"Unleashing the Power of Honesty: How It Can Transform Your Path to Wellness"

Today's blog is going to talk about the word honesty. 

Today we are going to break down what honesty is in regards to your wellness goals, how to implement and practice honesty on a daily basis, and how to stay in alignment with being honest with yourself and others on your lifelong journey to a better you.

Honesty is defined in google as the refusal to lie. A great example of using the term honesty would be if your loved one wears a color that does not suit their skin tone and they ask for your opinion on their shirt color. Honesty would be telling them that there is another color that you have seen them wear in the past that better suits their skin tone. As a friend and loved one to this person- it may seem a little bit harsh, but as someone being real and transparent you are telling the truth. Honesty is not always comfortable, honesty is not always fun; but honesty is needed.

I am going to add onto the google definition of honesty when it comes to defining honesty surrounding your wellness goals. Honesty is refusing to lie, but when you are being honest with your wellness journey, it is also about facing the truth, and being honest about your habits, excuses, and narratives that you create for yourself.

As humans, our default setting is to create excuses and narratives for why we are not achieving our wellness goals. We do this so we don't blame ourselves for why we are not reaching our goals. These excuses, narratives, and false realities that we create for ourselves will often times block our ability to reach our wellness goals. If we utilize honesty with our wellness goals, and are real and transparent with ourselves; we can determine if our own daily habits, thought patterns, behaviors, choices, and decisions are what is actually responsible for road blocking our goals.

Recently- one of my family members was in the hospital, and I was spending everyday there. I have wellness goals of fat loss right now. I was very honest with myself over the last few weeks spending a lot of time at the hospital that my current daily habits and behaviors in the moment are not aligned with a fat loss goal, and for me right now- that is okay. Being honest with myself, I knew these last few weeks I did not have an ability to prioritize the nutritional and exercise habits that I know I need to practice in order to reach a fat loss goal. Being honest and raw with myself gave me comfort and peace in the moment that fat loss may be a goal for me in the future when my priorities can align with my goals, but lately my focus has been getting in the gym when I have free time to move, trying to prioritize high protein foods, getting significant sleep, and stress management. These are things right now in the moment that I know I can prioritize, and when the time is right and my family is healthy and well again- I will prioritize fat loss habits, behaviors, actions, and commitments back into my life.

Most people fail to be honest with themselves; which is why I call it a superpower. When you have the ability to be honest with yourself in the present moment, you can decide if the habits, behaviors, and actions you need to practice to reach a goal can be a current priority in your life. If you can't align your habits and behaviors with your goal; you may need to change your wellness goals, and accept reality. If you can prioritize and change your habits and behaviors to align with your goals; step one would be to start creating space for these habits, and prioritizing them so they are maintainable and achievable everyday, and to stop allowing the negative deposit habits and behaviors into your life.

Some of us have actual roadblocks getting in the way (sickness, death, injury, etc.); while others create false narratives for why we can't reach our goals. This is where honesty comes in. You have the ability to determine if your narratives and roadblocks are valid and real, or if you are falling to a victim mindset and creating excuses and narratives for yourself because you would rather prioritize negative deposit habits for convenience or instant gratification.

Honesty can prevent a VICTIM MINDSET. This type of mindset can really hinder you and your ability to reach your goals. Victim mindsets are blaming everything on your surroundings, your experiences, and others, and not acknowledging that your OWN habits, behaviors, actions, and what you prioritize could be the problem.

I had fat loss goals all throughout my college years and mid twenties, but I never was able to achieve them until I was honest about my victim mindset. My priorities at the time were not aligned with a fat loss goal. These habits included eating out and highly processed over whole foods, drinking empty calories in alcohol over prioritizing protein each weekend, not being mindful of my nutrition over the weekend over monitoring my nutritional intake on weekends, and choosing socialization with friends over exercise and movement. None of these habits were wrong, but the truth was that I was not honest with myself during this period in my life that the habits I was practicing were not in alignment with fat loss. These habits in college made me happy in the moment, but did not align with my long term goals.

I remember telling friends and family members, and people I looked up to that I was doing all the right things, and still not seeing results. As a grew more knowledge with fitness, nutrition, and self improvement; I began to realize that I was not being honest with myself and I was falling victim to habits and behaviors that were out of alignment with my goals.

