This year, avoid the holiday bloat, food coma, and weight gain—without depriving yourself. Enjoy your favorite festive foods and stay on track with your health goals using some basic strategies.  

I’ll walk you through how to prepare for the holiday season, planning ahead for catered events, what to do at parties, how to order at restaurants, best practices for travel, and tricks for entertaining with the healthy recipes that are always a hit.  

We’ll also cover the 80/20 approach—the best way to eat during the holidays. Then, the number-one way to prevent blood sugar spikes and crashes, foods and supplements to keep on hand, what to do after meals. and the fastest way to recover when you’ve overdone it. 

The key takeaways: Stop stressing about what’s on your plate, go with your gut, and find a balance of self-care and fun.  

TESS’S TAKEAWAYS: 

• Your secret weapon for avoiding the holiday food hangover: Better gut health.  
• Offset holiday treats with vegetables, fermented foods, and lots of water.  
• Show up to holiday parties with a flexible mindset having eaten something. 
• To minimize gas, bloating, and feeling stuffed: Eat until you’re satisfied, not full.  
• Take in healthy fats and protein with carbs to avoid blood sugar spikes and crashes.  
• Support better body balance with probiotics, enzymes, glutamine, and magnesium.  
• After a meal, go for a walk to aid digestion and burn off some calories. 
• Celebrate the holidays as a data-gathering mission, not a pass/fail test.  

MEET TESS MASTERS:   

Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of the Skinny60® health programs.       

Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.    

Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.    

CONNECT WITH TESS:  

Website:  https://tessmasters.com/     

Podcast:  https://ithastobeme.com/      

Health Programs: https://www.skinny60.com/  

Delicious Recipes: https://www.theblendergirl.com/  

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/     

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/     

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl    

LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/ 

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It's holiday season, and we want to celebrate with our family and friends and participate in culinary traditions, eat all of our favorite festive foods and make beautiful memories. But a lot of the holiday foods are difficult to digest. It's joyful while we're eating them, and then the

food coma kicks in. We feel gassy and bloated and you just want to take a nap. Then the inflammation and the aches and pains and maybe a bit of extra weight and sleep issues creep in, which creates a long holiday hangover that can be difficult to recover from. So rather than depriving ourselves of the foods

that we love or stressing about our food choices, we can enjoy the holidays in balance and stay on track with our health goals and have fun at the same time. So every year, I send an email out to our community with strategies on how to do this, and it is always the most popular email of the year. So

I'm sharing the tips on the podcast today, so you have it in audio if you're a member of our community. This will be a great reminder, if not, I hope these tips are useful, so let's dive in. So let's find a balance of self care and fun. I adopt a really gentle and fluid approach during the holidays, and I don't

allow deprivation or stress around food to dampen my holiday spirit. I choose to feel zero guilt about anything that I'm eating. I indulge. I enjoy food with family and friends, and I just offset the food that I'm eating with some of the strategies that I'm going to share with you, so that I can

participate and make all these beautiful memories and also feel really good at the same time, so we absolutely can avoid the stomach pains, the gas, the bloating, the fatigue, the all around feeling of I just feel heavy. We all know what that feels like. So in our skinny 60 community, we've got a mantra of

good, better or best, not perfect. It's a mantra that I've shared many times on the podcast. Many of our guests have shared it. It's such a beautiful way to move through the world, just taking the pressure off of ourselves to be perfect or make better choices all the time, we're just aiming to make the

next choice and learn from it. So just make the best choices that you can find that balance in any given moment. You're not going to undo all of your great work throughout the year, this idea that, Oh, if I have a really indulgent vacation or holiday season, I'm going to undo all of that great work I've

done to lose weight to improve my gut health and digestion, my blood sugar, my blood pressure, cholesterol. I'm sleeping through the night now. I don't want to put on all this weight. Here's what's really cool about the human body. If you've laid a really strong foundation, the body rebounds really quickly.

It's got a memory, and it wants to return to that state. If you nourish your body effectively and you support recovery from that kind of binge eating session that we often do during the holidays. So those of you in our skinny 60 community who've done our 60 day reset have felt this before, where you've laid

that strong foundation in 60 days. Your gut Health's better. Your digestion is better. You're sleeping through the night. You're at your goal weight, your blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar's all regulated. You're just feeling fantastic. You don't have those aches and pains, that inflammation. And

then you eat a bunch of these foods with lots of sugar, maybe gluten, dairy, things that you know, we know, are difficult to digest. And then you sort of start to drag a little bit. And then you implement some of these strategies that I'm going to share, and then you just rebound, and you start to feel

really great again. So just resist that urge to feel paralyzed about your food choices. You actually have more control than you think you do. So be proactive. Be really prepared. We know that preparation is so much a part of success. So as I'm going into the holiday season, I always

fill up my fridge and freezer and pantry with really healthy staples so that I can fridge forage and I can put together really easy, quick, healthy meals in amongst all of the celebrations. So make some healthy recipes that you love, freeze them in portions. Have some leafy greens, some

different colored vegetables, some fruit, some nuts, seeds, olive oil, lemon juice, avocados, cucumber, different kinds of protein. I've always got that stuff sitting in the house so that I can put together healthy meals and snacks in around some of the parties. So let's talk about eating out. So

