have you recently started a keto lifestyle now you're trying to figure out how the heck am i
going to stay keto during the holidays are you kind of afraid to be tempted by those desserts
carby side dishes and that desire to just feel like everybody else
today we're going to talk about how you can stay keto and keep living the benefits of keto
during the holiday season hello Wellness Warriors welcome to Mind Blowing Health and Wellness with
everyone to understand that when mental health and physical health are working well together
we experience that overall sense of well-being that we are all looking for
if that's something that you're working on right now subscribe because i make new videos every week
so this has been a bit of a strange year this year because so many people have been getting ill
whether it's someone that you know or you're hearing it from friends about
people that they know we've been having to manage that it just isn't safe to be outside
and be around other people and yet we are social animals and that's all we really want to do
now the governments have been taking different strategies to help us to deal with this and
their focus has been on diminishing the amount of spread of disease and because that's their focus
it means that a lot of us have been living in isolation so it's been really it's been
devastating for a lot of us and depending on where you live the amount of isolation that you
lived in the last 10 months has been different so i live in montreal which is in quebec canada
and many cities in quebec have been touched by this situation means that there are a lot of
red zones happening and as soon as there's a red zone classified it means that we are
in lockdown really restricted movements basically only out for work and only the people
going out for work are those essential services now what this means for us during christmas
is that our government has decided that we are not allowed to gather for christmas in any place
that's considered a red zone and in the places that are not considered red zone uh there's still
restricted gatherings which means like maybe 10 people-ish max how is this affecting everyone's
mental state it's different for everybody but a lot of us are not managing this well
and what happens when our mental state is affected then the way that we manage our emotions
starts to be affected this is one of the first times that we've been restricted
in our ability to see family friends and really just have a break during the christmas holidays
and emotionally we're struggling we're being faced with having to change the way that we do
our traditions so we're not going to be able to open presents together we're not going to be able
to do whatever it was that we normally did during the christmas holidays and it's not just about
celebrating christmas that two weeks off that we get throughout canada during that period of
time is a chance for us to take a break from work and just focus on family friends connecting again
humans are social animals and this is so important for us to do as you can imagine the changes
or restrictions i should really call them that the government is putting in place means that
there's a lot of people who are for the first time in many years maybe first time in their life
being faced with being alone during this two-week period because there's zero gatherings allowed in
the red zones in quebec i don't know how the rest of the world is managing this i'm sure there are
other places that are doing similar even if not as restrictive things where the gatherings are being
limited and it does mean that for certain people who cannot travel to see their family and they're
not going to be included with their friends this is going to be a very emotional isolating
sad christmas for many people christmas new year's that two-week period of time so what happens when
we're not able to engage those traditions that we normally engage during the holidays
well part of those traditions is that they help connect us together right help connect this
to our past our history help connect us to the people that we love in this period of time and if
we're not able to engage those activities that we normally engage that introduces change now change
for a lot of people causes stress change for a lot of people becomes quite emotional so it's
not only the isolation that we're dealing with but also the inability to do as we normally do
and that change is also going to create a problem for many people all of these issues
that i'm talking about right now are increasing the possibility of emotional eating so what are
we going to do to help ourselves to manage that increase in emotional eating and one of the things
that's so scary is that emotional eating sometimes is so under the radar because we're so used
to doing it that even someone who's got really good intentions ends up engaging in poor eating
behaviors because that hit of emotion that they get not knowing how else to manage how they feel
and they go for comfort foods they go for that thing that just allows them for a moment
to feel better but then the negative you feel guilty you possibly feel physically bad and you
are reintroducing possibly metabolic issues that you're trying to solve so for those of you in the
position where you will actually be alone over the holidays for the first time this year i want you
to set yourself up for the best possible success by setting up a plan for the holidays which means
having a holiday menu that allows you to stay on track with your ketogenic lifestyle if there are
any traditional meals that you can make in a ketogenic way that will allow you to engage in
that holiday behavior and yet still stay on track i encourage you to do some research from today
and make that recipe like for me immediately i'm thinking about all the meats so the turkey and the
ham and possibly any other meat that you tend to make during the holidays i know my mom
makes chicken all these meats that i could still make and have available to have on christmas day
even if i'm making a smaller amount because we're less people that having that variety and it's
still feeling like a feast is going to help me to feel like i'm engaging in a traditional christmas
and for those foods that are not falling in line with your healthy ketogenic way of life finding
foods that you actually like that you can swap out those poor foods like i'm thinking cranberry sauce
or i'm thinking like all the pies and cookies and cakes and all these treats that we would
normally eat at christmas a sugary treats finding healthy things that you are currently eating
that could be a a swap like maybe during the holidays i might allow myself to have some nuts
even though i keep them minimal because chasing carbs but maybe during the holidays i might allow
a small amount like finding those things that you feel that are going to help you to feel
like i did have something that was different or interesting but i can manage to have it
and keep myself in line with my healthy way of eating which means that i am going to be
paying attention to how much i eat right i'm gonna weigh and measure like i normally do
just that i'm eating foods that are a bit more in line with tradition or i'm eating
things that i swapped out so that i can have something interesting to eat on this holiday
period of time now you know this is one day we're talking about so i don't necessarily need
a lot of those things i can choose to have one or two things that i think i might want to have
rather than having cookies cakes uh cheesecake uh soda like trying to replicate every single thing
