Ep 196 – Getting Through The Holidays

This time of year is HARD. You realize that, right? Today we’re getting real about why you might not be feeling your best, and also sharing a few tips on how to take care of yourself.

Grab our Black Friday deal while you still can!

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TRANSCRIPT:

Giacomo:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name’s Giacomo.

Dani:

And I’m Danny.

Giacomo:

And this is episode 195.

Dani:

All right, so we have big news for you guys that are listening right now. You’ve probably heard us talk about our Muscles by Brussels membership, which is like one of the heart and souls of our business. And we are doing a giant Black Friday special on a year long membership of Muscles by Brussels. So first of all, what is Muscles by Brussels?

It’s a membership where everybody starts at day zero and you get workouts delivered to you every single month that get progressively more challenging as you get fitter. You get access to all over 200 of our high protein vegan recipes delivered to you in the app. You get access to weekly live coaching calls. So it is group training, nutrition live coaching calls.

Our Facebook group which is full of like the most awesome community of vegan athletes ever. We give a monthly meal plan which is not prescriptive, but it gives you great ideas on how to prep food for the entire week in a protein and calorie friendly way with tips on how to like increase it or decrease it as you need to. And with this Black Friday special we’re also doing, we’re giving you five of our previous meal plans that you can download right away.

And all of them have a full Every recipe makes 7 servings so that you can, when you prep it, you’re prepping for the whole week, has a full shopping list. And I picked like kind of seasonal ones, kind of fall and wintry meal plans cause I thought that would be fun. So you get five bonus ones of those and free Flexible Dieting for Vegans ebook that you can also download right away to learn the principles of flexible dieting.

And the whole Bundle altogether is 52% off. So you get a year long membership, five bonus meal plans. Flexible dieting for vegans for 2.99. So if you want to check that out, it is our Mussels by Brussels Buster. Deal. I am terrible at naming things.

Giacomo:

I like it. I think it’s a good name. The other thing I’m thinking, right, you’re here, you’re watching this thing, you’ve been watching stuff, you’re thinking, oh, okay, well, I like their podcast, I like their YouTube, I like what they’re talking about.

This is your opportunity to literally get in on everything that we do and to get in on it with a community, with the kind of support that comes from more than just your team. It comes from everyone that’s part of Muscles by Brussels.

Dani:

Yeah. So it’s not one on one coaching. That’s still a separate thing. But if you want to be a part of our community, learn from our incredible expert coaches. But maybe one on one coaching is not in the cards for you. Like this is the way under $300 for the entire year. And it’s probably as, as it gets fuller. Like we’re going to have to increase the price as we go forward also. So this special will be here through Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving.

So. But you should hop on it now because we can only take like 50 people for the, for this particular bundle. So anyway, that’s it. We don’t make you guys listen to ads during our podcast. We don’t take sponsorships from other people. So thank you for bearing with us through that. Your support is the only reason that we’re here. So thank you guys.

Giacomo:

And we have an opportunity to hang out as opposed to just getting Instagram, dms or like emails from you once in a while. We actually, we’re hanging out on live calls and all kinds of stuff as opposed to just talking to you.

Dani:

And not just us. Ben Sawyer, Alice, Athena, everybody. So it’s the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. No, it’s the Monday. Today is Monday. Oh my God. This week is already gonna be a doozy for me. We had a crazy weekend Saturday. We had the kids and that was a lot. And then yesterday we went into Boston for the WNBF Worlds, which was really cool, but a very, very long day.

Giacomo:

Well, we made it a half day. We got there around 12, 1 o’clock. It wasn’t too well. Then again, we did go out to dinner afterwards.

Dani:

So it was a long day. But we did get to see our teammate, Maddie McConnell win the figure title. She is the world champion natural figure competitor. Best, best in the world. And she’s vegan and she’s natural. And it’s just, it’s just so cool. It was very exciting to see her win that and we’re super, super proud of her and just excited we got to go out and see it because Worlds isn’t usually in Boston. So she killed it. She looked incredible.

She is the standard. See, I wasn’t making it up when I said it recently when I was like, if Maddie is the new standard, she is the standard now for figure. So there’s that. We also got to see Jamal Collins. He competed in both Masters and Open men’s physique and he looked phenomenal. And a couple of other friends that we have that Aren’t vegan, but do live near us. We’re competing in it as well.

Giacomo:

Yeah. It’s been one of our local buddies who we used to train with at the same gym. We’ve watched him from his very first time out there. We hear Ray looked incredible. Just get better and better and better. And now he’s literally been battling for the number one spot for the best natural bodybuilder in the world. Which is kind of cool seeing him. He took two this year, but it was just every time he goes out there, he just gets better and better. Yeah, it’s a crazy sport. We love it and it

was really nice to see our athletes, our teammates, our community out there killing it and then celebrate them after the fact with them at Veggie Galaxy, of course, which is why I’m feeling like the need to rock the mug over here. So, yeah, it’s been crazy week, crazy year. I keep saying to myself, we’re gonna have a moment to recharge, we’re gonna have a moment to like the comp. But I mean, we’re gonna jump right into it in January at Rundisney. Yeah. A lot going on. A lot going on.

