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Half-size me bonus episode.

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Let's have a wonderful

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holiday season The

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future is right for you I

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Feels good to be you

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could be You

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know you're good Hello

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lovely listeners today I am gonna

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be sharing with you several holiday

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tips that I think will really

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help you whether you celebrate Christmas

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or another holiday Or

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if you just want to reference this

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bonus episode at other times of the

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year when you do celebrate holidays I

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think this all these tips are really

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gonna translate Well, regardless of what you

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celebrate when you celebrate it and we're

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just gonna be keeping the concept of

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holidays very general in this but my

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very first tip for you is One

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structure your calories for the month

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not the week What

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I often see people doing especially with

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a holiday like a Christmas something that

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you'll see parties and events happening for

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a longer period of time rather than

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just one day is To

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really look at your calories through a much

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bigger lens as opposed to okay I'm

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gonna hit X amount of calories every

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day So okay, if I'd like to

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average my calories for the month at

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maintenance I know that I may have

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one or two weeks of much higher

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calories due to parties celebrations possibly

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travel so I might have have

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to do some weeks of lower calories

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to offset that. So I often find

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when we're talking about this particular time

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of year, a lot of

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people between Thanksgiving and different holiday events that

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they're going to, they sometimes kind of get

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caught up in that day-to-day minutia and they

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fail to step back and see the big,

2:18

big picture. And then they wonder why

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they're struggling with their weight creeping up because they

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were still eating maybe at their maintenance calories. And

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I know a lot of people prefer maintenance calories

2:27

during this time of year. That's why I'm using

2:29

that. But even if you were shooting for

2:31

a deficit, often I think we're kind of

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not being 100% truthful with

2:35

ourselves when we're thinking about all

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the holiday goodies, all the parties

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we go to, all the events, all

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the family members coming in and out of town and

2:44

eating out and things of that nature. So I think

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if we were to see our calories through a

2:48

much bigger lens, we might actually have

2:50

a much better chance of

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maintaining through the holiday season or even

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maybe losing a little bit because you

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took advantage of the times where you

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had an opportunity to eat

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normally like you would without all the

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big celebrations and things like that. So that would be

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tip number one, structure your calories for

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the month, for the bigger time period,

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not just the day, not

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just the week, but really look at

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it through a bigger lens. The second

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thing I would encourage you to do

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is let go of this idea of

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needing to know everything you're going to

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eat. So often I

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see people drop the ball with journaling

3:27

their food, making a plan for their

3:29

food if you're doing the paper pencil journal. I see

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a lot of people going, I don't know what this

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party is going to have. I don't know

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what's going to be at this particular family

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event thing I'm going to. So I just

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am not going to do it, right? That's

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often unfortunately the thing. I tell

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people don't focus on what you don't know, focus

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on what you do know. For example,

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if I'm going to go to an event and

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I know I Really struggle with grazing and

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kind of nibbling and walking by the chip

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tray and grabbing a chip here. grabbing a

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chip there. When I'm putting

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my paper pencil journal together or making

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a plants, I put buttons here. Food

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on plate. so that's one boundary, right?

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I'm gonna go ahead and plan on

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sitting. In eating all my food at

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this event, that's number one, number two

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I might say. You know I really

4:15

like appetizers and I'm in actually give

4:17

myself a boundary of one fleet of

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appetizer. So ah my paper pencil journal

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on the left side I'm generates one

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plate of appetizers button share food on

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place said to boundaries for this event

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or any. my third boundary might be

4:31

hazing hims I go and I get

4:33

multiple place of food. Maybe I limit

4:35

myself to one or two plates of

4:37

food and I even give myself a

4:40

quantity amount. Of items to go on the

4:42

plate. Maybe I save him a put five

4:44

items on each place to that we when

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I go. Even though I have no clue

4:48

what food is being served, even though I

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have no idea what I'm going to be

4:52

eating, I can still give myself healthy boundaries

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I could even put on their. Try

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to incorporate a fruit and vegetable. With

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the meal that could be another healthy

5:01

boundary put for yourself and then desert.

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So if you're the type of person

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who when you go to these events

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you don't go with a plan, you

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don't have any boundaries and you can

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eat all the things with the promise

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that tomorrow will be difference. I would

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say would about a boundary around desert.

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One played a desert and if your

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dessert percent maybe one serving of desserts

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to take home for the next day.

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So now on your paper pencil journal

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we have buttons here. Food on plate

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one plate of appetizers. One or

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two plates sassoon maybe with it with

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a quantity amounts and so much for

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dessert with one sleep for dessert and

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maybe one plate to take home for

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the next day. What this will do

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is it will give you guidance at

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the of that it will give you

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healthy boundaries and parameters at the events.

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This can also be done with alcohol

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so you can basically say okay I

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know that at these events I drink

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a lot so maybe I wanna go

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ahead and say. Two glasses of

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alcohol, one. At this event that will be

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written. on my sheet of paper. So that way

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I know when I go this is what my

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focus is for this night. Now

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before I go into my other tips

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for the holidays I want to share

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with you something that's really awesome.