So where do you go from here? You know what honesty is, you know that victim mindsets happen quite frequently and should be monitored on a regular basis. I am going provide you a step by step checklist to incorporate in your life on a daily/very frequent basis. The more honest you can get on a day to day basis; the better likelihood you will have reaching your wellness goals, and preventing false narratives, excuses, and victim mindsets.

Steps to Being Honest With Yourself Each Day:

1. Wake up, breathe, and practice gratitude.

2. Ask yourself what habits align with the life I'm trying to live

3. Go about your day, and live life in the present moment

4. Make choices that align with your wellness goals

5. If you make choices or fall victim to habits/behaviors that don't align with your goals journal them out at the end of the day and create strategies to improve upon these choices and behaviors in the future

6. Continue a daily personal inventory and be honest with yourself, your narratives, your excuses, and your daily habits. Start acknowledging when you are creating excuses for yourself when you practice habits that don't align with your goals.

7. Adopt a progress not perfection lens. Try getting better each day, rather than being absolutely perfect. It's progress not perfection

8. Smile- you are growing.

The moment you can start being honest with yourself, your actions, choices, and behaviors; is the moment you will start living a healthier, wealthier, happier, and more aligned life with your ideal self.

I will end with this- Are you being honest with yourself, and how often? If not- how can you get better and adopt habits/behaviors/choices that align with your goals? Go practice honesty today!

Much Love and Happy Habits,

Jules

"Stop Wishing... Start Going: Transforming Dreams into Action"

I wish I had a car like that 

I wish I had patience like my best friend 

I wish my arms were as toned as hers 

I hear these thoughts and desires in my own head from time to time. These thoughts can be materialistic, these thoughts can be internal, or these thoughts could be for external validation. That is what they are though.... thoughts. Some of these thoughts/desires are connected to a STRONG desire, while others come in for a split second and leave because truthfully- they aren't important. When you have a STRONG desire for something- it is very possible to create inward change and transformation that will reflect into your external world. When this happens you start shifting your daily habits, commitments, decisions, thought patterns, and mindsets to align with your desire. However- many people never get past the desire part. They can't make the connection that these desires are important, strong, and needed for improvement on your current self and to align with your ideal self and long term health. It's easy to make excuses, narratives, or quit before beginning. For many- this could be due to lack of confidence, failure to manage time/priorities, setting too high of expectations, or allowing yourself to stay victim to your surroundings, negative mindsets and belief systems.

In my 20s I WASTED so much of my time wanting and desiring everything, but refusing to take action, establish commitments, and make decisions that aligned and were positive deposits into the ideal version of myself.

Your daily choices, habits, behaviors, decisions, and commitments that you make can either align with the ideal version of yourself, or continue to push you away from that ideal version of yourself.

I find it so valuable to talk about the difference between desires vs what you actually NEED to become the best version of yourself. I wasted so many years in my 20s making 10,000 choices everyday because I wished for so many things, but never took the time to decide if these wishes, wants, and desires were in alignment with the highest, happiest, and most ideal version of myself.

On top of the 10,000 desires I had, so many of my wishes and desires were conflicting to my ideal self, goals, and overall well-being:

• I wanted to be social and have a large friend group AND go to the gym 5x a week and reach my ideal goal physique.

• I wanted to work on my professional life and chase my dreams of being a full time business owner AND work full time as an athletic trainer.

• I wanted to eat healthy to reach my goal physique AND go out every weekend to eat and drink with friends and socialize.

• I wanted to give everyone the shirt off my back everyday all day AND have the time and energy to invest into improving myself

In my twenties I desired to be social AND super fit. While some people can manage this to a certain degree- when you start dedicating time and energy into your physical health it's hard to socialize all day every day as well. Everyone needs human interaction, and to be amongst the company of others. Socializing is great for your overall wellbeing but if you choose eating out and socializing all the time over movement and exercise this could actually be a negative deposit on your overall health. Socialization can incorporate movement, exercise, and healthy activities, so they can be done at the same time, but for most people-socialization occurs around a dinner table, with drinks, and outside of the gym/nature. So in order to be social and fit- your habits, choices and behaviors around this may need to shift. Maybe socialization starts to look like Sunday morning walks with your girlfriends, or hiking days with your friends. It's important to note that if you prioritize other activities and obligations over exercise- you aren't in alignment with being a healthier and happier person regarding your overall wellbeing. If you neglect your physical health- this can cause long term problems down the road. So start asking yourself- are some of your current desires conflicting? If they are what one is more important to you, and your long term health?