Dani:

Thank you for that reminder.

Giacomo:

Hey, no problem. That’s what I’m here for. But let’s not worry about all that because this is what start of the holidays.

Dani:

I feel my heart beating faster right now with that reminder that no, no, there will be no break at the end of the year. So thank you for that.

Giacomo:

We have a little bit of time off. You’re going to Friendsgiving.

Dani:

That’s two days. Does that count?

Giacomo:

We have a staycation coming up in a couple of weeks.

Dani:

huh.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

That we’re gonna work through. We already talked about only for a.

Giacomo:

Couple of the days.

Dani:

That’s okay, Giacomo. So anyway, we are making our annual podcast where we talk about the holidays and how this is a particularly challenging time of year for so many people for so many reasons also, and strategies on getting through them in one piece. And you know, I’d like to put a different kind of a spin on this episode every year, but I’m.

I’m not actually sure exactly how to do that this year. So Giacomo has done that. So what is the spin that we are putting on this particular episode this year that we talked about this morning?

Giacomo:

Well, I had several ideas in my mind that I’ve been thinking about for like a week or two, honestly, about Thanksgiving and about preparing for big meals and get togethers. And I just feel like there’s just so much stress and so much expectation and so much worries when it comes to the holidays that you just forget that it’s worth enjoying. Right. And we do our best to talk about being present and try to be a little more relaxed with yourself and be balanced and blah, blah, blah.

But we don’t exactly explain how to do that. Right. And I think there’s all kinds of different possibilities depending on what you want to do and what you’re doing on the holidays. So it’s interesting, this morning I asked, I asked our audience on Instagram what they, what their favorite meal was, what they’re having for Thanksgiving, because I want to get a sense of, like, what.

Dani:

Do you mean what their favorite meal is? Like, what is their favorite dish at.

Giacomo:

Going to prepare on Thanksgiving. Correct. Okay, yes, exactly. And if we were to ask for the favorite meal, it would be Alex. And my favorite meal, the moist maker at Veggie Galaxy, which is pretty incredible, had that on Sunday. But anyways, the point is, like, there’s just so much stress about, like, can I just let go and just enjoy Thanksgiving or do I need to pay attention to how much calories I’m eating or do I need to have macro friendly, high protein food?

It’s like by the time you’re all said and done, you’re either proud of the fact that you haven’t tracked but you worried yourself sick over it, or you’re probably denying yourself the ability to prepare and have the foods that you want to have. You know what I mean? So I don’t know, like kind of thinking about how you approach Thanksgiving and how that impacts you, and then you put the whole other layer on top of it where everyone at the table may not be vegan.

And that throws a whole other layer of confusion into the mix. Then on top of it all, you think about Thanksgiving and how hard that is of a holiday for vegans. So it’s no wonder why I feel like for our community it’s pretty stressful. So I know that you’re, I think in previous years, you pretty much hold a line, don’t you? Like, when you prepare holiday food, you go traditional. You don’t really go like high protein or macro friendly for stuff you cook.

Dani:

Not really. I mean, not deliberately. I feel like just who I am as a person tends to err on a kind of proteiny side of things, just in general. But I mean, I’m not adding protein powder to the apple pie or anything crazy like that. It’s just like my, the stuffing that I make has apple field Apple, sage, field roast, sausages in it. And I think that’s delicious.

But that’s just because I like protein foods. But I will say, probably the only thing that I do is I generally. If I’m following another recipe, which at this point, I don’t follow recipe, like, they’re my recipes now. I’ve adapted them enough over the years that they’re now my recipes. But if I’m looking at, like, the original recipes that they started from many, many years ago, I definitely cut down on the butter that’s in most of them.

And sometimes I cut down on the sugar, too. But they are by no means. By no means are they like low butter and sugar foods. Like, if I’m making an apple pie, for example, and when I say butter, I mean earth balance, obviously. You know, if I’m making a pie crust that is held together with earth balance and Crisco, that’s just how they are.

There’s sugar in the apples themselves. There’s sugar in the crumble, if there’s a crumble on top. But it’s probably less than, you know. If you went to, like, a Betty Crocker style website, does that make sense?

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

Like, it’s not health food at all.

Giacomo:

But you go a little lighter on some of the standard ingredients that just bulk up the food where you don’t really need, like that extra, extra butter or extra, extra oil, extra sugar.

Dani:

Yeah. Like, sometimes I find that much butter and sugar and food that is too oily, you know, I just. It doesn’t feel good. Like, I don’t feel good afterwards. I feel nauseous. So like I said, there’s still plenty, but it’s not the original version.

Giacomo:

If we were not hosting for others, would you still make food like that or would you try some? Yes, you would.

Dani:

What do you mean? If it was just you and me?

Giacomo:

Yeah. Would you try to make some recipes that were a little more.

Dani:

No.

Giacomo:

Typical things that we would eat most of the time?

Dani:

Nope. So I wrote a cookbook that is exactly that, exactly what you’re talking about. So, I mean, I would make that for, like, a random November evening dinner, but not Thanksgiving, like, Thanksgiving itself. I would probably make it the exact same things, the exact same way, but I would make way, way, way, way less of it.

