Embracing Joyful Eating: Heather Carey’s Guide to Mindfulness and Nutrition During the Holiday Season

Are you ready to embrace joyful eating this holiday season, or do you find yourself battling emotional eating and diet pressures? In this heartwarming episode of Real Food Stories, host Heather Carey opens up about the emotional complexities many face during the holidays, especially around food and well-being. Drawing from her own personal food journeys, Heather shares candid reflections on the sadness and temptation to overindulge that can often accompany festive gatherings. She invites you to join her in exploring the power of mindfulness and self-compassion, encouraging listeners to recognize and validate their feelings rather than suppressing them.

As a culinary nutritionist, Heather understands the challenges of maintaining a healthy lifestyle amidst the holiday chaos. She introduces her free holiday survival guide, Pound Zero, packed with nutritious recipes and healthy eating tips designed to help you navigate holiday gatherings without the weight of guilt. This guide is a treasure trove of nutrition advice that empowers you to make informed food choices while celebrating with loved ones.

Throughout the episode, Heather critiques the diet mentality that often resurfaces during this time of year, urging listeners to commit to their health goals without resorting to extreme dieting or self-punishment. She emphasizes that true well-being and joyful eating should stem from a place of self-acceptance and happiness, rather than comparison or societal expectations. By shifting your mindset, you can cultivate a healthier relationship with food and your body, especially during midlife and menopause.

As the episode wraps up, Heather reinforces the importance of gratitude and kindness towards oneself and others, reminding us that our worth is not defined by external standards. Join her in discovering how to foster a joyful eating experience this holiday season, while embracing the seven pillars of abundance that nourish both body and soul. Whether you’re navigating family food traditions or exploring sustainable eating practices, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to enhance their emotional health and culinary wellness during the holidays.

So, grab your favorite cup of tea, settle in, and prepare to embark on a journey of mindful eating and personal growth with Heather Carey. Let’s make this holiday season a time of joy, connection, and nourishing choices that truly reflect the spirit of real food stories.

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. We are in the middle of the holiday season, and I know I keep asking this, but how is it going for you? I have posed this question a few times in the last couple of podcasts because I have a very personal story around the holidays, so I’m always curious about other people’s stories too. And so I ask. Now, interestingly enough, I have gotten the gamut of comments. A couple people have… been a little harsh with me. And although I never take these things personally, because I know if they were happy, content people, they would not find the time in their day to write to me. And some of these comments have been anywhere from, quote, how dare you to assume I am struggling with the holidays, to some swearing and things like, get the F out of my inbox. I’m fine, thanks. I have no regrets. All right, I heard you. But if my words are so triggering for you, consider that they might ring true for you this year and might just be hard to hear. I happen to have a story around the topic of the holidays, and I personally do not equate this month as one of my favorites. I personally think it’s too commercial. I have a hard time buying into the hype of overspending overeating and over drinking just because it’s December. My holidays historically have been filled with a fair amount of family drama. My dad died at the end of this month. And on the nutrition front, I used to take full advantage of that holiday mindset that allowed me permission to drink and eat my month away, numbing myself through this month only to feel a lot of regret and shame come January. when the party was officially over and the dust had settled and I had to pick up on what to do next. Was it the 30-day sugar challenge? Was it going to be a 30-day dry January? A detox? This all felt so punishing to me. It is punishing. What I want for you is to be able to do your best this month. in the most mindful, compassionate, and kind way, knowing that there are challenges ahead, whether it is too many parties, too much eating and celebrating, too much drama, or too many hard memories. Holidays can bring forth the realization of people who are no longer with us. It can make us miss people and feel sad. It can make us compare ourselves to others in a very harsh way. We may see other women float through the season and you might automatically think, what is wrong with me? This in turn can lead to a lot of emotional eating and drinking. So I want to put it out there, not keep it a secret anymore. Just because we are all supposed to be really, really happy this time of year, you are allowed to feel whatever you choose and I am with you on this journey. Do I assume that everyone is on the same journey as me, though? Well, maybe. I’ve