we're all going to holiday parties and events. So if there is a holiday party planned, I will offer to host. I'm big on controlling the situation, so I know that there's going to be healthy offerings for not just myself, but other people that I know want to remain healthy. And people love my food anyway, so I

know it's always going to be a hit. So those of you in the skinny 60 community, there's tons of recipes for you. Those of you those of you have the blender girl cookbooks, there's hundreds of recipes there. There's hundreds of free recipes on the blender girl website, so many wonderful options. And

then, of course, there's so many recipes out there from other people as well. So when you know that there's recipes that have been popular with your family and friends that are also healthy, you can draw on those staples to think. About what you can make. So I offer to host or I offer to bring some things,

and I've never had anyone say no to me. So either offer to host or offer to bring some things, and then you know that there's going to be some healthy things on offer. The other thing is that unless I know that people have dietary preferences, food allergies, food intolerances on their or they're on a special

kind of protocol where they need to know, for example, if something's got gluten or dairy or nuts in it, I don't. If I don't have any of those people, I don't qualify any of the dishes that I serve with. Oh, this is gluten free, dairy free, it's sugar free, it's really healthy. Or, you know, it's from

this program that I'm doing, because the minute I do that, a lot of people will screw up their nose. They'll already have a preconceived notion that's not going to taste good, and the dish just sits there languishing. And a lot of people in our community report the same thing. So unless you need to say

anything about it, just slide it onto the table with everything else. And often I'll just say, Oh yeah, you've got to try this. I absolutely love it. Or my family loves it. It's so delicious. Don't miss having a bite. Got to try it. And guess what? The dishes that go first and everybody wants the recipe,

it's the ones that I've brought. So pick your dishes wisely. Pick things that look delicious. People take the first bite with their eyes and just enjoy it with everybody else. The other strategy that I use all the time, if I know that I'm going to an event where there's, you know, I can't control the

situation, and I know that there's not going to be a lot of things that I'm even going to want to eat, let alone can eat, I always go with a full stomach, so I eat before I go to the party. The worst thing that I can do is going hungry, where I'm starving, and then I'm going to have to eat something even

whether I want to eat it or not. So eat something healthy. If it's an evening event, eat healthy throughout the day. Make sure you have a salad or some vegetables. Hydrate really well. Have some healthy snacks with you so that you can, you know, participate. It's like, I don't, I stand there and don't eat

anything, but you just can have a little bit and participate, but you're not ravenous, so I then you're not tempted to binge eat. You know, the other thing that I do is that I eat quite a bit of fermented foods before I go to the event to offset all of those foods that are going to feed, you know, all of that,

that bad army, so to speak, in my gut. So I've populated my gut with probiotics. I also will take digestive enzymes with me. We've spoken about this with Megan, our lead dietitian, on some of the podcast episodes. There is quite a bit of misconception about digestive enzymes. So there is no

digestive enzyme that digests gluten. So this idea that, Oh, if, let's say you you're gluten intolerant, you don't eat gluten, but you know, you're going to go and have some pie or crusty bread or whatever it might be, I'm going to have it, but you're not a celiac, so you can have it, but you know it's

not going to make you feel so great saying I'm going to eat and then popping an enzyme won't help you digest the gluten. You may also be intolerant to the FODMAPs, the specific carbohydrates in those gluten containing foods. So if you missed that episode with Megan last month about FODMAPs, that

might be an interesting one for you to learn about just why some of these foods may be causing gas, bloating and digestive distress, but there are enzymes that can digest nuts and seeds, for example, can help you digest dairy. So we know that we produce digestive enzymes, but we produce less of them as we

age. So it is a prudent approach to supplement maybe with some digestive enzymes if you're over 40. But as we're going to go in and eat some of these foods that maybe we're not used to, eating digestive enzymes may be something that you want to do. I also, might also take a probiotic supplement. Pop a

probiotic in the morning. Pop one when I get home at night, I'll hydrate really well. And I do do some coconut water kefir before I go to bed and brush my teeth. And it just kind of helps to balance out, you know, all of those foods, remember, there is a war raging inside our gut all the time between the good army

and the bad army. There's billions of different microbes. Some are beneficial, some are hostile. Some support better health. Some do not. So all of these festive, fun foods and the sugar and, you know, the additives, preservatives and things that are in processed foods and packaged foods, they

feed the bad army. And so we want to be populating our gut and feeding the good army with probiotic, rich fermented foods. So that's sauerkraut, kimchi, brine, fermented vegetables, beet, kvass water kefir, coconut water kefir,

milk kefirs. Beet, there's just so many fermented foods. Again, those of you in skinny 60 know all about this, because there's such huge education. So go in, look at some of the recipes. There's also some fermented food recipes on the blender. Girl.com so everything in moderation is another great mantra. I mean,

that's a great mantra for life in general. But during the holidays, enjoy your favorite indulgent food. Foods in balanced amounts. So for example, one bite of, you know, one well, not one bite, one piece of apple pie and a scoop of ice cream, instead of two or three pieces of pie with, you

