually the fast track to losing weight as quickly as possible and keeping it off for the rest of your life.
But that probably feels like too big of a leap for you right now. Did you notice how your brain wanted to just reject it out of hand? Like, “No, absolutely not. I can only lose weight through hard work, discipline, self control, and keeping a tight lid on my eating habits.”
And then your brain started showing you all the evidence. All the many, many times in the past that you let go of control and instantly gained weight. All of the times that you relaxed your standards and let your hair down, and boom! Twenty pounds in the blink of an eye. Every year, every holiday season, every time.
So let’s slow down and observe all of that for just a second, because it illustrates what I’ve been telling you about changing your mindset: this is a step-by-step process. When you try to take too big of a leap – from “I have to work hard and restrict myself to lose weight” to “I can relax and have fun to lose weight” – you just end up going nowhere.
So, rather than trying to completely change your mind all at once, let me show you one of my absolute favorite techniques for shifting my own mindset: the gentle “What if?” question.
What if it could be possible to lose weight during the holidays AND have fun?
Do you hear how soft that is? Like, what if there’s the possibility of a possibility. It’s not even really a baby step, it’s a baby tiptoe. Because that's enough.
Did you feel the shift? As soon as you heard the “What if?” question, your brain moved away from absolute certainty that the holiday season is nothing but weight gain from start to finish, and into a little bit of curiosity of how it could be different.
“What if?” questions are magic, y’all. I use them all the time with my coaching clients and inside my own journaling. They don’t change your mindset completely from unhelpful thoughts into helpful ones, but they give you a shift.
This is how to make it through the holidays without gaining weight – one mindset shift at a time. They all add up, and before you know it, holidays don’t feel hard. Losing weight doesn’t feel hard. Changing your habits, changing your mind, and changing your life – none of them feel hard when you give yourself a little shift.
Thank you so much for listening today, my friend. I’ll talk to you again soon!
