At the November 3rd Group Coaching session, Dr. Tro, Amy, and Brian opened up November with a discussion on preparing for the holidays, sharing tips and strategies to getting through gatherings, and staying on track after falling off.

Discussion:

• How to advocate for yourself to friends and family that may be misinformed or don’t support your lifestyle.
  • Try to anticipate how others will behave, have a statement planned such as “I know you care about me but I’m working with my doctor on this diet and it’s prescribed for a specific reason for my health,”
• Planning and strategies you can use to stay on track during this time of the year.
  • Research recipes for foods you know you may have a hard time resisting and make them and take with you, that way you don’t have to stress about not enjoying dessert or white-knuckling through a tempting situation.
• Stress, lack of family support, and sabotage are major causes of people going off their plans.
  • If you don’t have strong family support or anticipate stress or sabotage put safety nets in place to keep you on track, with a little planning you can easily defense these situations.
  • Know you’re probably going to be hungrier during these social situations, be kind to yourself, and don’t stress overeating more low carb foods if that what it takes to keep you on track.
  • Let people know upfront what you’re doing and offer to help prepare or let them know you will be bringing your own items.
• Don’t let an all or nothing mindset or single day mistake during the holidays turn into a long time spiral, it’s very easy to do during this time of the year with the holidays being so close together.
• Since the holidays are so close together over a couple of months it’s very easy for one slip up to lead to a long layoff which could undo a lot of progress in a short time. It’s also not good for you as shown by the studies below shared by Dr. Tro:
  • https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6471130/ – Cheat meals have a negative impact on arterial health on low carb diets
  • https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/oby.22454 – Daily self-weighing prevents holiday weight gain

Other strategies to consider for the holidays:

• Have plans in place for before and after holiday dinners and get-togethers just in case there is a slip-up, not having a plan can lead to a long layoff that can be hard to reverse course.
• CGM’s can really show how these high carb foods negatively affect blood sugar and that information helps deter people from eating those foods in the future after seeing the data.
• Be honest with yourself and know the holidays are tough and if you need replacements for what you can’t restrict then make what you need.

Upcoming Guest:
Tuesday, November 10 at 5:30 pm EST, Kellie Logsdon will be joining Dr. Tro, Amy Eiges, and Brian Wiley to discuss replacement options. To read more about Kellie, visit: https://thekelliekitchen.com