In my twenties I desired to work full time as an athletic trainer and become a full time business owner. I burnt myself out trying to pursue both because I didn't have the mental, physical, or emotional capacity to work 40 hours a week, and be 100% invested in my own business. I chose to chase my dream of having my own business, and still work some hours as an athletic trainer so that I can use my degree which fills my cup, but also have to time and energy to build my dream business. You only have so much energy to invest into yourself, your family, your career, and your passions. You have to choose how to utilize this energy. Only YOU have the power to know what balance is needed with your personal life, professional life, daily diet/nutrition, fitness/movement, and passions. If one of these areas of your life feels neglected or is overly poured into- you may need to start changing some of your priorities to achieve more happiness, prosperity, and balance in your life.

In my twenties I desired to eat healthy to reach my goal physique, and go out every weekend so I could drink with friends. Again- conflicting desires and habits. If you are trying to reach a goal physique or achieve weight loss/fat loss goals- you are going to have to make a change to the daily eating habits and behaviors surrounding nutrition. I used to go out to eat and not make the best nutritional choices 2-3x a week after eating healthy the rest of the week- all to blame it on "bad genetics." It wasn't until I did some inventory and recognized I can't reach a goal physique if 3 out of 7 days I'm not even being MINDFUL of anything that I am eating. You have to make sure that you do some personal inventory on your daily habits and make sure that they align with your wishes and desires. You are not going to get there if your daily habits, decisions, and actions don't match up with your wants/desires. A lot of times you are going to find yourself desiring something, but refusing to change the habits to align with your desire. In this case you either accept you will not achieve your desire, or make the decision that you are going to make the change. For most- if it's actually important to you- you WILL eventually make that change to allow your habits to be in alignment with your desires. If you feel like they already are in alignment and still not seeing change- maybe it's time to do some personal inventory or talk to a coach or person who specializes in the area you are trying to develop in.

In my twenties I also desired to help anyone and everyone who needed it. I vividly remember reconnecting over a social media platform with someone I met at one of my old college jobs. She mentioned to me that she became homeless and needed help. As a person who feels every desire and intention to help others I gave her money because that is what she asked for. It turned into a weekly or every other day encounter for her to continue asking for money. She would claim that the money was needed to get to and from work. I helped her for quite a while until it got to the point she was asking so frequently that this started to impact my overall wellbeing, financial health, and mental health. I wanted to help her because that is the type of person that am I so I offered to buy her a bike to help her get to and from work. She refused just asking for money. I finally just openly and kindly asked her why she refused something that would help her get to work, and instead requested money. She got very reactive and said I was demoralizing her character, and told me I wasn't a child of god and that I should be ashamed of myself. It was at that moment where I recognized not everyone is going to value or deserve your help. At some points in your life you are going to need to help yourself and be selfish with your energy before helping others. Some humans don't deposit into your overall wellbeing and when you are around them they will drain you. Other humans come into your life to raise you up, lift you up, and make you feel brighter. These are angels walking on earth, and need to be constantly reminded that you are grateful and appreciative of them. There are very few people like them, and they are meant to come into your life, give you energy, help you see the world from a different perspective, and help you grow as a human. Both of these people are needed throughout your journey in life. Some to teach you lessons and to redirect your path when you are unaware that redirection is needed. Some to make you realize you are worthy of all that you desire, and others to make you realize you need to set boundaries and know your worth within YOURSELF. But as a human- you genuinely can't give to people without giving back into yourself. So make sure you take some time recharging your energy and being around people who help you recharge. This example I shared above was me setting a firm boundary of helping someone in the capacity that I could. My old friend reacting to me offering help different that what she thought she needed was a sign she wasn't grateful for what I offered her and the best that I could give her. She didn't deserve my energy, and a lot of people will come into your life in the same kind of way. It's up to you to decide who deserves you energy, and who deserves your absence.

Wrapping it up on Desires.....

I encourage you to pick alignment with your habits and desires. You want to make sure your daily habits don't conflict and steer you in the wrong direction of your ideal self. We all love the habit of watching TV or scrolling on our phones, but this conflicts with movement, exercise, and your overall health if none of your day is filled with exercise, healthy movement, and mindful nutritional choices. If you desire to be healthier for the long term (which most of us do) it's important you start deciding what actions, habits, and behaviors you need to start implementing.

Your long term health and overall wellbeing is a byproduct of your daily habits, actions, behaviors, and what you pour your energy into.

So take the time to make sure your desires don't conflict, and align with your long term health, and ideal self.