know, multiple scoops of ice cream. Just enjoy it, you know, and just do it in balance. So if you are someone that you know, you know that you're intolerant to gluten. There are so many fantastic gluten free pies, gluten free desserts, wonderful recipes. If you don't want to bake. There's gluten free

bakeries that, I mean, the gluten free products are getting so much more sophisticated now. So that may be something that you want to do. If you know. Likewise, if you know you're going to have ice cream, cream, there's so many dairy free options if you know that you don't tolerate dairy very well,

so just be prepared. And I always test things, because not all gluten free, dairy free products are good. And I've sort of got this yardstick. If it's not a nine or a 10 out of 10, where it's really, really close, or you can't tell the difference with the real thing, then I'm going to take it if it's sort of

okay, it's possible, but really, only people that are used to eating that are going to enjoy it, then I'm not taking it because people just aren't going to enjoy it, and they're going to feel like they're missing out. Another approach that I really, really love is the 8020 approach. So in terms of your

plate composition, when you're picking foods, you know, off the buffet or off of the big family dinner table, and you're putting your plate together for the holidays, 80% of it just pile it up with the vegetables, the vegetable sides, the salad, the leafy greens, etc. And then 20% is all of those fun foods.

Remember that a lot of the packaged foods, the processed foods, the things that contain gluten, dairy, sugar, they're cooked a lot for a long time. They don't contain a lot of water, so they're very dehydrating. They don't often contain a lot of fiber, and they're often acid forming so,

you know, I call the holidays an acidic orgy, because we're eating a lot of acid forming foods, so we want to be also eating some alkaline forming food. So that's your non starchy vegetables, cruciferous vegetables, like cauliflower, broccoli, kale, Brussels sprouts, leafy greens, cucumber,

avocado, bell peppers. They're all alkaline forming foods. So making sure that we're getting some of those foods into our body, in amongst all those acid forming foods. So the other big one is eating until you're just satisfied, not full. And I know

that's really that's easier said than done, particularly when, oh, you get to eat this once a year, because grandma's made, you know, this apple pie that she loves. I've got apple pie in the brain today, don't I,

and you can eat it because that's what you do every year. Like, we've got our family favorites, you know, my mom makes this brandy sauce. We have Christmas pudding. You know, there's just, there's certain foods that just our family has been eating for decades and decades. It's always on the

family table. You're not missing out on it. So just be thinking about the fact that food takes a while to hit our guts and our bellies and everywhere else, right? So you might go, oh, and shoveling it in, and then, you know, 20, 3040, minutes later, it's like, oh, I ate too much, you know? So to avoid that

feeling, just be mindful about, you know, what I think I've had enough. I'll just pace myself, and I know there's more coming an hour from now or two hours from now, so you can just avoid that feeling of feeling completely stuffed and not being able to move off the couch. We've all been there and just

remembering to stay really hydrated. Like I said, a lot of these foods are really dehydrating. So animal foods, processed foods, alcohol, added sugars, they all dehydrate the body. So drinking more water and water based beverages, like herbal teas, steeped water, just more than you normally would. So

I will often set an alarm on my phone. I know that's not very festive, and people might laugh at you, but just reminding yourself, just to drink a glass of water every 6090 minutes, every couple of hours, just making sure that you're staying hydrated. Another way to stay hydrated is eating some raw

plant foods throughout the day. So making sure one meal a day is a Raw Meal. So it might be breakfast if you know you're going to festive lunch or festive dinner, having a side salad, you know, could just be half of an avocado, a little bit of chopped cucumber, some celery. You know, people often

serve salads on the table, just making sure you're picking up something raw on the table in amongst all of the cooked food. Remember, when we cook foods, we're ostensibly dehydrating them, so we're pulling the water out of them to varying degrees. So we want to make sure we're replenishing our body with that

mineral, rich, alkaline, forming water that's going to support better health with alcohol that's also very dehydrating. But, you know, that's just something that we do. We drink a beautiful glass of wine, we have eggnog or, you know, whatever it might be. So it doesn't mean that you don't want to partake

in that with your friends and family, but in moderation, again, so a great strategy is glass of alcohol, glass of. Water. Even better, glass of alcohol, two glasses of water. If you know that alcohol just doesn't agree with you, you don't drink alcohol. There's so many non alcoholic mocktails,

wines, all kinds of things. It's getting to be a very sophisticated space now. So there are options. You could even take a mocktail. There's so many fabulous recipes. There's some on the blender go website, in the cooking club, if you're a member of the skinny CC cooking club, so many options where you

can be enjoying yummy things, but you don't necessarily have to consume alcohol. I talked about pushing the probiotics. I want to talk about that again, because when you're drinking alcohol, you're eating all of these foods. I just want to be a little give you a little bit more. Give you a little bit more

specific direction about this, because that bad army that we're feeding with all of these different foods, with alcohol, with the stress, with lack of sleep, you know, we're burning the candle at both ends. I always do a quarter to a half a cup of fermented sauerkraut, kimchi, fermented pickles with

lunch and dinner. If I'm having a savory breakfast, I will also do it. Then if you are not used to eating fermented foods, they are so powerful and they clean they want to exit the bad guys to the door. So you want to start very, very small with just one fork full see how your body responds. And if you don't get