spent enough time with enough women to know that this time of the year is a true challenge. It’s why I created Pound Zero, my free holiday survival guide to help you through this month. The link is in my show notes, and it is totally free, by the way. I’m not preaching another diet in disguise. Trust me, there’s nothing offensive in this guide. It’s full of nutritious, delicious recipes to help you just make great choices for your gatherings, some great tips and tricks to help you handle the events you’re going to be at. It’s a quick read, trust me. We don’t need to add anything more to our busy schedules right now. So try it out or not, but know that if you are finding the holidays to be a challenge and we still have a couple more coming up, I am here with you. I have learned a lot from that. eat-drink-repeat cycle, and I know what it feels like to walk into January both full of regret, and I know what it feels like to walk into January having done it a lot differently and full of compassion, energy, and my weight intact. That takes mindfulness, and it takes some work, but it’s well worth it. So grab the Pound Zero Guide if this resonates with you, and I hope that you just enjoy the rest of the holiday season. Now, for some of you, what diet you are going to try next year has already been mapped out because this is what so many of us do, diet to lose weight. There is no other solution for many of you. The conditions have already been set. And let me tell you, if you have set a goal for yourself now and then decide to, quote, like, take a break because it’s the holidays and say to yourself, I’ll start this over in January with a cleanse just to get back on track. You are in full-blown diet mentality. You are doing nothing to tell your brain and yourself that sometimes holidays come around, sometimes things get challenging, and I am still going to stick to my goal. That is confusing, and it keeps us on the yo-yo diet train. I know this scenario way too well. I was on my first very restrictive diet at age 11, encouraged by family members, both men and women, to just try it because of how they wanted me to look or be. That set off a slow burn of being on and off diets, losing weight, suffering, and hyper-focused on the diet. And then what? What did I gain from all of that? I was not chasing this unreasonable goal for me. It was for other people’s standards. But I wanted to be normal. I wanted to not have to think about what I was eating. And I wanted to give myself a break. And so off the diet, I would go. I was a child back then. And as a child, I wanted to eat anything I wanted, of course, because that is what children do. it. This cycle continued into adulthood, and it continued even in the early years of me being a nutritionist. I was getting better at this. I knew how to manipulate calories to lose weight because that is all that a traditional diet is, starvation and calorie reduction. What I didn’t know and what is never found in any diet book is all the rest. If they gave you all the rest, you couldn’t call their plan a diet anymore. And all the rest is what made all the difference for me and for people I know who are incredibly successful at managing their weight at a number that is right for them and letting go of the damaging beliefs about what our bodies should look like. When you start dieting as a child and then you bring that inner child mentality, With you into adulthood and then into the holidays, you lose sight of your goals. You think of instant gratification right now and snub out all that you have worked for. You say to yourself, I will worry about that in a month because right now the only thing on my mind is that creamy artichoke dip and that glass of champagne. Do you have a goal to lose weight? maintain weight, get healthier, or keep your energy up? Do you have it right now or have you had one recently? Ask yourself honestly, what do the holidays have to do with it? Goals are meant to be followed through on, not given a back seat while you party for 30 days. That is not the goal. So let’s be clear on what your goals are exactly because they just might be totally unreasonable for the season of life you are in right now. Let me remind you of something. Contrary to popular belief, you are not a better human if you are real thin. You will not solve all your problems, fix your marriage, be super healthy, or be incredibly successful if you are at a certain weight. I remember when I lost the 20 pounds of emotional eating I had been holding on to after I had my kids. I actually had journaled about this. In my journal, I look back and there were two significant things. One, I felt really good about myself because of the kindness and consideration I had infused into that weight loss journey. I learned to love and appreciate myself. I took my goal very seriously and I did not let sidetracks like holidays be an excuse to stop what I was doing. No food or champagne is worth it to me. My inner child had to sit down in that corner and get rid of that instant gratification mindset, and I was determined. My second thought was that my weight loss really changed very little when it came to my relationships, my career, or anything else for that matter. I could think that I was a more secure person on the outside. On the