Giacomo:

Okay. Rather than me, because this is my thought and my idea, so I don’t want to answer my own question. That wouldn’t be cool for conversation. I’m gonna put it on you and ask you, what is your take on leftovers? Because when it comes to making recipes, you can do like a one serving cake in a mug. But I mean, like, these are exceptions to the rule.

Typically when you make a recipe for something, it’s gonna have to have several servings in order for you to just be able to make the recipe. So chances are there’s gonna be leftovers, especially when you’re preparing for like more than two people. So.

Dani:

So you’re talking about the holidays specifically?

Giacomo:

Well, yeah, I mean, how to prepare for the idea that you’re gonna have a lot of food around you. And there’s so much weird feelings when it comes to leftovers. Like I have to go through this, there’s the scarcity mindset, or I put a lot of effort into this, I’m proud of this, so I need to eat it. Or well, I put the time into doing this and I don’t want to spend time making other food.

Or I spent money on this food, blah, blah, blah. See, me personally, I feel like sometimes we put so much emphasis on needing to finish everything that you prepared for all kinds of reasons that we wind up doing damage to ourselves, our health and our mindset. And honestly, we probably wind up spending more money and wasting more just because some, in some situations when it comes to leftovers because we’re so afraid to just be like, well, whatever.

But again, I have my own personal feelings and thoughts about when you have more food than you know what to do with after the fact, especially on a big holiday. What about you? Like, what’s your take on leftovers?

Dani:

I don’t really have a take on leftovers. This isn’t something I care about that much, honestly. You know, I really do, honest to God believe in flexible dieting. So I think you can work whatever you can work food in without like harming yourself or anything like that. I come from a family where my mother always makes so much food that there is like an ungodly amount of leftovers.

And that just always annoys me because the whole time she’s like, I don’t know if we’re gonna have enough. I don’t know if we’re gonna have enough. And then I’m like, do you see, do you see what we have leftover? So I mean, I like to try to make what I actually think we’re going to need. That’s, that’s what I’m going to try to do this year. But I don’t like throwing food away.

Yes, I did work really hard on it. I’m going to eat it. I’ll work My way through it. I don’t like when I have to throw things away that I made especially. Especially at the holidays. But, you know, there’s a difference between, like, a Thanksgiving Day meal where, like, I don’t think people should be sitting around tracking their food on Thanksgiving.

Personally, like, I just feel like that it crosses a line for a lot of people and can make you sort of resentful of your whole lifestyle. But you can still have. That’s one thing. You’re gonna end up eating more than you normally would eat and in weird ways. But you can still have those same foods on other days and make it a part of your program, you know?

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

So that’s just my two cents. I mean, I’m not saying you can eat pie all day and make it work, but you could have a piece of pie every day till it’s gone and make it work. Unless you’re the person that just can’t have a piece of pie. You’re gonna have all the pieces of pie at once until they’re gone.

Giacomo:

I think I get more stressed out about my environment than having food in the house in of itself. You see the way she’s cringing? Can anyone see that? I’m sure they know she knows me. We’ve been together for more than a couple of years. The idea of all the cleanup, the idea of food spoiling before I get rid of it and having to clean up and it being smelly. The ide. Having, like, disorganized chaos around me in the refrigerator. The idea of not being in the mood for the leftovers.

But it’s what’s in front of me, so it’s what’s I’m gonna. It’s what I’m gonna eat. The idea of, like, needing to hold on to it. Like, I, like, literally, I’m like. It’s all the more reason to just, like, let go sometimes. Not to say that I’m just. I take Thanksgiving dinner and I put it in a garbage pail and go plop the day after. Because that’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t do that. But I do. I do. Definitely after the fact.

Dani:

Sort of like, he might do that.

Giacomo:

If I’m crazy enough. It depends on the day. But typically, no, typically, I enjoy, but I’m not afraid to. You know, I try not to have any sort of attachment to the idea that I need to just because the food is there. If I feel like something needs to go, it needs to go for whatever reason. But that’s interesting. We have totally different takes here on.

Dani:

Yeah, Giacomo, what he’s talking about is he doesn’t like stuff that doesn’t look like it came out of, like, the Container Store. If anything looks like it couldn’t be in an IKEA display, Giacomo doesn’t want to see it at all. And it’s gonna end up in the trash.

Giacomo:

Listen, she’s ripping me.

Dani:

It’s true. It’s true. So, you know, leftovers don’t go on IKEA displays. Bowls of lemons go in IKEA displays. So.

Giacomo:

Are you killing me? I feel attacked so badly right now.

Dani:

I mean, you said it. I’m just. I’m just painting the picture.

Giacomo:

I gave you the knife and you just went for it. Who does that? I don’t even have a weapon here.

Dani:

But, you know, back to the other thing you were talking about, about Thanksgiving being hard for vegans. I don’t think it’s just hard for vegans. I think it’s hard for a lot of people because of. Of the roots and history of what Thanksgiving was initially. I think that’s hard for many people. But without getting into all of that, I definitely do think it’s a particularly hard holiday for vegans when they’re spending it with non vegan family.