loose stools, which can happen, then maybe you want to do two forkfuls the next day. You just don't want to go in high particularly with coconut water kefir and some of these other fermented beverages. You may be paying homage to the toilet bowl more than you would like, if you know what I mean. So I've talked

about these on other episodes when I just, you know, when I watch something and I learn about something I used to just go all in and whoosh, did it have some dire consequences? So I remember many, many years ago, I got some coconut water kefir, and I drunk the whole bottle. And let me tell you, excuse my

language. I was shitting through the eye of a needle, if you know what I mean, it cleaned me out, and I had diarrhea for two days. So learn from by mistakes. Less is more. With this stuff, it's incredibly potent. These are medicinal foods. They are so incredibly good for your gut, but you want to start small if

you're not used to having them, so I mentioned coconut water kefir, there's also Water Kefir. Beet kvass. If you don't like fermented foods. You're not used to them, then go for some probiotic capsules. Add one to a smoothie, you know, have one in the morning. I like to have one at night, during the holidays as

well, before I brush my teeth. And then you lie down, and then the you know, all the probiotics just sort of multiply like Gremlins while you're horizontal. So I'm a big one on that, and while I'm talking about supplements, you know as Megan, our lead dietitian, who's been on the podcast several

times. Those of you in skinny six, you know her really well. We're not big on supplements. You know, we're not anti supplements, but we really adopt a food forward approach where, you know, we can eat fermented foods that are just loaded with probiotics. So but there are some supplements that you can

discuss with your practitioner which might maximize your your the results of this agenda, you know, and make you feel better. So I certainly use some of the supplements I'm going to talk about during the holidays, when I'm traveling, things like that. They're really wonderful. So glutamine, particularly the

metagenics, glutogenics, which is a brand that is really the gold standard for glutamine. A lot of practitioners, dieticians, gastroenterologists, doctors will recommend this to their patients. Glutamine is an amino acid. The menage glutagenics formula has licorice aloe. Excuse me, I need to take

a sip of water. I've been speaking away. Do excuse me, the metagenics. Glutogenics contains other ingredients that really soothe the digestive tract. It can really offset the acid forming effects of some of these festive foods if you suffer from acid reflux, and then eating some of these foods causes a

flare up and causes you to experience it even more than you normally would, because acid reflux is a systemic issue. Those of you who are members of the 60 day reset know that it's possible to completely eradicate acid reflux with some food and lifestyle strategies. It's really quite thrilling if you've

been experiencing it your whole life, and then you don't anymore, but you still may experience a flare up when you eat these foods that cause, you know, these systemic issues and imbalances in our gut. So I'm not suggesting that the metagenics, glutagenics is a solution we want to be be

balanced, rebalancing the body with with different food and lifestyle choices and better gut health. However, in the moment, if you want to provide immediate relief, taking a scoop of metagenics, glutogenics in some water can completely

ease the acid reflux. So it's a great it's a great tool, just a quick tool, kind of almost like a bad day, but it is something that can provide some relief. I talked about the digestive enzyme, so you. May want to carry those with you if you're traveling. If you're going to go stay with people for the

holidays, have them on hand in your bag. I always travel with them. Magnesium is a great supplement, particularly magnesium glycinate, or a blend of different forms of magnesium, to take at night, just to calm and relax the body. A lot of these, these these foods, particularly if you've eaten a

lot of sugar, it's very energizing. It can really disrupt sleep. So just calming the body, just kind of relaxing the body down, can be a good strategy so that you can get a good night's sleep. I also travel with liquid chlorophyll, so maybe I know I'm not going to be eating as many greens as I

normally do, chlorophyll is just, you know, it's almost the same molecular structure as the hemoglobin in our blood. It's alkaline forming. It's a powerful detox agent. So we're kind of really overloading the liver during the holidays with foods that are much, much more difficult to digest and

assimilate, alcohol, caffeine, you know, or has a half life takes, you know, several hours, you know, about six to eight hours to be fully assimilated by the body. So I will take some liquid chlorophyll. So I like the little concentrated one that I can put in my bag. I always put in a plastic bag, gosh, if

that thing breaks in your bag, bag gone, because it's quite potent. But I'll put it in, you know, maybe some bubble wrap in a Ziploc bag. I'll carry it in kind of like the little inside pocket of my, of my, of my bag, and I'll just put, you know, a pipette full into a 16 ounce glass of water, and I'll drink

that throughout the day. So that's another thing that I do. I like the mint flavored liquid, chlorophyll, chloro oxygen is one that I like. I'm not affiliated with any of these brands, by the way, they're just the brands that I use, and brands that come to mind. So there are some supplements that

you may want to use, but again, I I add the caveat on this podcast that I'm not a practitioner. I'm certainly not your practitioner. So always run any supplements you may want to be introducing to your life past your practitioner, because they may seemingly be innocuous, but they may not be appropriate for

you. So those of you in our skinny 60 community know that we that we're big on making data driven decisions about supplements, keep moving. Just keep your body moving so that you can support the lymph the lymphatic system, your liver, your bowels. You know, we want to keep them moving. So we just