You are one habit away from reaching your desires. Stop wishing and start going.

Happy Habits,

Julie

"How to Maintain a Healthy Mindset with Nutrition and Exercise Over the Holidays"

Blog Post Written By: Juliane Volosky MS, ATC, PES, CWC

Getting present in the moment and spending time with family is what Holidays are all about.

Since the Holiday Season brings families together for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year, we spend a lot of time bonding around the dinner table. When the holiday season starts to fade away, and the celebrating, laughing, and gathering dies down... many of us start to face feelings of anguish, anxiety, regret, and remorse because of our diet and exercise during the holiday months. It tends to fall to the wayside, is nonexistent, or extremely out of alignment with our goals. While we were gathering with those we love and care about the most, we didn't monitor or practice awareness at all for our wellness habits including our daily diet, exercise, sleeping patterns, and hydration.

If you have found yourself in the spiral of losing sight of your diet and exercise over the Holiday Season, you are not alone. It's so easy to get caught up in all the obligations, commitments, events, and deadlines of the holiday season. You have 10 different holiday parties to provide a dish for and Christmas shopping to do. We do all of this while trying to maintain a healthy home life, professional life, and personal life. The "to do" list over the holiday season gets long and daunting, so when push comes to shove- we sacrifice some of our commitments to be able to handle all the other commitments on our short term Holiday to do lists.

For many of us, the one area that we tend to neglect pouring energy into is our commitments to our overall wellbeing and long term health. Healthy eating, movement, hydration, and sleep all fall to the wayside. We give these healthy habits up because like I said earlier the task list of things to do over the holiday season quadruples in size, and something has to give in order for you to meet and reach all the deadlines and things that need accomplished before the holidays get here. We put diet and exercise at the bottom of our priority list, and neglect an area of our life that should be one of the highest priorities.

So what do you do to maintain a healthy mindset with your diet and exercise over the Holiday Season?

I personally get asked this question a lot. As someone who works really hard at being in the habit of a healthy lifestyle with my daily diet and exercise, I wanted to provide you with some tools and strategies that have personally helped me stay committed to my healthiest and happiest self for over 10 years now. So I am going to share 4 ways to keep a healthy mindset over the holiday season.

Tip #1 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays: Stop Calling Your Eating Habits a Diet

So many of us look at our daily nutrition like an on/off switch. "My eating has been horrendous, I need to diet," "I am off the rails again, I need to go back to keto," "I can't eat any sweets- I started tracking calories a day ago." These phrases create a huge trigger and concern for someone like myself since I spent my early to mid twenties battling a severe eating disorder and a calorie obsessed relationship with food. When you feel like you need to be "on" again because you have recently been so "off" this is living life through an all or none mindset of thinking. We set ourselves up for failure thinking our eating habits should always be 100% perfect. We forget that progression is much more important than perfection. The minute you feel like you failed with your eating habits, most people throw their hands in the air and say, "Oh well, Ill try again next week."

Your daily eating habits should not have an on/off switch. You shouldn't be extremely on or extremely off with your eating habits, you shouldn't have foods that you label "diet foods" and "non-diet foods." Your relationship with food should be through a healthy lens. You shouldn't loathe family get togethers or social gatherings because you are anxious that you will "get off track." There is no such thing as getting off track if you are prioritizing the right balance of foods. Over the years I have began focusing on a whole food based protein dense diet 80% of the time- with foods I love and adore that may fall into the processed category 20% of the time.

You will not derail your progress with your fitness and nutrition goals if you eat what you want over Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve/Day, but get right back into a healthy lifestyle again with your diet and exercise after they are over. That doesn't mean you should look at the holiday days as a binge or an all out "IM OFF MY DIET TODAY IM GOING TO GO CRAZY," but you should enjoy the day, and understand that thanksgiving and Christmas foods are readily available all year around to you.

If you wait until the holidays to have these types of foods because you normally restrict yourself from them all the other days of the year- this is a huge red flag, and where most people start to develop a negative, scarcity, and restrictive mindset around food. I stopped living life through this lens when I focused on eating freely 20% of the time with the foods I love and enjoy, and stopped labeling foods as BAD! Any food can be bad even the healthy ones if you can't control the amount or portion you eat of it, and binging and having an inability to control your portions is usually caused by restricting yourself from certain food groups for long periods of time.