Because unlike most holidays, at least when I was growing up, the turkey is synonymous with Thanksgiving. If you ask people what they have for Christmas dinner, you’re gonna get a lot of different answers depending on someone’s backgr or traditions or whatever. If you ask people what they have on Easter, it’s gonna be different. If you ask people what they have on Thanksgiving, it is turkey. You know, little kids don’t go to school drawing pictures of honey baked hams at

Christmas time, but they absolutely are drawing turkeys in November like it is, so you cannot have one without the other. So when you’re spending it with non vegan family, like, most people are going to be sitting ceremoniously around this giant dead bird, and it is the weirdest, grossest feeling. And that’s very hard to have a great day when that’s basically what your whole day is revolving around.

Giacomo:

Yeah. And I feel for others who want to not isolate themselves from family. And they don’t want to deal with the conflict, and they don’t want to deal with people being annoyed or just like pretending to enjoy or just straight up not even say anything to you and then making plans without you because they don’t want to deal with the conflict either. It’s.

Dani:

Well, the kicker is, I think as somebody who was vegan for I Don’t know, a long ass time, A very long time before Thanksgiving started being vegan around here. I would just go to all the Thanksgivings and they were exactly like I just described. And it’s like, you almost have to take that piece. Like, we have to pretty much all the time. You have to take that piece and put it in the back of your mind and just almost like pretend that’s not happening in order to be able to just not be like a

miserable curmudgeon all through Thanksgiving. And you know, we have to do it when we drive down the street and we go past a McDonald’s. And some, sometimes it’s easier than others, but to see your closest family celebrating around a dead bird, it’s just harder, I think, to compartmentalize that piece.

But you try, right? Because who wants to start an argument at Thanksgiving? Like, nobody wants to start an argument at Thanksgiving. But the kicker, the kicker for so many people is somebody at that dinner table is going to start a conversation with you while you’re there about being vegan.

Giacomo:

Probably like, say that somebody’s religious, right? And then there are others that are non religious people. Would you go to that person, start attacking them for their faith? Like, that’s so rude, right? Imagine just being like poking at somebody and being like, hey, you’re a religious person. Let me just start to like get you to like question your faith. Like, you wouldn’t do that to somebody. So why would you start attacking a vegan on Thanksgiving?

Dani:

Yeah, I mean, that’s a weird analogy.

Giacomo:

But maybe a reach.

Dani:

But I guess it would be like.

Giacomo:

On Christmas, I suppose, or at mass, I don’t know.

Dani:

Yeah, at mass would be a good example. Like if an atheist. We went to mass last year with Giacomo’s family. The kids were in some religious play. We’re not religious at all, but whatever. We are both raised religious. Whatever. We’ll go to church and watch the kids. We’ll sit through a mass to watch the kids in a cute, adorable Christmas play. But it would be like, yeah, somebody just kind of ribbing you for not being religious while you’re in the middle of the church, being

completely respectful, you know? So I think it’s really, really tough because you’re already like, you’re already a little bit on edge anyway, just by being there. And this doesn’t even touch upon if there’s any like, weird, contentious stuff going on in your family, which.

Giacomo:

What family doesn’t have that?

Dani:

It’s, it’s really, really hard. And I feel like this is the Stuff people don’t talk about at the holidays is just forget about the food and the macros. And I feel like we have just talked about that to death about, oh, here’s how you should eat to get through the holidays. Like, if you guys want that information. I know you said we talk about doing that, but we don’t tell you how.

I disagree. I think we’ve told you exactly how in many episodes. If you search holidays in our podcast, you’ll probably find like eight versions of this episode that are all about macro stuff. But I don’t think they talk about some of the other stuff, some of the more emotional sides of getting through the holidays. So I’m actually very interested to talk more about that.

Giacomo:

Well, let’s hear your idea on what you think is also challenging when it comes to the whole dynamic between vegans and their non vegan counterparts. Family members, friends, colleagues.

Dani:

Oh, I don’t necessarily think it has to do with being vegan at all. I just think it has to do with the holidays. Like, everybody’s stressed out during the holidays. Everybody is stressed out from like the end of October when they realize, oh, crap, it’s here. Like, we got to start getting ready for November all the way through the end of the year. Like, Canadians have it, right? They do their Thanksgiving in September. So September and Christmas are like months apart.

That’s the way to do it, man. They nailed it. Because this four weeks apart garbage that we do between Thanksgiving and Christmas is just that to me, like, sure, if you give everybody in the country a month off from work, maybe this would be better. But everybody else still has to do all the other stuff that they have to do. Companies are having to wrap up Q4 while all this stuff is going on.

Giacomo:

Madness.

Dani:

It’s crazy. It’s just crazy.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

You know, I guess I would say say no to what? Don’t be afraid to say no to certain things if you have to, to protect yourself and your own energy and your own sanity if you have to bow out of certain, certain events or whatever, like, don’t be afraid to do that. I think that’s so important, it’s not worth killing yourself over. For what? Like, for what, I guess is the question at the end of the day, really stay on top of your sleep because.

