Speaker 1
Today, we're doing a brief podcast. So, it's the holidays, right? Right around Christmas, New Year's, nobody does anything. Nobody goes to work, nobody has normal routines. So, I'm not going to put a huge podcast out there because. Nobody's gonna probably listen to it, and that's fair. You probably shouldn't. So, this is more of a quick little, I can be in your ears to say, hey, this is some things to think about around the holiday, but As we get around the holidays, you know, it usually means one thing, right? People get worried about like ruining everything, like, oh, my diet's gonna be terrible, I'm not gonna work out, all those things. And so, I just want to talk about how we handle these, how I think about handling the holidays, right? And so There's always a bunch of different ways to do this, but I'm just going to kind of walk you through my heuristic, and you can take it or leave it, but hopefully, we'll make this quick. But we've all been there, right? So you've been locked in for months, right? You're taking care of yourself, you work out, you are exercising all that stuff, and then December hits, and then All of a sudden, it feels like you've lost the control, like everything goes out the window, like you have no more self-control, it's just gone. And that's like what everyone says: oh, it's like from Thanksgiving to New Year's, like, it's all washed. And like, hopefully, that's not the case, but there's ways around that. And so The big thing is, though, when we have this, people are worried about that, right? They're worried about losing control, and people try to decide: do we eat completely clean? Do I do my normal thing? Do I, you know, just let things go bananas. And so, we're kind of giving you a couple options here that you could think about. For your holiday season, like how are you going to handle this? And so you can kind of hopefully choose one that fits your goal, right? They kind of range from just letting it be to being very strict. And so finding what works best for you won't resonate with you, and then going from there. That's at least how I work about it. The first strategy, strategy number one, I call it all gas, no breaks, or kind of the checkout method. So essentially, this is a total psychological release, meaning like You just do what you want, eat what you want when you want, no tracking, no guilt. Like you just do anything. And so, um, the nuance here is that we're having a mental reset. Essentially, you're going to be present, you are going to be in the moment, and you're just enjoying that. However, um, you know. There are some guardrails here, right? So, if you have a history of like binge eating, it's probably slippery slow, probably wouldn't recommend doing that. And then, also, like, understanding that, yes, you will probably gain some weight. Will it be enormous? No, it won't be. If you've been going down and for a long time and losing weight, it's not going to just shoot you back up. But if that is going to be psychologically damaging for you, then this might not be for you. This is for the person who's. 100% locked in all the time and just needs a little mental break, and it won't harm them, and they can handle seeing a little weight fluctuation. Like, this is who that's for. I mean. Or just the average person, or if you don't care, like, really, it doesn't matter. Like, this is an option, you can do that. It won't ruin anything if you have a week off. Now, if you are trying to compete, And have a very stupid goal, yeah, this isn't for you, but this is one option that's there. Do I recommend this? Probably not, because this gets a slippery slope, right? It's all of a sudden, okay, Thanksgiving leads into Christmas and New Year's, and then all of a sudden you stop doing everything because you enjoy how this feels. So that's just something to consider. Going on to strategy number two, this is, I kind of call it a business as usual or robot method. Essentially, here, nothing changes. You find the gym on Christmas morning, you bring your Tupperware, your track, and your macros. Like, there's zero changes, right? So the. You have no loss or momentum, you're hitting your goals, that's it. And that's fine. If this is important for you and that's what you want to do, that's cool. But the social cost can sometimes be high, right? It can maybe. Alienate you from your family when you're sitting there and you brought your own food, and your family's like, What's wrong with Jordan? What is he doing? This guy is weird, right? That can happen, and so It's a shared meal, right? It's a family event, all those things. It could be a logistical nightmare. It could be challenging socially. So that's an option, though. It is there. Usually, this is for athletes who are on deadlines and. Who are really, really dedicated. And if you don't have to do this, I would pretty much probably say, hey, this is probably not what most people want to do. But once again, you do you. So this is the option of the robot method. The third strategy we can talk about is something called a planned hedonic deviation, which is a fancy, fancy word, which essentially means like, hey, just planning out when you're going to have your indulgences, right? So, this is kind of a structured mill ground. And you plan kind of when you're going to deviate, right? So this works because it's not really lost to control. You are still in control, and when you are losing the rein. So you are saying, hey, I'm going to do this. You enjoy memories and the food, but you kind of understand the overall scheme of that. So that's kind of where we're going from there. And so, how do you do this planned hedonic deviation? Well, there's a couple different ways. You know, some people are actually tracking their macros that can work. And so you just kind of Shift your macro so you plan it for a big meal. Other things you can do is you can kind of eat light in the morning, maybe eating some lean protein for breakfast and lunch, not a lot of calories, saving the calories for a big dinner. You could also just not track a meal, saying, Hey, like, I'm not going to track this, or worry about just going to have one meal where I just like go for it, and that's fine. And also, you could do like Maybe just intuitively buffer your day. Like, hey, I'm doing a little fasting. Actually, I'm not going to eat until midday when we have that afternoon, you know, lunch that goes into dinner, the lunch becomes second lunch and all that stuff. And that's an option, too, as well. So you could. You know, think about skipping snacks, all those things where you can kind of just buffer it in, that's an option. So, um, but the big thing I do want to talk about is I want you to be intentional. Right, so this shouldn't be just out of whim. Like, oh, I don't think about it. Then just going. Sit down, think about it before the holiday season. You know, this is coming out a couple days before that. I'm right around there. What do you want to do? You know, are you going to regret eating this way? Are you going to regret not getting to the gym? Are you going to do that? Like, know this, right? Like, know, understand, and understand yourself. If you're prone to spiraling from not doing well, then maybe we need to. Figure out a way to be a little more stricter. If you say, hey, like, this is my social experience and I love this, then that's fine too. So there really isn't anything there. And at the end of the day, like, food is more than fuel. I know some people will say that it is, like, it's just strictly fuel. I think ultimately we can't say that. It's culture, it's family, it's memories. There's a lot of stuff going on there. And so for me, the big thing is: like, One little area of bad eating won't undo 51 weeks of other consistent habits, right? So if you get a flat tire, you don't slash the other three, right? You say, okay, we'll fix this and kind of go from there. And I'm not saying you have to go out. Necessarily go have, go crazy. And I'm not advocating for that, right? And if you say, hey, Jordan, I want to do the opposite of that. I just want to stay locked in, that's fine too. But this is one of those things where, like, I just want to remind you that life is much, much, much more than just. Being fit, right? Much more than being fit and eating perfectly and eating a quote-unquote healthy diet. There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, there's nothing wrong with that at all. Like, I try to eat healthier during the holidays as well. But it doesn't make you morally superior or anything like that. And so it's a time where community is so important. The benefits you get from community hopefully are even more than anything you would ever do in terms of exercise. Or from diet. Having good social connections is so, so important for lifelong health and longevity, all those things. And so this is the time to be present, to enjoy that, and kind of go from there. But that is going to be it for today. Thank you so much. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic rest of the year.
Speaker 2
We will have one more podcast before the new year's. It'll be a very short one like this as well. But thanks for tuning in. I hope you have a wonderful time, and we'll see you soon.