inside, I had more work to do. I always have work to do on myself. I felt confident in myself because I stuck to the goal. I realized, though, that body image and appearance have little to do with true happiness. And that is what needs to happen if you decide to lose weight, eat healthier, fix your health issues, or up your energy. Your inside needs to get fixed first. And in order to do this, you need to get your big girl panties on, my friends. And make a commitment to yourself that says, at some point, after I have exhausted enough diets, failed at them, and tried to come back for more, that I am going to quit this mentality. I am going to quit. I am going to quit thinking that unreasonable dieting is the answer. I am going to eat and drink like someone who cares about themselves first. I am going to quit believing that my solution to a better life lies in a diet book. And I’m going to finally quit doing this for anyone but myself. And that includes spouses, partners, parents, friends, work colleagues, anyone. Really looking at the success rate of dieting, how has it worked out for you? Most people fail on diets. So are you still gaining and losing that same 15 pounds every year? Are you still blowing it every December and jumping into a 30-day dry January challenge? What does it feel like to be okay with the weight you are at right now? Is your lowest weight that you’ve ever been at just a struggle to maintain? Does that make you happy? What I’m trying to get at here is what it would feel like to start at a place of acceptance and the maturity to commit to your goal. Do you know what acceptance is? is? Honestly, when I started my weight loss journey, this was a hard one for me to embrace. Acceptance is truly embracing all of you, the positives, the negatives, your strengths, and the things you want to improve. Acceptance is being honest with yourself, but never for the purpose of shaming yourself. I needed to accept that I was at a certain weight. I needed to accept that how I was doing things was not working, and I wanted to accept that doing things in a different way would help me feel whole about myself. And by whole, I mean liking myself, being my own advocate, and having my own back. It means committing to myself. Now here’s what acceptance is not. Acceptance is not shaming yourself or beating yourself up. Acceptance is the awareness of where you are right now and being fully present with it. And acceptance is okay with being totally imperfect. And being imperfect and a person who is authentic means you can finally take that mask off, be vulnerable, and be okay with who you are right now. Once we accept where we are at and quit only looking at our flaws and the numbers on the scale for validation and self-worth, we can finally open up to other possibilities and beliefs about ourselves. Speaking of beliefs, you may have heard about the set point theory when it comes to weight. And I wanted to talk about this today because this has been a hot topic lately. And I think that one that many women think about when it comes to weight loss, weight gain, and helps to validate our perceptions of weight. So that point is a theory that our bodies want to naturally return to a specific weight range within about 10 pounds. Now, as the theory goes, when you go on a diet and simply restrict calories, you are likely to lose weight. And when you go off the diet, you are likely to gain the weight back to around somewhere close to where you started. When you go on a super restrictive diet, it is typically almost impossible to stay on that diet for a long time. You’re hungry, you’re restricted, and it can start feeling punishing and just not worth it. So you’ve lost weight and you wonder if that is your true set point. It’s 15 pounds less than when you started where you’re supposed to naturally be. Or is the 15 pounds that you gained back where you’re supposed to be? But did you gain the 15 pounds back because you blew the diet and you felt out of control with food? This can start to get really confusing and consuming. This is also called yo-yo dieting, and the punishment can come from the criticism you give yourself for feeling like you failed yet another diet. So here’s a consideration for you. Resetting your set point is possible. if there’s truly a set point at all. So you know that a diet-minded set point is tough to maintain. That’s when you’re on the diet, you’ve lost weight, you have hyper-focused, you’ve eaten a lot less calories, and you are at probably your lowest weight. You probably also know that your highest weight, that takes some effort too. You’re eating and drinking more than your body wants to consume. you can probably look back and see how you have been overeating and over consuming extra calories. Yes, we have some genetics to contend with. That I totally understand. But there is a number in between this highest set point and lowest set point that could possibly be the sweet spot for you. And that is somewhere in between that starving and dieting and the mindless overeating. It’s in the space of eating well, comfortably, healthfully, and being filling and satisfying. Now, this might take some work to shift your mind there, but I promise that it is totally doable. When you lose weight, you want to try and reset the set point by