This is one of my favorite times of the year. I loveee the holidays… Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas to New Years, so much celebration and so much food + fun! Especially since I’m a Dietitian, so food is my job… PLUS, I get to see my family in New York for Christmas!
But I haven’t always been able to celebrate holidays without stress, especially when I was anticipating all of the food that was going to be around. I would prepare all day for holiday meals, actually … all week… I would eat super ‘clean’ to ensure that I could mess up and binge when it came to the actual day.
I would eat till I was beyond full, feel immense guilt for what I ate, and head to the running trails or gym that day/days after to make sure that I burned off everything I ate. Don’t worry ya’ll: I have since apologized to my body and made things right.
Can ya’ll relate?
I was essentially living my entire life obsessed about food. I’m sure you’re reading this and saying, ugh, that’s me every single day 😱
The truth is, the reason I struggled so much was because I had so much control over everything I ate (or restricted) until special events came around. I went buckwild on all the foods that I would never allow because my body felt so deprived.
I offered leftovers to my friends because I felt like if I left the food in my house, I would eat it all in one sitting (especially desserts).
At the time, I didn’t realize that was a result of the restricting I was doing and generally not getting enough calories on a daily basis to support my activity. Yes, active people generally need way more than 2,000 calories a day. As a result, I felt like I would eat.all.the.carbs in one sitting because of the restrictions I had placed on myself, combined with my all or nothing mentality.
If I wasn’t eating that whole sweet potato dish or pumpkin and chocolate pie, I wasn’t eating it at all.
Because I mean really… why would I ruin my day of ‘good’ eating, unless I was really gonna go out with a bang?
It was only once I learned to get rid of this all or nothing mentality, started tracking macros, and made sure I was eating enough food daily that I understood that I actually could include these types of foods in my diet and still be healthy AND get results. I slowly began to start letting go of my obsession with food and what I thought was my ‘healthy’ lifestyle.
You can still achieve/make progress on your strength and physique goals over the holidays. WITHOUT the stress of holiday foods. If you’re ready to hit the ground running and finally understand HOW to fuel your body + feel amazing… APPLY BELOW and let’s chat!