6:14

We are bringing our new

6:16

community members in next week

6:18

to our brand new Half

6:20

Sizemey Academy and I've mentioned

6:22

it here several times that we are grandfathering

6:24

people in at the current price point and

6:27

the price point will be going up as

6:29

of January 1, 2024. It'll

6:31

be $39.95 for one month and then we're

6:34

going to give a three month membership as

6:36

well. And the thing that

6:38

I want to make you aware of

6:40

is what our beta testers have been

6:42

saying. So I brought people in in

6:45

November to test things out. I wanted

6:47

to make sure that the user's experience of

6:49

the academy was as awesome as it could

6:51

be. So I asked them to come

6:53

in, check everything out and I put

6:56

up a post in the academy and

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I said would you pretty please tell

7:00

me what you see as being an

7:03

improvement to the HSM community by moving

7:05

to this new academy. And here are

7:07

the responses of our beta testers. Charlie

7:10

says I'm not a social media person

7:12

and I really enjoy the forums but

7:14

missed everything going on with those on

7:16

Facebook. I like having everyone together so

7:19

we can all benefit from one another.

7:21

There are some amazing people with fantastic

7:23

success stories that helped me out. Thanks

7:26

for merging us together. Rachel says because

7:28

I am not that good at navigating

7:30

social media and was not even aware

7:33

of the forums I didn't know just

7:35

how much information was available to me.

7:37

I do believe there is an answer

7:40

for just about everything food related here.

7:42

I have found the academy

7:44

easy to navigate. I can find what

7:46

I'm looking for and I see things

7:48

along the way that pique my

7:50

interest to come back to I'm learning

7:52

so much. Carrie

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says the academy has

7:57

all the positive connection features of

7:59

Facebook. YouTube with none

8:01

of the negatives. No advertisements are

8:03

selling to me or profiling me.

8:05

It's so organized to find everything

8:08

I need. I can choose to

8:10

be social or just find resources

8:12

if I'm wanting to keep a journal all

8:14

in one place. It feels so much more

8:16

like a real community to me. Eleanor

8:19

says I find it tricky to navigate

8:21

the Facebook page and prefer to avoid

8:23

social media. I like the forms

8:25

of the protected space for half-size me

8:27

but miss the ease of interaction of

8:30

Facebook. The Academy reminds me in only

8:32

good ways of the www app

8:34

Connect. It's a specific community space

8:37

for members only. Really accessible and

8:39

easy to use. I was toying

8:41

with the idea of rejoining www

8:43

just for Connect when I heard

8:45

about the plans for HSM Academy

8:47

in 2024. If anyone

8:50

likes Connect but is unsure about

8:52

www and wants to follow their

8:54

own path with incredible support in a

8:56

protected space then the new half-size me

8:59

Academy is a perfect fit for them. So

9:01

I just wanted to take that time to share

9:04

with you. These are people who are in the

9:06

trenches. They've been doing it and

9:08

they are really a good gauge as

9:10

to how things are going to be different

9:12

moving into the new year. Before

9:14

the end of this month we will

9:16

be pausing and archiving our Facebook page

9:18

for the community and we will be

9:20

closing down our forums. So we will

9:22

not be using those anymore once we

9:24

get all of our members migrated over

9:26

to the HSM Academy. So

9:29

I would love to have you

9:31

join us. You have a great

9:33

opportunity right now. A gift you

9:35

can give yourself. Sign up today

9:37

because come December 31st the

9:40

pricing we offer now will no longer

9:42

be available. We will be switching pricing

9:44

because we will be officially 100%

9:46

in the Mighty Networks in the

9:48

HSM Academy and at that point

9:50

you'll be locked in at your pricing and you will

9:52

be in there for the new year. Now

9:55

let's go back to my tips. Holiday

9:58

tip boundaries around. your

10:00

time. So one

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of the things we can do with time is

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we can budget time for certain events. If you know

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you've got a lot of events to go to and

10:09

you know you feel overwhelmed, go

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to your Google Calendar, block out

10:14

all of your most essential things

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first. Your sleep, when you're

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gonna eat, when you're gonna work out, when you're

10:20

gonna go grocery shopping, when you're gonna meal plan,

10:22

and then look at where

10:24

all these special events and holiday

10:26

items fall. Make sure you

10:29

can move those items around that are

10:31

essential to still allow from them. And

10:33

if you start to notice that you're

10:35

getting holiday obligation creep, you

10:38

may have to do that whole fear of missing

10:40

out thing, deal with that, right, and say no

10:42

to a few things. So that way you're making

10:45

sure you're at least taking care of your basic

10:47

needs. Another good way to put

10:49

boundaries in around your time is tell people

10:51

ahead of time, hey I'm really looking forward

10:53

to coming to your party, however I'm really

10:56

gonna have to leave at X time. If

10:58

you state that ahead of time and that

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way you need to be in home and

11:03

go to bed or need to do something for

11:05

yourself, you'll have plenty of time to do it.