Oh, as if Thanksgiving and Christmas back to back weren’t like, brutal enough. Let’s do it immediately after the clocks change as well. Let’s do that where everybody’s internal clock is all jacked up. You know, I’ve been thinking, I Want to do some research on how much accidents, car accidents increase. Not the day of daylight savings. We already know how much they increase after the fact. After the fact.

Giacomo:

Like that period of time when people are adjusting.

Dani:

Just the fact that. I mean, I guess it’s different in different parts of the countries. I was thinking about how I. How much I have driven in the dark in the last few weeks. Just I don’t drive in at night very often. We have terrible headlights on our car. I can’t see very well. Anyway. I don’t like to drive at night. I’m driving at night every single day now. Because guess what? It’s not night. Jesus. It’s not night. It’s 4:30 and I can’t. See, I’m on a tangent. Please pull me back.

Giacomo:

We gotta bring her back in. We’re losing her. Yeah. This is a difficult time of the year. But you don’t have to give into all the expectations to gather, essentially, and gather the way that people expect you to. And then I think the other thing is, if you feel uncomfortable with. I mean, there’s no harm in exiting a conversation while you’re in the middle of, like, whatever with family. Especially when it comes to food.

Dani:

Yeah, Especially when it comes to. Giacomo and I stopped going to Thanksgiving back when it was still not a vegan Thanksgiving because we just. It’s too much. It’s too much to have to deal with that dynamic on a day that you’re supposed to be being really thankful, but all you can be is just kind of bummed.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

Yeah.

Giacomo:

And we’ve had a couple pretty lonely Thanksgivings. I think we’ve had at least one where it was just you and I. Maybe even more than one, honestly.

Dani:

One of them was in 2020, so does that count?

Giacomo:

Nice place.

Dani:

Anyway. But the whole holiday season, I feel like, is just so challenging for so many people. Family stuff, you know, anybody dealing with any kind of grief. The holidays get really incredibly challenging because people that were there are suddenly not there. And all of these things, by the way, can absolutely trigger poor eating.

Giacomo:

Yeah. So that’s true. Good point. The way that you’re stressed out and the way that you feel is especially whatever you’ve had bottled up or like, neatly compartmentalized throughout the year. That stuff tends to just. You tend to bust apart the seams at the end of the year. You’re also tested by others. Right. You’re in your own routine, living your own life, blah, blah, blah. Keep them busy. And now all of a sudden, the floodgates open to Just conversations that you’re catching

up to with whomever. Right. So a lot of weird feelings can come through at the end of the year, and that can definitely mess with. It’s. It’s like you establish this whole new eating pattern that plays out for several months and starts right around now. And you’re pretty much spending many months undoing it, unfortunately.

Dani:

Yeah. And there’s just a hyper abundance of really highly palatable foods. Like Thanksgiving actually isn’t even that bad. It’s. It’s after Thanksgiving when all the holiday cookies and candies and baked goods and it’s everywhere. So if you’re, if you’re in that situation, we’ve talked about this, like willpower and how scientifically, the more stressed out you are, the lower your willpower is, the more decisions you have to make throughout the day, the worse your

willpower is going to be. So you take everybody, stress them out a ton, put nothing but delicious snacks around them everywhere they go, and boom, you know, you’re suddenly standing at the bank trying to deposit a check and you have one of those little mini candy canes in your mouth because it’s literally everywhere. Like that sort of stuff is everywhere.

Giacomo:

Food is gifted all over the place on top of the food that you’re making. And that’s why I start to like, draw a line where I’m like, okay, I. I don’t need this much delicious stuff around me. It’s okay to get rid of some of it. I don’t need to have it.

Dani:

Ill see, to me it’s just like, don’t bring it in your house in the first place. Don’t bring again. We’ve talked about this as well. Don’t. I personally try not to indulge in stuff that I could just have any time of the year. If I could walk into a grocery store in July and buy it, I’m not gonna go out of my way to indulge in it at Christmas time. But if it’s something else, then sure, I’ll probably have it.

If it’s something that I look forward to that comes around once a year, if someone made something special for me, I’ll have it. If it comes around once a year. But between all the snacks that are out, office parties, your partner’s office parties, family parties, friendsgiving outings, all of them. Because most people don’t even have like one Christmas thing that they go to.

It’s like they’re gonna go visit this part of the family and then they’re gonna go visit this part of the family. And there’s food events at both of them. And there’s Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and then New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Just, like, a few days later. You have to go into it with some kind of a strategy.

It doesn’t have to be, okay, well, I’m gonna track all my macros, and I’m gonna be diligent and perfect or anything like that, because that’s just setting yourself up for a really rough time. But having some strategy going into the holidays, I think is key. What’s your strategy?

Giacomo:

Well, I try to remind myself that I usually feel a lot worse than I actually am as far as how much I’ve eaten. If I’m like, oh, I ate way more than I should have today, or I weigh more than I should have for, like, four days in a row, it feels off, it feels bad. But then in reality, it’s not quite as bad. And then there’s that fear of, like, looking at what’s happening, like, oh, okay, well, what do I look like?

