The holidays are here. It’s been a rough year. You might be feeling anxious about your ability to maintain health habits during the holidays.

Or maybe you gained some weight over the course of this uncertain year. You might be feeling the need to “get back on track.”

Perhaps you are feeling tempted to start some type of “eating plan”. You may say it isn’t a diet.

But really, it’s a diet. It’s an attempt to control yourself.

It comes from a good place, I get it. But it isn’t helping you.

I Can Get Back on Track with Health Habits in 2021

Or maybe you are feeling the opposite. The stress of dieting during the holidays? No thanks. This year has been rough enough.

You might be thinking it’s time to just not stress about your habits until January 1. After all, you deserve a break during the quarantine holidays. And the kids have been through enough this year, you can’t deprive them of their favorite treats.

This year is a wash anyway, right? Clean break on January 1.

Again, I’ve been there. I’ve likely started hundreds of new “eating plans.” Whether it was on January 1st, the first of another month (I swear I’ve tried them all), or a random Monday, this mindset never served me.

The Diet Mentality is Lurking Everywhere

People love a good comeback story, and a weight loss journey is a great one. The amount of people taking their “before picture” this coming January will probably be many.

I don’t want you to be one of them.

If you are documenting your progress come January 1st, I hope its because you want to check in on where you are on your journey towards health and wellness. I hope you “start” now.

And guess what, even reading this post is a small step towards doing things differently, so by clicking and reading you have in fact already started.

Having a Growth Mindset Instead of a Fixed/Diet Mindset

Calling it a journey sounds a little hokey to me, but we need a new way to think about our path to wellness. One that isn’t so full of fits and starts, “on tracks” and “off tracks.”

The reality is you are a human and you will always be changing, growing, and learning. And it’s time we start to think of that when it comes to our health habits.

There’s a reason you are reading this. There are things you can work on now to continue on your health journey well before January 1st rolls around.

Why the Holidays are Actually a GREAT Time to Work on Wellness

If you’ve dieted on and off your whole life, weight loss can feel urgent. I often hear, Shawn, I can’t stop dieting, my doctor told me I need to lose weight for my health! That’s a whole other blog topic in itself, but the good thing about the holidays are, sometimes that urgency goes down a bit.

Many people are willing to put weight loss on the backburner during the holidays. Have maintaining their weight be a goal, for once. This can be an excellent opportunity to focus on health habits.

Why is this?

Because the urgency of trying to lose weight NOW almost always backfires. It’s one of the things that likely undermines why dieting is so unhelpful. If the holidays need to come for you to have realistic expectations and not expect 1-2 lbs per week, let’s capitalize on that.

When we take a breath, and accept ourselves and our bodies for the weight and shape we are at now, it opens up the opportunity to learn and apply health habits that actually serve us, without the stress of trying to control the scale.

Ways to Work on Wellness Through the Holiday Season

The goal is to work on health habits and wellness from a place of self-respect and feeling as good as possible in your body, so you can enjoy the time with family to the best of your ability.

Now, if you are rolling your eyes because Covid has decimated the holidays as you know it, hear me out.

Whatever the holidays will look like for you and the family, I guarantee that they can be better, or worse, depending on how you show up to them with regards to your health habits.

Some Options for How To Show up this Year

If you show up rested, having taken a little time for self-care, and fueled your body with mostly whole nutritious foods, you are likely to be more patient and more present with whoever you are interacting with.

On the flip side, if you take the approach of “I’ll start January 1st” for many people this leads them to overeat and maybe even binge eating on high sugar foods, be less active, and slug through the holidays feeling bloated, tired, and down.

Making Changes from a Place of Respect for Yourself and the Entire Family

When I say don’t wait until January, what are some examples?

• Maybe, instead of making 10 batches of cookies knowing full well you and the family will eat them all, you only make 2. You can still enjoy the experience together, without weeks of sugar highs and crashes that make us all more tired and irritable.
• Consider ways to start a new tradition that helps the family to connect, while also fueling healthy habits. Maybe you bundle up and drive to a neighborhood with great holiday lights, and walk around as a family. Maybe you get hot chocolate, but also have healthy snacks for the drive there (carrot sticks in case you have any reindeer sightings, anyone?)
• No one likes the idea of restriction or taking away activities, but if you focus on what you are adding in, things always go better. Maybe you do a family cooking day where everyone helps out and you play holiday music.
• What other ideas do you have? Comment below!

It’s the Underlying Why That Truly Matters Here

The specifics of what you do are less important than how you approach it. Food isn’t just fuel and it’s 100% “allowed” to enjoy your holiday traditions this year. But 2020 is a year of major upheaval. A time to reflect. Maybe there are some traditions that you have grown out of, and others you want to add.

It’s time to evaluate what truly matters: our relationships. Our health and vitality matters, but mainly so that we can participate in our lives and show up the way we want to in our most important relationships.

Isn’t that most of the reason we care about our health? So that we can be present and participate in events like watching our kids graduate high school or have their own children?

More immediately, I don’t want to improve my health so my triglycerides go down, I want to feel as energetic as possible so I can run around and get as excited as my kiddos are for the Christmas season.

What About the Kids?

As you will see above, I’m not talking much about taking things away, but adding things. However, you may decide the normal tradition of making 1000 cookie types is excessive and perhaps you are worried your kids will notice.