want to keep the body moving, keep everything moving. So by better digestion and detox, must have movement. So going for a walk after meals, even if it's just around the block, if you're in really cold weather, in the snow during the holidays, just walk around the house. If you've got a rebound, and jump on the

rebounder in the morning, at night, particularly after dinner, just going for gentle walks, just to burn off some calories, keep things moving through the digestive system, just to support better digestion. And if you've got a regular workout routine, maintain it. If you don't just

do some gentle movement, just so that you can, you can keep things moving. We often, like I was saying before, burn the candle at both ends. During the holidays, we don't get a lot of sleep. We don't get a lot of rest. Our rest and sleep, they're not the same thing. So, you know, everyone, particularly

if you eat turkey, and, you know, foods with tryptophan, everyone kind of got a turkey coma. A lot of people take a nap in the afternoon after, you know, Thanksgiving lunch, or Christmas lunch, or, you know, whatever you're celebrating. Just Just be mindful of getting enough rest and sleep. You know

this will support your body in regenerating. So eating at home, like I said, there's so many yummy recipes that you can make, so they're all on the blender. Girl.com if you're a member of skinny 60 or 60 our 60 day reset. There's just tons in our recipe center, if you remember the cooking club, there's some

really delicious holiday recipes, particularly my sweet potato pie. I really, really love it. I've put the recipes that it has to be me.com/holiday, recipes, just so you can find them really quickly. All of the recipes are gluten free and vegan. And then you can add, you know, animal

protein of your choice to them. If you eat animal protein, if you're vegetarian and eat eggs, you can do that as well. So my favorite go to soup for the holidays is the Thai pumpkin soup on the blender girl website. It is so incredibly delicious. Has a mind blowing flavor, and it's super, super

easy. I also love the roasted butternut squash soup, the creamy artichoke soup, if you want a white soup. And then the most popular recipe on the blended girl website, other than it tastes like ice cream kale shake, which is really good for breakfast on the holidays, by the way, is the cream of

cauliflower soup. People absolutely love it. Whole roasted cauliflower is always a beautiful thing to serve on a holiday on a holiday table. There's a couple of really amazing grain free stuffing recipes on the blender girl website that I really love, the garlic green beans are always on

every holiday table. They are so popular it doesn't matter what your dietary stripes are. People go goo goo, gaga for them. Who says you need gobs of cream and butter to make epic mashed potatoes? There are two mashed. Potato recipes that I absolutely love on the blender girl website, there's an olive oil

mashed potatoes, and then there's just a delicious, divine creamy mashed potato, where I've made a vegan cream with broth and nuts, and you just, you whip it together with that and broth and oh, it is absolutely divine. And nobody would know the difference my mushroom gravy, people literally want to lick

that out of the blender. So it's always a hit with everybody. Why buy cranberry sauce when you can make the recipe on the blender? Girl website, it is so delicious. And if you've got any leftovers, it's pretty amazing on ice cream. Just saying, if you're looking for mashed sweet potato, oh, there is a divine

recipe, and I crush maple candy pecans on top. You can also just make the maple candy pecans and put them on the table. We always make quadruple batches in my house. We take them as hostess gifts. Oh, those maple candy pecans show me to heaven with a smile on my face. For salads, the kale Caesar salad is always

a hit, as is the arugula salad with the lemon mint vinaigrette. I swear I could lick that dressing off my wrists and everything else in sight. And everybody I serve it to agrees. It's always really, really popular. It'll make you look like a gourmet chef in about 20 minutes. For dessert, my go to

holiday dessert is the damp lemon almond cake. It is so ridiculously easy. It's the easiest cake I've ever made. You literally blend it all in the blender, pour it into the spring form tin and bake it. That's it. And it is divine. People love it, and it freezes really well too. What I'll just say, just in

case you don't read the notes, is that you don't want to replace any other flour. It has to be the four cups of blanched almond flour. I know it's expensive, I know it takes more to potentially find it, but if you go half and half, the recipe doesn't work. And I've had that happen with people before who

didn't read the notes, and then they're disappointed, and I don't want you to be so I just want to make sure I mention that there's a cranberry lemon cheesecake on the website that, again, is blend and bake. You're hearing a theme. I don't really like to spend a lot of time on making dessert. I'm a big fan of

the blend and bake kind of the blend and free. So the cranberry lemon cheesecake. There's also a chocolate orange torte. That's a really popular recipe from the blender girl cookbook. Those are my three go to recipes because they're super, super easy, they're really popular, and they all freeze really well. So

again, you can find all of those recipes at it has to be me.com/holiday recipes. Let's talk about some tips for, you know, eating out at restaurants, some ordering tips, you know, because we all eat out a lot, typically during the holidays. So just when you're scanning a menu, just look for really clean

foods. If you're deciding that this is one way, kind of, you sort of, I've already indulged this week. I'm feeling a bit heavy. I kind of want to do something a little bit more healthy, but you want to participate is just look for clean, grilled protein and vegetables or salad. So if you

already know that you want to be gluten free and dairy free, just look for those options. Make that a priority. Most restaurants have that very clearly labeled on their menus. Now, some people even have a gluten free or a vegan or a dairy free menu. So just ask for that people, a server will ask

if anyone has any food allergies or or dietary preferences. That's just a standard thing that you know, every establishment does now, because people don't want to get sued, you know, so it's quite easy to find things and for people to want to accommodate you just be avoiding a lot of sugar, you

know, if you want to feel better. But if it's something, if it's if tonight's the night where, oh gosh, we go into a place where we just love such and such dessert on the menu, then have it. Enjoy it, and don't think about it, you know, just offset it with some of these other strategies that I'm

sharing.