How much do I weigh? Blah, blah, blah, Right? And you could, of course, distract yourself from all this until you balance out and just focus on training, getting stronger. And that’s one tactic and strategy. I think that’s a good way to, like, get rid of the food focus and food fear. So that’s a thing that I think should happen regardless. However, you can’t change how you feel. You can’t change the fact that you are feeling things.

And typically, you’re gonna wind up feeling a lot more guilty and a lot worse than if you were to take a look at things rationally, you’d be like, wow, this really isn’t as bad. Because if you have a day where you overindulge, if you have several days when you overindulge, even just, like, your body, I mean, you’re gonna be overfull. You know, your stomach’s gonna hurt a little bit, and your pro. Your energy is gonna be a little off.

Dani:

So what’s your strategy is to be.

Giacomo:

Aware that it feels worse than it actually is, for one, because then you worry that, like, oh, crap, I gained. I probably gained five pounds or, like, whatever. Like, you probably didn’t, you know? So I think accepting the fact that it feels a lot worse than actually is a step one. Step two is that you can, in fact, rely on just using the extra energy for fuel and focus, focusing on your workouts to, like, get rid of the fixation on how much I eat.

Did I eat okay? What did I undo? Blah, blah, blah. Like, I think that’s a healthy, I think that’s a healthy thing to do as well. So that’s, that’s another tip. I think after that there, another good idea is to try to get back to the routine. Foods that make you feel good, try to incorporate them also while you’re going through all this, even though it’s kind of like, well, let’s just say I want to eat X amount of food for the day and I’m eating like X amount of food not squared, but like X

amount of food plus 50% more. Well, that’s fine, but don’t deny yourself of the foods that make you feel good just because you’re eating, you know you’re going to be eating more for the day. So in other words, if you like to wake up and have a bowl of oatmeal, but you know you’re going to wind up like needing to quote, unquote, save room for dinner, have the bowl of oatmeal, you know, have an apple during the day, like eat foods that you, that you, that make you feel good and you enjoy.

Even if you know that you’re going to be eating other rich foods that are going to like more than fill you up, probably put you in a position where you over full. That would be my suggestion. Going into something. And honestly, when you’re in these kinds of environments that are largely out of your control and are going to drum up a lot of like uncomfortable thought patterns about whatever, like how to eat and what to eat and how you felt about what you ate, this is the perfect time to

start assessing things. You know, like, I thought about like, here’s an example, like I’ll go and I’ll celebrate my family and I’ll eat a whole bunch of like, whatever and then I’ll go home and then I’m like, wow, I ate like this. And I start to look at what I do at home and I’m stressed when I just start opening up cabinets, reaching for food and I think to myself, well, some part of me is lonely because when I am with family and I’m celebrating, I’m happy, I’m enjoying, I don’t have

responsibility and I’m eating a whole bunch of food and I’m thinking of like my trigger when I’m at home because I’m anxious because I miss like the idea of celebrating, having fun and enjoying. So what do I do? I stress eat. So I’m not even saying, I’m not even saying these two Things are correlated. That makes sense. But what I am saying is when your food triggers and when your eating patterns are tested, rather than just being like, I gotta get over it and I gotta get back to eating

healthy, literally start to like, figure out when you’re at your highest, like, stress levels and things are the most off. That’s a perfect time to look at what’s going on and like, you can start to understand more about your relationship with food. When you start to pay attention to what you do and why. And it’s literally the perfect time to do it, as opposed to wallowing in guilt and saying, I ate way more than I wanted to, I probably gained X amount of weight, blah, blah, blah.

What do I do now? That would be my other piece of advice. I use those periods of time to like, really think about how I tend to eat and why. What are your tips? What are your ideas for when you wind up overindulging or forget that preparing for these kinds of family gatherings or time or parties or whatever. Like, what is your strategy going in and what is your strategy on the way out and when you’re there?

Dani:

For me, I don’t really plan for any specific, specific party or get together as much as I just planned for the season. Like, what am I gonna do this season? This holiday season, I’m going to get my workouts in. Like, that is one of the main anchors for me is to just make sure I keep getting workouts in. And this is actually a relatively new thing, but it’s certainly my strategy this year.

I am getting in like a good amount of cardio and like kind of hard cardio too, and a decent amount of it because, you know, I don’t believe in the runner’s high. I think it’s a myth because I’ve not once experienced it in my entire life. But I certainly feel better after I do some cardio. And as I’ve begrudgingly mentioned, unlike the last four podcasts I’ve been a part of, I don’t like daylight savings time and I hate how quickly the sun goes down and it makes me want to not be here.

So I have been doing my workouts in the evening, which I normally never do. I’ve always been a mid morning or afternoon workout girly. But now 4 o’clock, which is when the sun starts setting, here I am in my car, driving to the gym because I’m not going to waste a minute of daylight being in a windowless room. Not gonna do it. That is one of my strategies.

So basically I’M kind of like just doubling down on some of my self care strategies. I’m getting really good sleep. This is a time of year when I feel like people stop hydrating very well, which you only need to be 1% dehydrated to start to feel like crap. So really paying attention to hydration. Why? Because it’s not hot outside anymore. So there’s that.

