With Thanksgiving around the corner, you may be feeling a bit of anxiety, especially if you dedicated 2024 to healthy living. After almost a full year of navigating your 2024 fitness journey, navigating Thanksgiving can feel a bit overwhelming.

It’s easy to stay on track during the year in your little wellness bubble when you have a solid routine where your meals are already prepped + planned and you’re not temped by sweets from others. But when we enjoy social meals - like Thanksgiving - it can sometimes lead to binge-eating all the foods you haven’t had all year, pressure from loved ones to eat things you don’t normally eat anymore, and post-meal food guilt.

You’ve already done a lot of work this year and I want you to know this does not have to be the Holiday where all progress goes down the drain.

You can work around triggers and overeating.

You can continue to eat nourishing food with comfortable portions.

There are small and subtle strategies to create harmony between your health journey and participating in social meals.

You will not sabotage ourselves this year! Let’s make this year different and end 2024 feeling proud.

If thanksgiving has been a tough Holiday for you and your wellness journey in the previous years, all hope is not lost this year - especially with these 3 tips I share below.

Identify and bring awareness to what triggers you to overeat & create a redirection plan.

While our behaviours may feel impulsive, when it comes to overeating, the foundation is laid several hours in advance by our daily rituals, habits, mindset, and automatic thinking. Overeating is simply the last link in the long chain.

For some people, they may forget to eat because they are so stressed out that when they finally eat, they are ravenous and can't help but to overeat because their body is compensating.

For some people, eating may be a source of comfort as they cope with stress, anxiety, or uncomfortable situations.

For some people, eating in front of others may cause stress due to fear of judgement of their body or what/how much they're eating. This sometimes leads to a binge when they're finally alone.

For some people, they may feel tempted by all of sweet treats and delicious foods they restricted all year long; and once they get a taste, they aren't sure how to stop because they haven’t collected the skills to cope.

Everyone deals with Holiday overeating differently. If you identify the root and can break the first link you have a much better chance of never getting to the last link.

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Stop thinking of food as “good” and “bad.” Instead, look at food on a health spectrum or continuum.

Making healthy choices is not about choosing all-or-nothing. When we redirect our focus from "good" and "bad" choices to "slightly better" choices, we continue to move one small step forward along the continuum instead of starting from the beginning again.

This is also a great way to simplify your journey when life gets busy. If you notice that life is becoming too stressful, too chaotic, or too overwhelming, you can just take a step back on the continuum rather than starting right back at the beginning.

Then, when life begins to feel more manageable and you feel like you can take on more, you can take a step forward on the continuum again.

This continuum looks different for everyone. Each person has different goals, lifestyles, preferences, and experiences.

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Create Filling, Balanced Plates Without Calorie Counting Or Cutting Out Foods

If you normally weigh your meals, count calories, or track macros, you may be wondering “how the heck am I going to do this at a family gathering?”

For many, portion control tends to be put on the back burner as they try to just get through the Holidays. Just like every other area of your life, creating mindful meals doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing experience. There are many options in-between not tracking at all and counting every last calorie.

At Growing Goddess Coaching, I teach clients how to how to build a balanced plate using the Mindful Meal method.

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Other Kind Reminders:

You can always come back for more food. If you’re hungry after finishing your plate, you can always grab seconds - yes, even on a health and fitness journey. Don’t feel like, just because you’re working on improving your health, that you have to limit yourself to one plate.
One day of eating will not throw you completely off track. You won’t suddenly start right from square-one if you unintentionally over-indulge. You start from square one when you choose to let that little blip sabotage your months of progress by not hopping back into your normal routine the next day.
You don’t need to earn your Thanksgiving meal or overcompensate with exercise to make up for the calories you ate. Again, it’s just one day. Simply just hop into the next with your routine again.