So if you're at a catering event, for example, just call the venue ahead of time and just ask what kind of options they have. If you call a week in advance, two weeks in advance, you know, even a few days in advance, people are typically very accommodating. If you're very pleasant and friendly, they

want to help you. They want to find solutions, because they want to provide good customer service. You know, if for nothing else, they don't want to get a bad review. Bad review, you know. So most places are happy to accommodate. If you give them advance notice when you arrive at an event space, a

catering space, a restaurant, just scan the menu, ask the server about your options. Like I said, if you're polite, people want to accommodate you. I always, if I don't see something on the main menu, I just go to the vegetable side section. That's where the gold is on every menu. So I will cobble

something together. I might order the side salad. I might order the steamed broccoli, the sauteed cabbage, or the cat roasted carrots, or whatever they might be. I might order a few, a couple, two or three vegetable sides, you know, see if anyone else on the table wants to share them and alter

the side salad, and then I'll toss it all together, you know, get some protein I might ask for, you know, a half of a lemon. I often travel with a little bottle of olive oil and a lemon in my purse, and high quality salt. Haha. Sometimes even an avocado, you know, like Mary Poppins, pulling all this

stuff out of my bag, sometimes it's appropriate to do that, and other times, you know it's not appropriate. So read the room. You know, you don't want to embarrass people, be inappropriate, be rude, that kind of stuff. So sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But I think that those are all ways

that you can sometimes, I have hemp seeds with me, and I will just cobble together a really, really healthy salad. So if you're traveling, you're going to be at airports, train stations, on boats, you know, where you are more limited about what is available to you. Can't just, you know, get a jump in

the car and go to the grocery store again. Just resist the urge to feel paralyzed. Be a slave to your food choices. You know, even say no to a situation because you're worried about things. Frame those sorts of situations as just opportunities to practice making food choices in different situations where

you don't have the control, celebrate the data that you get, and just, again, make a choice and feel good about it and do the best that you can, and just find that that balance. Travel doesn't have to be an all or nothing thing or an either or situation. I think it's a both and experience. Remember that

being healthy is about what you add, not about what you take away. So just embrace the flexibility. Use those unknown situations as invitations to look at your relationship with food. How do you respond and behave when you're not in control of the situation where there isn't the structure that

you're used to, where things are different and you're not feeling as confident. So it's interesting to just notice it, not with judgment, but just kind of like, Oh, interesting. That's what I do when I'm in those sorts of situations. Remember that your relationship with food is a direct reflection of the

relationship that you have with other things in your life. When you're on planes, trains, automobiles, boats, carry some things with you, like I was saying, I have olive oil, I have lemon juice, sometimes I have an avocado or hemp seeds. I mean, just depends what the situation is. If you can get a salad at

the airport or something. Get, get, get, get that and take that on the plane. Have some trail mix with some alkaline forming nuts, you know, some almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds. Won't you know, I often will toast seeds. I've got this beautiful, spicy mix that I love to make, and I'll

have that in my bag. If you eat eggs, boiled eggs are always good. I know they stink, but if you've got them peeled and you've got them in a little container, you eat them quickly. I mean, nobody cares. Vegetable sticks and dips is always a great idea. Order a special meal. Think ahead, you know, on

the plane and on, you know, ships and things, gosh, they've got so many options. It's actually much, much easier than it used to be when you get somewhere, if you do have access to a kitchen, if you're staying with somebody, if you're in an Airbnb, if you're in a service department, even if you've got a

fridge in a hotel room that you can use, I will head to a health food store or a grocery store. I'll pick up some filtered water, some fruit, some vegetables, some nuts, seeds, olive oil. Again, I'm listing all the same things, right? These are the staples, some fermented food, some sauerkraut,

kimchi, fermented pickles. I'll just have some of those staples with me so that I can cobble some things together. Again, reading the situation in the room. You know, there's some people where that makes them feel uncomfortable, like they they're not good hosts or, you know, you don't know them very

well, for example. So again, reading the room. You know, I'm not always, I don't always just enter a space and completely take over and remove things from their fridge. I mean, again, we want to be respectful of other people's boundaries as well what their needs are, but when you are by yourself, you know, in an

apartment or something, you can absolutely make sure that you've got some of these things so you can find that balance. Let's talk about preparing and recovering from, you know,

the week of debauchery, so to speak, or whatever terms you want to use. I'm not even putting a judgment on it. I kind of say that with love, you know, let's go into the acidic orgy and have fun, right? But

nevertheless, we want to do it in balance. So hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Just make sure, going into the event, to the week, to the holiday weekend, the trip away, whatever it is that you're just as hydrated as possible. So just drinking a lot of water, water based beverages, herbal teas,

eating, you know, a lot of raw foods, a lot of salads, making at least one raw meal a day, eating something raw with every cooked meal. Just like I was saying, you know, if I'm going to holiday season, I'll even do two raw meals and really load myself up so that I'm super, super hydrated before I go. Now,

this is a bit next level, but I'm going to mention it to to to you, in case you're interested if, if I'm going on a long haul flight, and I'm going into a holiday, a vacation where I know that I'm going to

be going off the reservation, so to speak, because I do it just like every. Anybody else,