losing weight slowly, too fast, like on a diet, and your brain believes it is starving. Too fast and you cannot and will not maintain the pace. So I don’t call that your set point weight. Slowly allows you to eat all the foods that you choose, that you like, and that you want to eat. Being too fast puts limitations and restrictions, and it’s an impossible way of eating to maintain. Ask anyone that you know, ask yourself, have you ever gone on a diet and maintained the diet for more than about 30 days. This becomes a cycle of failure and stress and questioning what you are doing wrong. So maintaining this belief that we are supposed to be at a certain and often unreasonable weight also fosters the belief that we will be happy only when we lose weight and only when we are skinny or at our unreasonable set point. So I want to give you something else to consider. Let’s flip this thinking around. Rather than thinking that weight loss equals happiness, could there actually be room for the thought that we can only lose weight when we are truly happy? That when we are eating for our health, that when we are eating for our energy, that we’re eating when food is filling and satisfying. Happiness first. acceptance of ourselves exactly as we are right now. So I’m going to challenge you in 2023 to cultivate a happiness set point rather than focus on that number on the scale. Working on you first, your relationships first, your family dynamics, your career, hobbies, and whatever else brings you joy and letting all the other stuff go. with the goal of being happy even in hard times as the prerequisite for losing weight. Understanding and believing that when you are happy with yourself and where you are right now, weight loss becomes even easier and effortless. So the subject of happiness is big right now. There’s a lot of books about happiness. There’s a lot of podcasts. There’s a lot of information about how to be happy right now. But how do you become happy when you have so damn much going on in your life? How do you get happy when there’s so much to worry about in the world? I understand and I believe that you can experience the turmoil of the world and still maintain some sort of peace and serenity with yourself. One significant way to start a you joyful happiness practice is through gratitude. I know, another thing to add to the to-do list, I get it, but trust me, this is an important one. Gratitude is appreciation for what you have, the big things in your life, the small things in your life. Gratitude has actually been researched and shown to upgrade physical and mental health. Gratitude nudges you out of negative emotions and cultivates positivity. And here’s something really important to point out. Feeling grateful for what you have does not mean you don’t have empathy and compassion for those around you. The opposite is actually true. So it’s not selfish to think of the gratitude that you have for the things in your life. Feeling good and grateful for what you have actually allows you to feel you more at peace with your surroundings, and therefore opens you up to be able to help other people, to even be of service to other people. One of the easiest ways to practice gratitude is to keep a gratitude list. If you have never kept a daily gratitude journal, this is a great time to start, especially this time of year, and it’s so easy. Making a list of gratitudes every day is simple yet so powerful. that it’s actually amazing that most people are not just doing this on a daily basis. So here’s how it works. Every morning or at night when you end your day, write down three to five things that you feel thankful for. This list does not have to be complicated. Do not overthink this. Consistency, though, is key here. Sometimes what makes my gratitude list are so simple. They could be anything from my morning cup of hot tea that I just appreciate having, or my dog is sleeping next to me. Maybe it’s a sunny day today. They might even feel bigger sometimes, like the really meaningful talk I had with my husband this morning. I’m grateful to live near the water. I get to look at water every single day. I am so thankful for that. So hopefully you get the point. Gratitude totally shifts our perspective on life. It can help you appreciate the one precious body that you have, and it definitely cultivates a happier mindset. And happiness, like I said, is absolutely the prerequisite for getting healthier and getting to a weight that you feel good about. If you feel like you can never truly be fully happy because you are so worried about everybody else and their happiness. I want to point out something that I think is important to the success of gratitude. Be careful not to fall into comparisons as a form of gratitude. And this goes both ways. You comparing yourself to others or others comparing themselves to you. Ignore those people. So here’s a couple examples of what I’m talking about. I was just recently in a meeting and we were talking about the importance of gratitude. And someone chimed in exclaiming her way of using a gratitude list. She keeps two lists, one of them called what I don’t have. And the example she used was this. She said, at least I don’t have an autoimmune disease like some people. I was immediately offended. I have an autoimmune disease. I