First of all, they might not. However, I realize older kids very well might, so how to explain it?

If the kids ask, just be honest. You could say, “We are changing our traditions a little bit this year. We make so many cookies that many of them go to waste. Instead of making so many, I thought we could make a few less types and add a new tradition. Would you like to help me think of a good one?”

Give them some choices and brainstorm as a family what you would like best.

No One Needs a Diet, Period

Kids are born as intuitive eaters, but sometime, often early in their life, we teach them to stop trusting their bodies and stop listening to hunger and fullness. This can be done by:

• Finish your plate, there are kids in other countries that don’t get enough food to eat
• Eat your broccoli first, then you can have desert
• Eat all of your dinner, it’s good for you (even if the kid says they are full)

Same Goes for Adults

I know the urge to get yourself on a diet or an eating plan might be strong this holiday season or afterwards, but please resist the urge. If you need more of a rationale, make sure you check out my previous posts on this topic.

Again, when I say diet, I’m referring to intentional restriction based on urgency to get weight off now, quickly. If you say diet but you truly mean just shifting to some better health habits, then go for it my friend.

We all can and should work on health habits now and in the future. Your health journey doesn’t need a start date. It’s already well underway.

How to Start Healthy Habits NOW, Without Dieting

The great thing is, when we approach health habits from a place of respecting ourselves and our bodies, there isn’t a need to tailor it to kids and adults. No one needs a diet, and the messaging can be the same for everyone.

1. Take a look at your typical habits and holiday traditions this year. Write them out, and talk about them with the family. Do these serve you still? What habits do you want to keep, and which can be skipped? What might you want to add in?
2. Ask yourself, “How do we want to FEEL come January 1st, 2021?” Not how much do you want to weigh or how you want to look, but how do you want to feel in your body? Do you want to feel more energetic and hopeful about the year? Or sluggish and stressed about implementing yet another huge overhaul of your habits. Do you want to feel like you’ve made some progress, and instilled some small habits that you can build on? Even if its small, like you turn off your phone an hour before bedtime and are sleeping a bit better most nights. That’s important and you should feel good about that. Now build from there. That is my hope for you.
3. Plan Ahead for a Great Food Environment. Odds are, you will have extra treats or snacks around over the holidays. Plan ahead so you can keep your environment full of nutritious stuff too. Pre cut fruit or veggie tray at the front of the fridge, anyone? Buy them pre-cut or have the family help with the chopping.
4. Listen to internal signals. Ask your child if they are hungry and if they are full. Ask yourself the same thing. If you want guidance in this area, download my free 3-day Hunger & Satisfaction Journal here.
5. Don’t shame anyone (kids or adults) for overeating. You are going to overeat for the rest of your life. Not because of lack of willpower, but because you are a human being and everyone does. Notice it, label it without judgment, “oh man, I ate too much today, I’m really full” and move on. If your kid expresses that they overate (maybe overindulged in some Christmas or Thanksgiving treats), don’t say “see that’s what happens when you eat too much!” Instead try “yeah, it’s easy to eat a little extra when it really tastes good. I’m sorry your belly hurts, what do you think would help it?” You could offer suggestions based on your experience like “When mine hurts, sometimes I like to rest on the couch, other times some water and a short walk will help.” The great thing is, how you might talk to your kids is the same as you can talk to yourself when you overeat, so lots of opportunities to practice. 🙂
6. Make lots of healthy options readily available, and then give freedom of choice without pressure. Have a tray of cut up veggies out on the table or counter as you are prepping dinner. Snack on them yourself while you are cooking if you want. Knowing my toddler, I don’t even mention them or offer her them, as she will almost surely say “no!” But if I just leave them out and snack on them myself, usually a curious little one comes up and ask what I have and if she can have some very soon.
7. Enjoy treat foods without guilt, but promote healthy portion sizes. Instead of telling your kids what a healthy portion is, model this behavior and share as a family. When we make sweets, we often give away or put away the majority and just keep out enough so each family member can have some. If we have 3 of them, we each have one, or if it’s big we might share (split a large piece of cake) and then when it’s gone it’s gone. When our daughter asks for me, we say “its all gone, we will have to get more another day” to minimize feelings of restriction or limits, but we are simply stopping because its gone.

We can learn a lot about our relationship to food from how we approach our kids

As you can see there is no need to make a different meal for adults and kids and no need to talk differently to our kids than we work on with oursleves.

No one needs a diet, but no one needs a delay in looking for ways to improve our health habits either.

There is a middle ground, where you are looking for ways to improve your habits from a place of respecting yourself and your body, and teaching your family to do the same.

What parallels do you notice between yourself and your kids? How do you want to work on this moving forward?

Have you Grabbed my Free Guides Yet?

For more guidance on making habit changes without falling back into the diet mentality, I have a free guide to help set you up for success. This free guide outlines 5 top ways to make healthy living easier. And who doesn’t need that?

Or if you want more guidance than this on noticing hunger and fullness, I have a 3 day journal to track your eating in a non-diet way. Grab that one for free here.

I Want Your Feedback!

Lots of things are happening at the Psychology of Wellness behind the scenes. I’m leaving my full-time job at the end of December and I’ll be continuing to bring you science-backed info to help you stop dieting and start living a life you value. If you haven’t already, let me know what you think of the free resources by commenting below or emailing me at info@drshawnhondorp.com.