And even though there’s so much pressure, I feel like on so many people at the end of the year, I am allowing myself to be imperfect at the end of the year. Because if I put the expectation of myself to be perfect on all fronts towards the end of the year, I end up just making myself more stressed out. Which I think is also why so many of us come January 1st are like, I’m gonna be a whole new person because everybody just feels so crappy from the last six or seven weeks.

And I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that this year. And I’ve gotten way better with it over the years. But this year in particular, I don’t want to do that. So, you know, if I’m operating at, you know, 90% capacity instead of 100% capacity, because I need to give myself just a little bit of space to just deal with everything that’s going on in so many, you know, personal, professional, all of the situations at once, then that’s, that’s what it is.

And hopefully that 10% gives me the space to actually be able to be present, to be able to enjoy things, to be able to have time to reflect on anything that I want to. You don’t have time to reflect on anything if you are just go, go, go, go, go 100% of the time. So I guess slowing down, that’s. I could have just summed this all up with doubling down on self care and slowing down.

That’s my strategy, keeping the things that anchor me to my routine. So like I eat the same breakfast every single day. I’m gonna keep doing that until I can’t stand it anymore, which I don’t foresee that happening anytime soon. I’m going to, I have a nighttime routine. I’m gonna do that every single day. I pick out my clothes for the week at the beginning of the week like a school child. And that’s more stuff that I don’t have to think about, but it keeps me like anchored to the day.

Like those are the things what I can’t control my controllables and listen to my body, which you can actually do when you’ve slowed down a little bit and are taking some space mentally for yourself, you can actually listen to your body so you don’t end up overeating and overindulging. I. I don’t remember the last time that I ate so much somewhere that I was like mad at myself afterwards.

Giacomo:

Hmm.

Dani:

Can you remember? I feel like it happened last time.

Giacomo:

You ate so much that you were mad at yourself.

Dani:

I feel like it did happen once in the last few months, but not sure. Yeah, I don’t remember. I don’t remember it. And that’s pretty amazing to be able to say that, especially if you knew who I was 15 years ago. It’s pretty amazing.

Giacomo:

No, like big meal or meals, maybe like some over snacking here and there, but nothing where you’re like, oh my gosh, I gorged today. No, no.

Dani:

So. And I attribute some of that to trying very hard to deliberately just like not try to treat myself like a machine.

Giacomo:

Yeah. And that’s probably that. Not probably, that is the message that we absolutely need to put out there next month when we go over goal setting with everybody. Because how are you going to set goals if you’re too stressed out and you’re like, I need to go, go, go, go. Like then you’re going to be one of those people where it’s January 21st and you’re already in the same exact position you were on December 31st.

And it’s just kind of ridiculous. But if you start the beginning of December doing some reflecting and slowing down a minute, taking a breather, journaling a little bit, being, thinking about what you want to do, like genuinely thinking about how the year went and what you want to do into the new year, you’re much more likely to experience growth, improve upon your systems or create new ones.

Dani:

But it’s hard.

Giacomo:

Fill up your cups and restore them and get more out of what you want to get out of life as you head on into the new year. Yeah, it’s hard, but.

Dani:

Well, it’s hard if you’re somebody who’s like a very driven okay, go, go, go, type A. I always overd. Deliver on everything. If you’re that type of person, which I am.

Giacomo:

Cuz the universe will continue to expect it out of you because you’ve put it out into the universe.

Dani:

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the universe, but certainly the people in your life if they are expecting you to be the person that is always going above and beyond. And right now you’re saying, you know what I Think I’m just going to go to the line, not past the line for a little bit. You might get some pushback from some people.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

And that’s the trade off. Right. Because everything is a trade off. You don’t get to say yes to anything in life without saying no to something else. I cannot stress that enough. You might think, oh, I can have, I can have it all and do everything. There is nothing that you say yes to that isn’t a no to something else.

Giacomo:

Correct.

Dani:

And sometimes you say yes to something and you’re like, no, no, that’s not going to cost me anything.

Giacomo:

No.

Dani:

But it does because it costs you some of your peace. And that is a big, big cost. So, you know, deal with it. Deal with people maybe giving you a.

Giacomo:

Little bit of yes.

Dani:

What she, she usually does whatever. Oh, well, right now I’m doing as much as everybody else. So.

Giacomo:

Right. If anything, you get to project out into the world a message that you hope other people receive and they take a dose of for themselves. And like, you know what, she’s probably right. Like that’s maybe that. Maybe I should be doing that too.

Dani:

Well, how on earth can we get on this podcast every week and make these YouTube videos where we tell people that they need to make space for themselves, they have to focus on their stress, it is a huge killer. And they have to focus on their sleep and they have to focus on this and that. If we’re not at least taking great strides to do something similar, it’s not, it’s not cool.

And I do see a lot of other sort of like influencers in the space doing exactly that, exactly that. Telling everybody to prioritize their mental health and this and that. And then, you know, behind closed doors, they’re a goddamn basket case. So I don’t want to do that.