I will go and have a couple of couple of colonics, and I will hydrate my body from the inside out, in addition to all these things that I'm talking about. Now, if you've never had a colonic, that's something you're not interested in. Of course, you don't need to do that, but I am going to

mention it for those of you that are open to it and are already doing colonics. I've talked about that when we were leading our detox program. I talk about it a lot in skinny 60 that that is something that I do, and it's incredibly helpful, because being on long haul flights, particularly, you know, those

that are 1214, 1618, hours. And I mean, in the coming years, we're going to have flights that are over 20 hours, they're incredibly dehydrating, so just making sure you're getting on to the plane really, really hydrated, pushing the probiotics like I talked about, I'm going to talk about that again, you

know, making sure that you're consuming a lot of fermented foods leading up to it, so that you've populated your gut with with all of those, those good microbes and your good armies ready to go into battle for whatever comes at them, leaning into a lot of plant foods, no matter What your dietary

preferences are, just making sure that you're eating a variety of cooked and raw vegetables in a variety of colors, you're putting all of those alkaline forming foods. You've got mineral rich foods. A lot of fiber is already in your body. Your digestion is good. Your bowel movements are good.

You know, going into the holidays already constipated and backed up, you're probably going to be in pain because pain, because, again, these these festive holiday foods, don't tend to contain a lot of fiber or water, and they tend to stop up the cold, which is why a lot of people get constipated during

the holidays, grabbing for the greens, making sure that you've eaten a lot of green foods going into the holidays. You know, leafy greens in particular, they're pretty perfect foods. They contain a lot of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fiber, water, right? So I just eat a lot of green foods making sure

that you're meeting your protein needs. I talk about this a lot on the podcast. Those of you in skinny 60 know that's a huge part of the education in our program. Most people are not most women in particular, not even getting half the protein that they need. You cannot achieve better health if you're

not eating protein. So just making sure that you're meeting your protein needs with quality sources and a variety of sources, I'm going to talk about moving your body again, preparing and how to recover. Just keep moving your body, doing some cardio, going for gentle walks to support better

digestion and weight management, managing your stress. The holidays can be really stressful. I've talked about how joyful they are and how much fun and whatever. I mean, there's always an argument in the family. It's a cliche, but it's true. You might, you know, be having people to stay and even

though you love them and you're so excited to see them, you know, you want the house to be clean. You want it to look good. You want to make sure there's enough food for everybody. You want to make sure that the towels and the sheets are washed. And, you know, I mean, there's so many things to think

about if you want to be a good host,

maybe you're going somewhere and you're worried all the things I've been talking about for whatever reason it might be, the holidays can be really, really stressful. Maybe you've got some work to do, some study, and you just haven't gotten it all done. And you it's always been, you it's always possible time to be

taking a week off or a weekend off or whatever, so just be noticing if you're experiencing elevated stress, and just be monitoring that. What do you need to do to bring yourself back into balance so that you don't fall apart and feel like you can't handle things and get really emotional and get really

short with people because you're tired and you're stressed, and all the things that we know can happen with the best of us. So just mindfully doing what you need to do to stay in balance. Do you need to go for a nap? Do you need to go for a bit of a walk? What relaxation practices? Do you meditate? Do you do yoga?

Do you do Pilates? Do you go for a swim, get in the sauna, whatever it might be, bounce on the trampoline. I mean, we all do different things, go for a dance, put on a piece of music, go to a yoga class, whatever it might be, but do what you need to do to manage the stress. We know that stress manifests

inflammation in the body. We know that elevated Stress Messes With our blood sugar, our hormones, our sleep, our energy, our mood stability, and those things may be all out of whack, particularly if you're in perimenopause, menopause, post menopause, or you're on some medication, you know, and you've

been through a surgery and you're in recovery. I mean, all those things really mess with our mood stability. So just Listening, paying attention to what you need, and if you need to go out on your own for a little bit, do what you need to do. So sometimes I get a little bit overwhelmed with stimuli.

