Please forgive me, I don’t mean to be a grinch when it comes to sweet treats and indulging, but I have spent many years helping people reverse the detrimental effects of consuming sugars and processed foods!
As we enter the holiday season, it is so easy to get caught up in over-eating, stress-eating, eating late, and throwing in the towel when it comes to trying to stay healthy. Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas cookies, pies, eggnog, and all of the holiday treats, just as much as the next person!!! However, as easy as it is to adopt the “F it! It’s the holiday’s” mentality, there are many simple hacks, and steps you can take to offset some of the damage, so why not try them out!!!!
I want to share with you a way you can support your body in being healthier this time of year and to support you in reducing cravings, while putting your body into fat-burning mode and supporting more stable blood sugar, reduction of inflammation and balancing hormones. By doing this, the outcome is less weight-gain and possibly even weight-loss. Several years ago I was fortunate to learn about and implement a way of eating that combines the best aspects of several different nutritional protocols to create an ideal nutrition lifestyle that is easy to implement, even during the holidays.
I consider Thanksgiving the gateway to unhealthy eating during the holiday season! We kick it off with excessive amounts of food, beer, wine, cranberry cocktails, and a table full of desserts. “I’ll take one of everything!”, and we’re off to the races for a solid month of indulging. All the while we continue to promise ourselves that when the new year comes we’re going to turn over a new leaf! But every day that we do this, we are training our metabolism to burn sugar and store fat. We are overworking our pancreas by causing insulin spikes through our nutritional choices, which in the long run, generates chronic inflammation and insulin resistance.
Right now is the perfect window of time to kick off this nutritional lifestyle that I like to call the Metabolic Reboot. Reboot means we are jumpstarting the metabolism and rebooting our bodies into fat-burning mode. When we consume sugar, the body produces insulin to help take the sugar out of the blood stream. If there’s a lot of sugar, then a lot of insulin will be released. When insulin is released, it blocks leptin receptors on the brain. This is important because leptin is the hormone that signals the brain to send a message that you want to exercise and tells your body to burn fat. This means rather than feeling sluggish and lazy, we actually feel motivation to move our body and exercise. In addition, leptin tells the body to burn fat for energy, which is exactly what we want to happen in order to not gain pounds.
So imagine, every time we consume carb heavy meals, we are generating this response in our body that generates inflammation AND stops leptin from being able to properly signal within our body. So how do we turn this knowledge into action this holiday season?
First, we are going to cut out sugars for two weeks. This is the perfect time! Finish up those Thanksgiving leftovers, the final cookies of the holiday, and get ready to launch into your Reboot this coming Sunday!
We’ll start on the 8th of December and go through the 21st of December, the Winter Solstice. We are preparing our bodies for this beautiful seasonal transition. Let’s do this healthy detox to usher in the winter season in a way that honors our bodies with gratitude and respect. Every time we eat white sugar and unhealthy food, we are disrespecting our bodies. We are literally putting poison into our system. White sugar has no nutritional value whatsoever. A homemade oatmeal cookie is way different than an oreo though, so it’s not just black and white. No matter what way you try to spin it, sugar is sugar and it’s not good for us.
During these two weeks we are going to cut out all simple carbs and sugar from our diet. This means no cookies, cakes, candies, ice cream, or any starchy snacks such as crackers and popcorn or chips. Let’s go for veggies, proteins, and healthy fats. We are going to focus on meals that all start out with a serving of vegetables and then a delicious protein and healthy fat, followed up by some delicious quinoa, a chickpea pasta, or a black bean pasta. Lentils and beans are acceptable as additional forms of proteins. Include an avocado a day to help support your digestion of healthy fats. Use olive oil to drizzle on your foods, organic grass-fed butter, and lots of nuts, seeds, and nut butters. You can trade out sodas for soda water, and substitute alcohol with kombucha. Have lots of healthy snacks on hand in the refrigerator to give you something to munch on if you start to have sugar cravings. The best thing to help curb sugar cravings is fiber and fat.