know how it feels to live with an autoimmune disease. every single day of my life, and that felt incredibly hurtful to me. Comparisons are a dangerous trap. Comparing keeps the negatives alive, and it keeps us in fear. That woman was in fear of ever getting an autoimmune disease. It can be fear of not having enough, not being enough, not doing enough. Comparisons are like the dark side of gratitude. When you hear someone else comparing, that is bad enough. So let’s not do this to others. Comparing your weight, for example, as in, quote, I have to lose weight, but at least I’m not like Sarah. She’s got so much more weight to lose than me. I’m just making that up. I don’t know who Sarah is. This is just an example. Comparisons take the focus off of you and onto others. That is not gratitude. That is self-serving. Another way of comparison is to feel as though your gratitudes are selfish, as in. I have so much in my life. How am I supposed to be happy when there are people starving in the world? I could or going to war or just suffering in the world. How am I supposed to be happy? I’ve talked about this before being happy. does not mean that you cannot have empathy for people. When you get into the comparison habit, you also then might just find yourself comparing yourself to other women who are thinner or prettier or who have more money than you. It is a losing battle all around. Leave it alone and let that go. Comparing in any of these ways does not serve you and only fosters misery. Gratitude, on the other hand, is your secret weapon to a happy life. When we decide to quit diet mentality and cultivate a practice of happiness and gratitude and start to make friends with ourselves, we can also realize what it means to befriend our body. I think we often get into the habit of separating our minds from our bodies. Look, we got to live in this body, right? But often we might think, this body, can we just make this body go away? we could criticize our bodies. We hate it for all it has done to us. But what if we took the time to really look at our bodies and hold gratitude for all our body has done for us? Our bodies deserve love and respect just like the rest of us. I can consider all that my body has done for me in my lifetime. If you are a mom, you can certainly appreciate the miracle of pregnancy and childbirth. My body allowed me to create three amazing human beings. It’s unbelievable to me sometimes, still is. My body has kept me safe. My body has allowed me to walk and hike and move freely. I so appreciate all that it has done for me. The bottom line is learning to let go of how we think our body should look, letting go of trying to manipulate our bodies into a weight that might be a struggle to maintain, and letting go of the stress around body image is such a great goal for the next year. So how can we do this? Here’s a couple of ideas. Focus on the goals you have set for yourself and get off the yo-yo dieting spin cycle in December by telling that inner child that started dieting and all of those bad thoughts that happened when you were little to take a seat in the corner. This is the time to focus on you and what you want. quit Quit the diet mentality and the January challenges. Where have those gotten you anyway? Have you ever followed through with those? Quit following those wacky diet gurus that I have talked about in past podcasts and those weight influencers that are so contagious right now, knowing that you are going to be desperate in January. Don’t stop being forgiving with yourself. This is hard work. This takes effort and mindfulness. You are doing your absolute best with what you have right now. But don’t stop learning about food and how to eat what is best for you. Don’t stop trying new things and knowing what a fad diet looks like versus the real way of eating. And finally, have the boundaries, the loving boundaries to set for yourself so you can be your own inner advocate. Do you want to stop the diet merry-go-round and learn a better way to eat? Then stop saying yes when you want to say no to those diets. And maybe even more importantly, stop saying no when you want to say yes. Get out of your old ways in the comfort zone of strict dieting and be open to a new way of seeing you. And finally, let’s all of us please cultivate a practice of kindness and gratitude. towards each other and towards yourself so you can build your happiness muscle, which is essential to your weight and health. You are so worth it. And for me, that about wraps up my first season of Real Food Stories. It has been such an adventure. We covered a lot of ground this year, and I cannot wait to start again in 2023. Next year, I will be including interviews with experts in the field of nutrition and food, real life food stories of some amazing real women, and more ways to help you get in touch with your authentic self and your body so you can make peace with food. I am truly grateful for all of you for taking the time to tune in and listen to my personal stories about growing up, how I was influenced by food and diet culture, and how I learn to lose weight and keep it off for good. So be sure to download Pound Zero for the recipes and holiday support, and I will definitely see you in 2023. And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.