Your daily nutrition habits should be about making progress, improvement, and small steps to a better you each day. So let the holidays where you eat a little bit out of alignment go. The real roadblock over the holiday season is to allow one bad day of eating progress into multiple days or months of overly processed eating until the whole Holiday season is over. I tell my clients that I work with all the time- the quicker you can get back into alignment with your goals when you had a bad day of eating habits- the faster you will see results. It takes time and a lot of practice to repeat healthy eating habits and behaviors, so focus on the process of getting better- don't focus on being perfect.

Tip #2 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays: Stop Allowing the Holidays be An Excuse to Continue Practicing Negative Deposit Eating Habits

Adding onto tip #1 of focusing on healthy eating habits as a lifestyle- I want you to remember that 1 Day of Eating is NOT going to derail your progress.

BUT- so many of us begin a downward spiral of back to back days, months, and years of negative deposit eating habits because the Holiday season breaks our healthy eating habits. We fall victim to the all-or-none mindset of thinking, and spiral downwards, and can't find the courage within ourselves to get back into alignment with healthy fitness and nutrition habits.

We don't recognize that if our diet is off for one day that we will not derail or reverse our progress. However, most of us lose sight of our goals and commitments to a healthier lifestyle with diet and exercise for the ENTIRE holiday season after allowing ourselves to have one bad day, and continuing to use the holidays as an excuse for negative deposit eating habits. The leftover cookies, sweets, and processed food stays in our kitchen and environment cause it's there and we continue to partake in eating habits out of alignment with our healthiest self.

My old self used the holidays as a scapegoat, excuse, and false narrative to why I would fall off track. I was always telling myself and loved ones that I would get back on track after the holidays would die down. I would get all the bad foods out of my house after the holidays.

Red flag number one for me was not being able to control my sweets intake if it was in my house. If you live in a restrictive mindset and usually don't allow yourself sweets at all unless it's a holiday- you will begin the downward spiral to not being able to control your sugar/sweet cravings at all post holidays. If you spend your year eating sweets and deserts in moderation, and most days prioritize protein and whole foods- you will have a much healthier relationship with food around the holidays because you have a lens that these foods are always available to you and are "ok" in moderation. However if you live in scarcity mindset and tell yourself these foods are "bad" your mind will have an even harder time saying no to them when they are in your environment. You begin to eat all of that food item until it is gone because in your head you want them gone because you can't "control yourself" when that food is in your house.

After reading quite a few self help books because I recognized my relationship with food was falling into the restrictive and unhealthy category- I recognized that I was operating from a place of lack, and with an all or none mindset of thinking. If I wasn't 100% on I was 100% OFF TRACK. This derails a persons progress more than anything.

Why? Because we are humans. Progress isn't always going to be linear, results are not always going to be instant, and to become healthier takes a lot of repetition, consistency, and time. Knowing that healthy eating and seeing results will take a lot of time, consistency, and repetition is step number one to seeing long term results and sustainability. Anyone can go into a restrictive mindset or lens of thinking, deprive themselves from certain food groups, and lose a ton of water weight because they aren't eating balanced, and severely restricting calories. It's the people who start focusing on the process of healthier habits and exercise that will see long term results. They don't look at carbs as the enemy, and focus on eating the things they enjoy in moderation while prioritizing more whole food based food items and protein dense food items.

So stay consistent with your goals, habits, and commitments over the holiday season, and operate from a place of abundance and not lack. For me- I personally found my healthy mindset with diet and exercise when I began telling myself that I will take the holiday to enjoy time with family and friends. If I eat out of alignment for Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day that's okay, however I shouldn't treat everyday around the Holiday Season like Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. So enjoy the memories, and the food on the holiday, but don't stop chasing your healthiest and happiest self on all the other days surrounding the holidays.

If you feel like you have found yourself saying "I'll get back on track over the holidays," "I don't have time to work on myself over the holidays," "How do you expect me to improve my health with all the sweets and cookies around the holidays" It may be time to start practicing awareness and setting some guardrails around your daily eating habits.

Tip #3 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays Set some guardrails on "special occasions"

Setting guardrails for yourself around the holidays is important. We can't eat out of alignment with our goals every day just because the holidays are here. You will not see results or progress doing this.