Giacomo:

I wonder what the wellness industry is like because they’re the exact opposite. They’re all like, chill, take care, blah, blah, blah. But I bet there are basket cases in the wellness industry too. I’m thinking about the fitness industry. Like our industry, it’s a no brainer, obviously. It’s all hustle culture. Everyone’s got to go the hardest, be the best, be an expert, never stop, blah, blah, blah, don’t this, don’t that, you know, and then you go screaming the other

direction. You go to the wellness community and you like, practice yoga and you like this and that. But there are probably people in that industry too that are doing the same thing as we have been guilty of doing the past too. Where it’s like, you know, take care of yourself, and then we’re not doing the same.

Dani:

I mean, that’s. I mean, I think that’s. I think it’s true of a ton of service industry professions, not just true wellness fitness. I mean, the health care profession, some doctors and nurses are some of the most unhealthy people that I know. You know, my mom, when I was a kid, was a house cleaner, and our house was filthy. Like, these are very common phenomenons, because when somebody takes that on as a profession, it’s like, the last thing that they actually want to do in their own

free time. I was supposed to go to college for music, and I ended up not being able to because I couldn’t afford the school that I got into, which was Berkeley, by the way. I’ll brag about that all day, but in hindsight, I’m so grateful that I didn’t go to school for music and turn music into a job, because then I fear that I would have lost some of my love for music, you know?

So I think, you know, they say, like, turn what you love into a profession, and you’ll never work a day in your life. I turn what you love into a profession, and you’ll probably eventually love it a tiny bit less. Like.

Giacomo:

But you can get a lot of good out of it, too, because you wind up embodying the thing that you’re trying to. Oh, definitely for others. Unfortunately, sometimes it can come at the expense of your sanity, and you get a little too imbalanced with it. You hope that you come around.

Dani:

And I think that, you know, some people might be listening to this and being like, are they saying they don’t like fitness? No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. I think that we are probably more transparent than most when it comes to, you know, we may say, hey, this is what science says are best practices for xyz. But that doesn’t mean that we have every single one of them nailed to a T personally, right?

Some of them, I think. I think, wow, when I think about it myself, I’m like, oh, my God, I have come so far with that. Like, every time I think about my relationship with food now and just how healthy it is, I’m just like, yes. Like, I. That was something. I never thought I’d be able to get to a place where I could say that even if I could help other people along that spectrum, I didn’t think I’d ever get there myself.

And now I am. But every fitness professional, every Nutrition professional, every mental health professional, Some therapists are like the craziest people that I know. Honestly, they’re all human and they’re all still working on their own stuff as well. And I don’t think that makes them any less credible. But, you know, I think we forget that sometimes.

So. Yeah. Yeah. So when you are going into your holiday season and if you’re holding yourself to an impossible standard of being absolutely perfect, knocking your job out of the park, getting everybody that you know, the most perfect president, getting in on the cookie swap in time, keeping your house impeccably clean and not gaining an ounce in the entire time.

And I know that a lot of you are thinking all of those things right now and you’re gonna, you’re gonna show up on January 1st all sparkly and New Year, new me. Like, if you’re holding yourself to all of those standards at once, relax a little bit. Like, just relax a little bit. It’s okay to not be perfect in every single area all the time.

Giacomo:

And if there’s ever a time to take that approach, it’s right now more than ever. Because this is when the pressure is on, the pressure you put on yourself and the pressure that’s put on you from all of our expectations to like, be a certain someone at the end of the year.

Dani:

And if you put all of that pressure on yourself to be perfect in every department, the thing that’s going to crack, the thing that’s finally going to give is you. So allow yourself to have some dishes in the sink or, you know, miss one workout here or there. He’s like, please don’t leave dishes in the sink.

Giacomo:

And thank you.

Dani:

Or maybe you don’t do the cookie swap this year. Like, it’s going to be okay. You know, nothing is. Nothing is as valuable as your. As your health and your mental health.

Giacomo:

Yes, exactly.

Dani:

Anyway, well, thank you so much for listening to this. This is what happens when we go into a podcast without a plan. Just if you’re curious, when I Show up with 87 pages of notes, it’s so that the conversation doesn’t meander like this. But hey, if you liked it, you let me. You let us know. Thank you so much for listening. Check out the Mussels by Brussels Buster Deal if you want a full year membership to our Muscles by Brussels Community.

Five bonus meal plans, Free flexible dieting for Vegans ebook download. And you can start it on January 1st if you want to. You don’t need to be start. You don’t need to be starting a new program right now. Okay. Start that at the beginning of the year so you can save it to start then. All right. So if you’re interested in that or any kind of one on one coaching, check out veganproteins.

You can fill out a coaching application. You can shoot us an email coacheganproteins.com if you enjoy the podcast, please leave us a review somewhere. It really helps us get the podcast out in front of more people, whether that’s Apple podcasts or Spotify. Or if you’re on YouTube, leave us a comment. It really helps. Once again, my name is Dani.

Giacomo:

And I’m Giacomo.

Dani:

And we’ll talk to you soon.

Giacomo:

Bye.