Even though I'm a social person, I just need 10 minutes to myself just to sort of clear my head, get a bit of fresh air. Sometimes you don't even need to tell anyone you're doing it just, or just say, I'm just gonna go for a little walk, you know. And again, just just take care of yourself and sleep. No

shame in going. Being the first one to go to bed. I've got no shame about that, by the way, when I'm ready to go, I go right giving yourself permission to sleep in. Maybe that's not something you normally do. You know, you've been brought up to think that's lazy if you sleep in, no, it's your holiday. So

sleep in, go to bed early, take naps. I love. Love a good nap, just again. Do what you need to do, get outside as much as possible and get that that hit of vitamin D. Let the sun kiss your skin for at least 15 minutes a day. Those of you in the southern hemisphere during the holiday season, Sun

everywhere. The weather's absolutely gorgeous. You may be in the northern hemisphere, where it's quite dark. There's no daylight saving anymore. It's snowing. You don't want to get outside. It's a little bit different, more difficult to find the sun. But during the day, just get out. Put your big

coat on, get out in the sun just a little bit. And again, supplements, you may want to take, some magnesium, some chlorophyll, some glutamine, digestive enzymes, probiotics. But again, discuss that with your practitioner. So let's talk about, when the holidays are over, what can we do to recover

and just sort of bring our bodies back into balance, mindfully and in an accelerated way? So all the things I talked about for the preparation are also brilliant recovery strategies, so staying hydrated, eating probiotic rich foods, eating plant foods, eating raw foods, all the things I talked

about, moving your body, resting, sleeping, managing your stress, all of those things are great recovery strategies. In addition to that, you may want to do an all liquid day, a whole Liquid Nutrition day is what we call it in skinny 60 I've spoken about this on some other episodes, I almost didn't

include the all liquid day that we do once a week in the 60 day reset, except for the first week, because I thought it would be too full on and too extreme for people. Turns out it's the most popular part of the program, except for the recipes. People absolutely love it because it makes your body feel

amazing. So it's not fasting, it's not juicing. We do a mixture of whole form liquid nutrition. So smoothies with fiber, with nuts and seeds, we're getting protein, and then soups. So you could do some alkaline forming soups and some smoothies, and just give your body a break from animal foods

that are more difficult to digest if you consume animal foods and just just taking a break from really strenuous digestion. Digestion is an athletic endeavor. It requires so much energy from the body, and when you eat pre digested foods and plant foods that are easier to digest, just gives

your body reserves more energy for detoxification and regeneration, so it can really help the body to bounce back. The only caveat to that is that you may have a little bit less energy because you're detoxifying, and also you may not be taking in as many calories, as many carbohydrates

and as much protein as you're used to taking. So I wouldn't suggest doing that for a whole week, for example, because you wouldn't be meeting your protein needs. So one day is great. Just do that and see how you feel. If you are used to juicing and juice fasting, another really effective strategy is to juice

fast for a day after the holidays and just clean your body out. And just do it on a day when you're not working out, you're not you don't need to be at work. You can just rest, watch movies, take naps, just completely nourish your body and support that that restoration so you could do alkaline forming

green juices that don't contain a lot of fruit and natural sugar, because otherwise that's a lot of sugar without any fiber and protein and healthy fats to offset the sugar spikes and crashes that can happen when you drink a lot of really high sugar juices, so just be mindful of that. But either one of those

strategies can be really wonderful. If you're someone that does colonics, that's always a great idea after the holidays, is just go and do a series of colonics and support your body and getting rid of those mucoid forming heavy foods that can get caught up in the colon and can kind of stop us

up, you know. So the other thing I'll say is, let's go back to balance the beginning of the conversation, of just finding that balance of self care and fun, using the holidays as an opportunity to just learn. Make some choices, make some memories, you know, make all kinds of different choices.

Don't worry about getting it right. Don't worry about coming out the other end of it perfectly, or really, you know, don't worry about what's coming, you know, a few days from now, or a week from now, or two weeks from now. Just take it step by step, choice by choice, and just make some choices and learn from

them, and use the experiences to gather data, like I was saying about your relationship with food which which foods make your body feel good and which foods don't an opportunity to understand your relationship with food better and your body better. So I say this a lot during the 60 day reset. You

know when someone says, oh, gosh, I had to go to a wedding, and I feel like I've fallen off the wagon, and I'm so disappointed. I'm like, Why did you have fun at the wedding? Was an amazing memory. Yep. Okay, great. So there's nothing to feel ashamed or sorry about. What did you learn? Oh, gosh,

after four weeks of not doing gluten and dairy and added sugars, I've recognized just how much those foods affect my body. I felt awful. And then I realized, oh, that's actually how I was feeling every day before doing this. Program, and then I felt so incredible. And I said, well, but that's a great

thing, because now you recognize that, because once your body feels amazing, you don't want to go back all the time. Sometimes you're going to choose to eat those foods, knowing that you're not going to feel good, but you're going to make a happy memory, but you're not going to do it every day. So again, it's

all about balance. So I think there's something to learn, and there's value from every choice and every experience. So again, finding that balance of self care and fun, taking the data, taking the lessons, and moving on from there, because it all informs the next choice. So good, better or best, not

perfect, like I said, it is, it is my favorite philosophy, which is why I included it in skinny 60 when I created the 60 day reset with our doctors and dietitians and everybody loved it, and all of our members love it. It's a beautiful way to move through the world. So you just make a good choice, a better

choice, maybe your best choice. But we're not aiming for perfection. It doesn't exist. Just aim to make the next better choice, learn from it and then move on. So have a lovely holiday season. Regardless of where you are in the world, whatever your religious beliefs, whatever you celebrate with

family and friends, even if it's just work parties wherever you are, have a lovely holiday season. Let me know in the Facebook group. What you do to find balance during the holidays? Are there any practices I'd be I'd be really interested to hear and leave a review and let me know what

resonated from this episode. Do.