If you’re interested, you can consider the Alovea Prime Bar, which is the next generation of the well-loved Life Bar. The Prime Bar has 10g of healthy fats, 8g of net carbs because of 12g of fiber and only 2g of naturally occurring sugar. This bar also has 7g of protein that comes from the organic sunflower butter and sunflower seeds found in the bar. It is sweetened with monk fruit and has tart cherry extract, cranberries, and blueberries, as well as green coffee bean extract, green tea extract, turmeric extract, broccoli, and kale. For digestive and gut health, it contains certified organic aloe vera inner leaf gel, otherwise known as acemannan. Acemannan acts as an immunomodulator and a prebiotic fiber for the good bacteria in our gut. There’s no artificial flavors or ingredients, it supports a healthy metabolism and boosts performance and stamina. It has an energy boosting effect, supports healthy production of nitric oxide, and with each bar we not only nourish ourselves, but we nourish a child in need. Visit our website apothecary to order!
These bars are a great tool to have on hand when you are doing a 2-week metabolic reset on your body because they give you a healthy snack when you’re having cravings, and they help to stabilize the blood sugar which also supports the reduction of cravings. Also, the 10g of healthy fats is giving our body a nice dose of fat to help support the shifting of our body into fat-burning mode. By depriving the body of sugar and providing it with healthy fats, we’re training it to burn a different source for energy (the fat in our body). Rather than storing it, we’re burning it. How does that sound? The bars can also be used as a hack to eat before large family meals, or before having a sweet snack! Consuming fiber and healthy fats will support a slower release of sugar into the bloodstream.
The other effect of this is an increase in energy. Not only are you helping to retrain your metabolism, but you are reducing inflammation and by improving fat-burning, you are supporting your body in a slow burning process. This slow burn provides longer bursts of energy versus when you are burning sugar for energy, which goes very quickly and then you have a crash.
I recommend having two of these Prime nutrition bars a day during this two week period while you are supporting your body in maintaining balanced, healthy nutrition. During this time you also will not be eating any corn, potatoes, rice, wheat, whole wheat, or any type of grain. Because it’s the winter months, we will still include foods like sweet potato, butternut squash, and pumpkin, as long as there are no marshmallows or sweeteners added! We are also cutting out most fruits aside from berries, granny smith apples, and for an extra citrus treat, let’s include grapefruit. All other fruits tend to have a higher sugar content, including bananas. Please avoid bananas during this time, unless they are just starting to ripen.
Now the exciting part! When December 22nd comes around, now you can enjoy vacation meals. For the next two weeks, you are going to enjoy two vacation meals each week. You’re probably going to want one Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. Let’s be realistic! During this time, we can reintroduce all the grains, let’s go for sprouted and whole grain as much as possible. Continue to include choices like alternative pastas and quinoa, however whole grains are able to be reintroduced as well as all fruits. The only things that remain on the list of food items that will only be enjoyed during vacation meals are white potatoes, corn, ripe bananas, and all processed foods such as cookies, chips and snack foods, pasta, lasagna, and alcohol.
Enjoy two weeks from the 22nd of December to the 6th of January (which is Epiphany), where you get to reintroduce all these foods. Continue to be mindful as you eat and enjoy two vacation meals a week, where you can drink alcohol and have your dessert and enjoy food as you wish.
Five tips for staying healthy this holiday season when it comes to food:
- Slow down and enjoy your food. Try to spread your meal out over thirty minutes and be mindful that you do not clear your plate until the thirty minutes are up. Slowing down your eating time gives your body a chance to signal the hormones that you are full.
- The second recommendation is to listen to your body, so that if you are starting to feel full, you stop and don’t finish the food on yoru plate. You can always go back later for another serving!
- The order in which you consume your food does affect the insulin spike your body experiences. When you can, consume your vegetables first, proteins and healthy fats second, and your carbs third.
- Remember to always take your digestive enzymes! If you’re uncertain which digestive enzymes would be right for you, please reach out to us and we’ll support you in choosing the best enzyme for you.
- Try new recipes that are low glycemic index, keto, or just use all organic ingredients! Even just changing the ingredients to healthier options makes a big difference!! Life is full of indulgences, let’s indulge in a way that is more healthy. Enjoy a variety of new healthy options this holiday season as well as some new fun and healthy ones.
When we take these extra action steps, they will support our bodies in being healthier for the new year and years to come. We’ll be posting delicious Reboot-friendly recipes and meal ideas to help you over the next couple of weeks AND I will be Rebooting with you!
Happy Holidays and I’ll see you on the other side!