that i would have had over the holidays back when i didn't understand how food was
harming my health choosing a few things that i think i'd be happy to have right now i'm thinking
about even meat sticks so you know beef jerky and these kind of things that i do find fun to eat
i don't have them often because they're processed but maybe in this situation i would allow myself
to have that but like i said finding fun things that you could eat that lets you have a little bit
of fun and still stay in line with your healthy ketogenic lifestyle in order to celebrate and have
a satisfactory feeling christmas if you're the kind of person where food was a part of that story
figuring out how to do it with your healthy foods is going to help you to feel more satisfied with
the way that your christmas went now the other thing that i want you to think about is planning
to have contact with your loved ones with your family and friends now again we're in a red zone
here so i can't travel and go see my family and friends i can schedule phone calls i can
schedule video calls i can do things i can keep in contact by text and and stuff with my younger uh
nieces and nephews who are into that making sure that we are connecting during this period of time
and that we feel like even if we can't physically be there that emotionally we're there you know
sometimes we have family members who live around the world and they can't be home for christmas
but we still connect with them i think this year it's even more important to do that
and another thing you can do to really make the holidays for like the holidays is schedule
as a video call for the opening of the actual gift especially like if you have little people
that you normally would love to see them open the gift and see the look on their face when
they get what they get by scheduling a video call so that we can actually kind of be there
even if we can't be there it's going to help you again to feel more connected to the situation
and to get to see that cute expression on their face when they are so happy to
receive the gift you've given them so i think there's so many things that we actually can do
to help this year's christmas feel like a christmas and for those of us who actually
engage in online video game play this is another great place where we can use something that we
do in a social way anyways and incorporate into our christmas day or christmas holiday
way of keeping in contact how cool would it be for everybody in the family to get together and play
that favorite online game and honestly it doesn't even matter if you're good at it i think if we're
playing together as a family it might be kind of fun and cool to try to teach auntie how to
shoot with her gun and like whatever just just the fact that we're willing to give things a try
and make an attempt to make things this year feel better and so now for those of us who are in the
scenario where you have multiple people living in the same home or you're in a neighborhood where
you actually can gather for christmas the other thing that i want you to think about is the fact
that you might actually get tempted by the foods that the people who are not keto in your family
will be eating again all of those traditional foods will be present during your holiday
celebrations and now the question is how do you manage being in front of those foods
without eating those foods so right now we're talking about our motivation to remain keto
and i really think it comes down to understanding why you decided to live this ketogenic lifestyle
in the first place because likely you were trying to solve some kind of metabolic issue
and eating off plan will reintroduce the toxin that was causing that metabolic issue we need to
keep it in mind that eating off plan often leads people to fall back into their carb addiction
which leads people to live several days eating off plan now sometimes it causes them to leave
keto indefinitely which means that i'm harming my health indefinitely whether or not it's been some
weight loss mental clarity maybe your skin's cleared up maybe your insulin resistance is
starting to lessen and you can tell that because you're not chasing food as often
or even better that there might be some internal cleanup that we can't even see with the naked eye
that you really impacting your life because your your health is improving keeping these ideas
in mind is what's going to help you to maintain that healthy way of eating in the face of these
tempting but damaging foods because if you eat off plan you are absolutely going to interrupt those
benefits and as i said earlier maybe even stop those benefits for an indefinite period of time
because you'll be eating poorly again which means that eventually if you stop for an extended period
of time you will need to once again restart keto and for some people that's a struggle but let's
for a moment talk about those people who for them it's easy to start keto they can just get right
back in it's no big deal they do it easily is it okay for you guys to jump in and out of keto
whenever there's a holiday or anything that you feel like i don't feel like being keto right now
and i'm still gonna say no to that and here's why how do i know how many times i can actually
stress the system before it won't actually recover anymore right if i keep reopening the same wound
over and over and over again how many times can i do that before it becomes an infection
and then i need external help like medication or medical attention to heal that wound well when
i'm doing this internally i can't even see when it's taking me longer to recover right
because if i can just go back and forth between the foods easily it doesn't necessarily mean
that my body is actually reacting that easily we need to keep it in mind that
damage is damaged and the body will need to repair the damage so eating a toxic substance like sugar
leads to damage i'm really cautioning everyone to prioritize your health over the taste of food
now the other benefits that you're going to get from actually maintaining your keto
lifestyle throughout the holidays is the amazing benefit of being at a stable weight through the
holidays and possibly even losing weight over the holidays how often do you get to say that you lost
weight over the holidays not many people get to say that which would also mean that your body gets
to continue to feel good right the aches and pains that you were living from the other way of eating
aren't there and you feel amazing and get to not have to do the recovery of having eaten the wrong
food and now you're maybe your elbows hurting again or your back's hurting again or maybe you're
having irritable bowel syndrome again or all the negative things that can happen when we don't eat
properly to be able to have the holidays come and go and be able to be guilt-free about what i ate
over the holidays is a beautiful gift to give yourself and the best way to have that is to plan
what you will eat plan for the fact that there will be other foods available that could be
tempting to you and so keeping these ideas about being healthy in mind are going to be key plan
to have a fun safe and most importantly healthy food keto christmas if you want to work on your
health even more these videos on the screen are going to help you to maintain a physical and good
mental health i want to thank you for watching Mind Blowing Health and Wellness with Violet
Wellness Warriors I'm always happy that you come back everyone else
thanks for joining me today if you want t-shirts they're in the description below
thank you to my patrons i can't wait to talk to you guys again next week