11:07

So putting in some time boundaries during this time

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of year, whether it's blocking out your time on

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your calendar, making sure everything is getting

11:13

done, or whether it's verbalizing time boundaries,

11:16

that is really really important. And that

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leads us into our last tip, which

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is alcohol boundaries. Now this is a

11:23

hard one for a lot of people.

11:25

There can be a lot of emotional

11:27

weaving that goes on with alcohol, friends,

11:29

family, people feel weird if they think

11:31

you're not drinking and they're drinking. There

11:33

can be a lot of just interesting

11:35

things that happen around that. I've had

11:37

many of my one-on-one coaching clients have

11:40

to put in various techniques

11:42

and approaches to make this work.

11:44

But some basic alcohol boundaries is, I

11:46

have one client, she's doing phenomenal. She

11:49

was at one point, at one

11:51

point in our coaching, she was drinking 50% of

11:53

her calories in alcohol per day. So if

11:55

she was, if her calorie consumption

11:58

was 2,000, a thousand

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of that would have been in alcohol and she has

12:02

now gotten to where she has some days

12:04

with no alcohol and she's really

12:06

seeing the whole thing differently. But

12:09

one tip that has really worked for

12:11

her is to offer to be the

12:13

designated driver. So if you

12:15

know alcohol is your downfall and it's

12:17

maybe not even just the alcohol itself,

12:20

maybe it's how you eat host drinking

12:23

the alcohol, what you could do

12:25

when you're going with a friend is you could say,

12:27

hey, I just want to let you know I'm probably

12:29

going to keep my drinking down to two glasses or

12:31

one glass or whatever. So I

12:33

can definitely drive you home tonight if

12:35

you need me to and what

12:38

that does is you're speaking out

12:40

loud, you're stating a boundary for

12:42

yourself, you're making yourself

12:44

available to help somebody else.

12:46

Now you don't have to be the designated driver, it's

12:49

just that works really well for my one coaching client

12:51

that I'm thinking of. But even if

12:53

you just verbalize, hey guys, you know what, it's

12:55

up to you if you want to buy a

12:57

bottle of wine for the table, I'm just going

12:59

to have one glass tonight. If you just say

13:02

that sentence, what you're doing is

13:04

you're putting in a boundary. You're saying, I'm

13:06

having one glass, you guys do you,

13:09

but understand that I won't be

13:11

taking any more of your wine. It

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will greatly increase your likelihood

13:15

of sticking to your alcohol

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quotient, whatever that is, okay? And

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I've seen this play out time and time and time

13:23

again. The verbalization of what you're going to do. And

13:25

if you're going with a spouse to a party, you

13:27

can lean over to them and just say, hey hon,

13:29

I just want to let you know tonight I'm just

13:31

going to have two glasses, right? Just saying it out

13:33

loud is a game changer. So

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let's just recap as far as our tips today. Think

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of your calories through the lens of the month,

13:41

a bigger timeframe. So you can actually

13:44

make sure you're hitting your maintenance calories

13:46

or your deficit calories depending on what

13:48

your goal is. Putting

13:50

in some healthy boundaries with food,

13:52

meaning that you don't want to

13:54

drop the ball on tracking or

13:56

planning, but you may need to

13:58

do it differently. because you don't know

14:01

what's gonna be served. You don't know what

14:03

food will be available. So you're

14:05

thinking more like healthy boundaries. You're thinking

14:07

what it is you wanna see yourself

14:10

doing. You're thinking about what would be

14:12

a slight improvement from what you've done

14:14

in the past and you're writing those

14:16

plans out on paper or you're planning

14:18

it out. And then when you get home,

14:20

you can write the specifics in but you really

14:23

just wanna have a general game plan for the

14:25

event. The next

14:27

one, structuring time, budgeting time,

14:29

putting boundaries around time. Make

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sure your most important things are

14:33

not falling off your calendar because

14:36

you're getting overwhelmed with social obligations.

14:38

And realize everything takes time,

14:41

wrapping presents, going to the

14:43

store to buy special holiday foods, running

14:46

people to special events. Your

14:48

time is of the essence during holiday time.

14:50

So make sure that you've got your

14:52

schedule planned out well. And the

14:55

last one, alcohol boundaries. By just

14:57

verbalizing your intentions out loud with

14:59

another human being is gonna

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be a game changer. And

15:04

you can really see a difference in how you

15:06

show up just by doing that one thing. And

15:09

again, if you think the Half Size Me Academy

15:11

sounds like the right place for you, you

15:14

can join right now, halfsizeme.com/join.

15:16

Get in before the price

15:18

changes effective January 1. And

15:21

we would love to see you in there. All right, you

15:23

have a great week. Have a fantastic

15:25

holiday season. And I will be talking

15:28

to you shortly. Thank you

15:30

for listening. Be sure to visit halfsizeme.com.

15:33

Check back often for your daily dose

15:35

of inspiration because you are worth it.

15:38

The information you hear on this podcast

15:40

is for informational purposes only. The

15:42

host is not a medical professional. You

15:44

should always consult with your doctor, nurse,

15:46

or other certified health professional before beginning

15:49

any diet or fitness program. Thank

15:54

you.