This was the hardest concept for me to learn. I remember every party, gathering, and social event used to be labeled as a "special occasion" in my book. With some personal inventory in my late 20s I realized that these "special occasions" were making negative bank statements on my ability to reach my goals, because I was labeling every social gathering as a special occasion. There is nothing wrong with eating out of alignment with your goals every once in a while, but if you are eating out of alignment with your goals almost daily, or a few times a week- you are not going to reach your goals or see results. In my late 20s you could find me eating out and drinking alcohol almost every weekend of the month. I couldn't wrap my head around why I wasn't reaching my goals at the time because during the week I was eating very healthy. With some personal inventory and some deep thinking- I realized that my eating habits as much as they were "on" during the week, they were not "on" at all during the weekend- so it was ME getting in my own way of reaching my results. The all or none mindset of thinking. If my eating was "on" it was 100% perfect, but if my eating was "off" it was 100% processed and out of alignment with my goals.

I had to start setting up guardrails on what special occasions were. I still enjoyed certain foods on occasions, but started practicing healthier eating habits even on weekends. I started focusing on high protein on the weekends, the same amount of veggies on the weekend, and I started limiting alcoholic beverages on the weekend.

The biggest shift also came when I started connecting in the moment choices with delayed gratification or with long term success. All of us want dessert every time we eat out, and fried food because it is so tasty, but I realized these in the moment choices are very out of alignment with my long term goals.

So 80% of the time I began choosing and prioritizing home cooked meals over eating out, movement over being sedentary, and diet cokes and limes over alcohol. As much as I wanted to drink and eat out every weekend, I began to recognize doing these negative bank statement habits frequently and often over days, weeks, and months would not contribute to a healthier happier me, and my goal self.

Even though I have made healthier choices over the years with my nutrition and exercise- I am here to say that Balance is key. If socializing and drinking with friends does make you happy, and brings you happiness- it is okay to do it in moderation, but you need to really do some personal inventory and determine if you are doing this in moderation or in excess each month. Like I mentioned in tip #1 eating out with your family, celebrating holidays, and saying yes to desserts like your favorite piece of cheesecake will not derail progress if it is not being done frequently. But if this is being done daily, weekly, and a few times a week- it is time to set some guardrails for yourself- so that you can stay in better alignment with your goals.

Practice awareness with your in the moment choices, and make sure they align with your long term goals and health.

Tip #4 for Keeping a Healthy Mindset Over the Holidays Don't Eat Different on The Holidays & Monitor Your Hunger and Satiation Cues

You heard me use the term presence, awareness, and alignment quite frequently throughout this blog post, and even in my other blog posts.

Something I didn't recognize during the holiday season when I was younger was my inability to listen to my hunger and satiation cues. The first mistake I personally made over the Holidays was wait all day to eat because I wanted to save my appetite for Thanksgiving or Christmas Dinner. I completely ignored my hunger cues so by the time dinner came around I was a 1/10 on the hunger scale, and felt like I could have ate 10 meals. When you are hungry you usually eat at a very fast and ravenous pace to try to fill yourself up quickly. It usually takes about half an hour to feel a satiation cue so you overeat and gorge yourself to where you feel sick. So some strategies and tips that have worked with me over the holidays to listen to my hunger and satiation cues are the following:

• Prioritize 30g of protein for breakfast or a high protein breakfast. DONT SKIP MEALS. This will help your hunger cues and keep you satiated which will help prevent overeating with your holiday dinner. Example of a 30g protein breakfast- 1 egg and 1 cup egg whites with avocado and cheese scrambled, 1 cup greek yogurt with mixed fruit.

• Stay hydrated throughout the day. This helps with satiation cues as well

• Move after dinner. This helps with digestion.

• Use a small plate during Holiday Dinners, and load 2/3 of it with your protein and veggie. The other 1/3 can your favorite dish or sides.

• Eat slowly and use the hunger scale. Don't eat until you are stuffed, only eat until you start to feel full. With time you will notice the fullness progress.

• Use the hunger scale to gauge dessert, and ask yourself if you really want it or only want it because it is there. A lot of times we eat for the sake that the food is readily available. If you aren't hungry take your favorite dessert home with you to enjoy when you actually are hungry, or split a dessert with a family member.

I hope these four tips help you this holiday season. It's not about having perfect eating or being on a "diet" it's about making your daily eating a healthier lifestyle. It's about prioritizing healthy eating and fitness EVEN during the busy times. It's about making progress and better choices than your last holiday season. If you really want to see long term results start operating from a place of abundance, and not lack. Make sure those in the moment choices aren't just for short term gratification, but also for long term payoff.

Happy Holidays!

Julie

Hunger Scale for Reference: