Thanksgiving Bonus Episode

inner picture of our outer self. Healthy behaviors had a much bigger role at all health than the actual number on the scales. Internal dialogue could be so powerful and often it's puper negative and critical in a way that we wouldn't talk to other people that we care about. When you start to share your story, that gives other people the courage to share theirs. I know you would be proud now of how far you have come in your relationship to food, exercise, and to yourself. I felt freedom,

I've gained relationships. I've found my true sense of self worth. There's one thing I need you to take away. You're going to be okay. Welcome back to Outweigh. Hello, it's Lisa. This is a bonus episode, so you're just getting me no Amy, and I am doing this episode on Thanksgiving, so hopefully it's Thanksgiving Day morning, Happy Thanksgiving, or happy Holiday. And really, I just wanted to provide something for you to kind of go into today feeling like your best self.

Thanksgiving is a tough holiday. I know this year is still a little bit different, but all the ways we've kind of been trained to go about Thanksgiving can kind of just come up. And I want to give you all the tools that I possibly can to have a Thanksgiving that's really intentional and aligned with who you are now.

I know that some of you this might be your first year kind of breaking free from the diet mindset and being in situations or around family or just Thanksgiving in general, it can be a very easy way to kind of fall into perhaps your older mindset, and so it's really important that we check ourselves and we don't normalize many of the things that we've normalized around food

around holidays. So Thanksgiving is a special one for me because some of my strongest memories around my disordered eating days really center around Thanksgiving because I used to maybe I will again but obviously not with COVID. Used to go to my favorite aunt's house, my aunt Nancy up in New Hampshire, and I love her. She's kind of just like home for me. And I would bring all my own food for a year or two years, and it was kind of like everyone else's food and then

Lisa's food. And while that could be fine in some instances, for me, there was so much involved with making sure that I only ate my food and no one touched my food, and bringing it from New York to New Hampshire, and then you know, preparing to eat it meant you know, saving my calories or working out extra and then I just remember most of all feeling like my head wasn't connected to anything besides the food, and I went from

so hungry to so full. I couldn't even go on the family walk afterwards because I had eaten so much, which I know is very normalized for this holiday. But when we really begin to recognize that these foods don't have to be just Thanksgiving Day foods, We could eat stuffing or turkey if we like those foods any day of the year, or sweet potatoes with marshmallows if you guys do that you know, really try and expand out on.

This is a holiday, yes, but what really makes it special is that it's a day to spend with your friends and family and be your best you. And that easily kind of gets lost in the shuffle if we

don't check ourselves. So what I have planned today is a quick meditation to just prep you for today, kind of just center you, get you aligned, help you tap into anything that's beneath you, and then I'm going to provide some tips as to how you can really go about feeling your best today, not giving into diet culture, protecting your boundaries, and overall just being mindful of what

you want to be and how to get there. So if you wouldn't mind finding a comfortable seated position wherever you are, give you a few moments to get there. It's just really important that your back is upright, so not laying down, and that you're just in a comfortable

position for you. And when you're there, I just want you to start taking deep breaths through your nose, so inhaling through your nose and then exhaling through your nose so your lips are comfortably pressed together as you elongate those inhales and the excels, and as your breath deepens, I want you to scan your body for any tension. Maybe wiggle your jaw, jaws hold a lot of tension. Maybe even stick your tongue out, opening your mouth, loosening

it up, whatever you need to do. Head on into your shoulders, lifting them up to your ears and then letting them drop far away. Breathing and scanning your body. And I want you to bring a little bit of attention to your belly and on the inhale, make it really deep and notice as your belly expands and takes up space. On the exhale it falls. Now do your best to not judge that feeling. On the inhale, your belly expands and takes up all the space, and on

the exhale it relaxes. Because the belly can be a little bit triggering. And when you just go ahead and place your hands on your belly inhale, let it take up space exhale, let it relax. And then maybe bringing some attention to more neutral areas like your ankles and your wrists, feel free to roll them out a little bit, letting that synovial fluid get through our joints, nourishing your body with breath and gentle movement, and just do one final scan of your entire body to see where you're

holding tension and exhale release. Hopefully, now you've gotten comfortable with stillness, you could feel the nourishing breath going into your body and out of your body. And I want you to take a moment and think about what your intention is for today. Maybe start it with I want to feel blank. And your intention should really just be what you want to feel today, what do you want

to get out of today? And just give me one favor and keep it focused on for just today, so no fears getting in the way of how you're going to keep this going for the rest of your life or even to tomorrow. So just for today, I will feel. That word could be anything, really, but some ideas are RESTful, calm, peaceful, joyful, grateful, maybe connected either to yourself or to the people around you.

Whatever it is, it's your intention for the day. Repeat it a few times, just for today, I'll feel Just for today, I'll feel just for today, I'll feel. Repeating it in your own head a few times, imagining what it feels like for that adjective to take up space in every single cell in every part of your body.

Imagine joy, gratitude, feelings of deep connection, peacefulness or calm, and every cell of your body returning to your breath for a few deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the nose, long inhales, long exhals, and just one more time here inhale that intention. Just for today, I will feel and exhale any boundaries that might get

in the way, or tension that you're already expecting. Just for today, I will feel, I let go of anything that could get in the way, and just let your breath return to its natural rhythm, feeling relaxed, safe, self supported, empowered from within to take yourself into living a life

in line with your intentions. One deep breath to just close this out, maybe in through the nose and this time out through the mouth, as if you are fogging up the window, so your mouth opens for this one in through the nose, mouth opens, Feel free to use that hot noise, so one more time together, in through the nose, out through the mouth. And now either open a journal or your notes page of your phone and

write down what your intention is. Just for today, I will feel some things that can or will get in the way are It could be people, could be situations, it could be your own self limiting thoughts. Write them down. We are prepared for what can get in our way of our intention. We expect a wrench to be thrown at us only so we can be tested to see if we can make our way back to our intention. And now we're gonna come up with your own game plan.

If you feel yourself moving away from this intention, how will you return to the state that you want to be in. How will you return, just for today to that intention. Maybe come up with a word. Maybe your intention is the word or a gesture that can help you tap back in. So maybe just repeating that word that you want peaceful, peaceful, peaceful, We're tapping into that deep inhale and exhale that we practiced just through the nose. That's a great way to kind of okay, I'm being triggered.

Let me just take a breath here and recenter. Or maybe it's just taking a moment to place your hand over your heart and just recentering yourself, choosing yourself, Choose how you will be guided into today, and remember to choose yourself over and over and over again. Great job. So now I just want to take a few minutes

to give you a few tips for the day. I used to lead these webinars on mindful eating over the last few years, and I didn't do one for this year because I figured could bring it here, uh in a format that you can listen on your own time, and you can take notes, and you can do it however you please. So the first tip that I have for you, you've already done, and that's to set an

intention way ago. You've already set your intention, you know what you want to get out of today, and you can really be on the lookout for anything that could get in the way of that second piece of information

I want to give you or remind you. Talked about a little bit in the beginning, but I want to remind you that we have this idea that foods should be exclusive to when they should be eaten, whether that's you know, pancakes are only for breakfast on Sunday or breakfast Monday through Friday should be oats and eggs, and

dinner should be a vegetable and a protein. I want you to really shake that up in general, but for this holiday, I want to be a little bit more specific and remind you that you could have those candied yams any day. You could have the apple pie or the pumpkin pie any day, and we have this idea that we only have this one chance to have it. But that's just something that we made up, especially during the fall seasons when these flavors are abundant. Just remember

you can have them any day. And that's not to say that you shouldn't have them today, because you could have them any day. But I want to remove that scarcity mindset that we sometimes bring into holiday as this is my one chance, because that is going to again kind of take you away from that intention of how

you want to feel today. Of course, if you're just you know, I gotta get all this food, and I gotta get it in before Thanksgivings up, and I don't get to have it for another year, your focus is then being shifted a lot onto the food where it doesn't have to be. So one of the ways to stay calm is to remember I can have this cake today and I can also have it tomorrow. So see if that mindset helps you a little bit, all right,

next tip is to remember two things. A you don't need to save your calories for the meal, and you also don't need to earn them by working out either before or after. Right, you need food and nourishment every single day, and the worst thing we could actually do is save our calories because then we go in absolutely starving. Again,

that's going to interrupt your intention. If you, for example, chose that you wanted to be calm or connected, this can help you shift back into that knowing that if you show up to this meal or you enter Thanksgiving dinner absolutely starving, you're gonna be so focused on the food and getting it to your belly that you're not going to be calm or connected. So chances are if you chose any of those words, that's going to be an easy one to return to to interrupt. I want

to feel calm and connected today. Therefore, maybe I should have my normal meals or at least have a snack before I make it to this meal. Super important to you know, have your normal breakfast if you're a breakfast person, or your lunch if you're a lunch person. H everyone's

a lunch person. Breakfast is a little bit more controversial, but you know, make sure that you are eating regularly, and i'd say within the last two hours before your dinner, make sure that you have something in your stomach so that you are walking into this meal as your highest self connected to that intention. Okay, next tip is don't beat around the bush. I think I talked about this on Amy's podcast for Things a while ago, but it's an important one. Nonetheless. I see it all the time.

People want food, whether that's dessert or stuffing, right, and instead of having that, they'll say, oh, I won't have that, I'll just have this instead, or I'll have extra of this. But usually truth is, when we do that, we try to distract ourselves from what we really want. We end up having the distraction food and then still thinking about the original food that we wanted, so that we're having all of it, which is fine, except if you're getting

uncomfortably full. Wouldn't it be more enjoyable to satisfy yourself with what the food is that you want, So no beating around the bush. I want you to say what do I want and have that. It's really a kind of as simple as that, going for what you want, not making yourself run around and have a headache over it. Just having what you want a holiday like this is a really empowering one to kind of step into that power and recognize, I want this food. I'm going to

have this food and see what happens. Reminder to always bring curiosity to these things. That is how we explore and get to know ourselves. And that's also how we displace judgment and shame and guilt. Curiosity is the cure for just about everything. All right. This is a building a plate tip, and I want you to take a moment when you arrive, or when you go up to the buffet line, or before you build your plate in general,

to really take a good look around. Use your senses like your eyes to look at the delicious food, your senses of smell, to take in the aromas, and ask yourself what do I want. Usually we come in starving, right, we're like just anything we can get on our plate, We're piling it on. We have that mindset of I can only eat these foods once. But with all of that out of the way, we could actually evaluate what's in front of us, ask ourselves what looks good, and

then build the plate around that. So we've slowed the process down a lot, and I want to really urge you to not make that decision right now. So I don't want you to decide what you're having before you get there. I want you to use your eyes and your nose to help you learn from your body what it wants. And the key here is again not to have that plan, because I want your body to be the guide. And it's very possible that when you do this,

you bring again curiosity to it. So maybe you're not a sweet potato person, but today those sweet potatoes smell really good and you want to give them a I. Or maybe you want to challenge yourself because sweet potatoes were a fear food of yours, but today this is a beautiful time to challenge that. Or maybe you normally love Brussels sprouts, but this year, I don't know. They're just not calling your name. Something about the way they're cooked. They don't smell as good as they usually smell, or

they don't look as good as they usually look. Just too random examples. But remember that only you can be your own guide, and the best way to do that is to not show up absolutely starving on empty saving and earning your calories, and instead just show up having eaten something in the near ish future, calm, collected, intentional honoring what your body wants, knowing that you could always have whatever you didn't get, maybe on the second run

up too, if you have the opportunity. So those are some of my food tips, and they have been super helpful to me in the past to just kind of calm down. There can be a lot of energy around family, even if it's not a big party this year, it's still you know, family can bring big energy, So it's a good way to kind of scale it back, stay connected to my inten chin, and feel comfortable in my body, all while enjoying delicious food. I like to always establish a safe spot, so this was such a big part

of my quote unquote recovery. Showing up to meals noticing when I was getting triggered or tense around certain conversations or people and instead of reacting or continuing to shove food down my face but not really being connected to

how it feels or how it tastes. I don't know if anybody else gets nervous energy like that, but I used to get nervous energy and then just eat really quickly and just not notice anything from the eating except for just feeling really full, kind of like emotional eating in some instances. But this really robs us from being connected to our bodies and our intentions. So when I start to feel overwhelmed, where I call it itchy sometimes like oh, this conversation is making me itchy and reactive

and angry, I'll go to my safe spot. Typically in the past it's just been the bathroom, and it's one minute to just either look at myself in the mirror, give myself a pep talk. Lisa, you got this. Your intention is this. You can do this. You know it sounds funny, but it works. I'll just take a few deep breaths there. I love square breathing, and if you're not familiar, square breathing is done like this. You inhale for four seconds, hold it for four seconds. Exhale for

four seconds, hold it for four seconds. So take a moment. Actually, let's just do that together. Inhale for four seconds one, two three four. Now hold your breath for four seconds one two three four. Exhale for four three two one, Now hold for four three two one and repeat that with the holds with the inhales a few times. And just a few times completely shifts our bodies out of what the state it gets to when it is triggered, which is usually fight or flight response, and that's the

opposite for rest and digest. So when we take a few breaths to get back to baseline, we're really preparing our bodies to eat because we are bringing the blood flow back to where it needs to be, where it moves away from when we are emotionally triggered, believe it or not. Next tip, but that's kind of a newer one. But on my podcast, The Truth is Life, I had Kelsey Patel on Kelsey is a racky Master and Raky is just basically transferring energy and which she gave us

great tips on how to be our own healers. But one of the things Kelsey Patel always does I've had meals with her, is she Raky's her food. Now, if this isn't for you, that's fine, but anyone can do it, by the way, you don't have to be a racky Master. And it's just one of those ways to bring intention

and gratitude into your life. And it's a practice that if I'm ever having a meal alone and I remember to do it, I will do it, and you just basically hover your hands over your plate and you say a little prayer, and you can even imagine energy coming from your hands into the food and your food into your hands, and it's just a moment to really find

gratitude for all that's in your life. I like to think about how fortunate I am to have a warm meal during this time, and all the people that it took to even get this meal to me, from the growers to the shippers, to the you know, the supermarket workers, to all the love that kind of went into it

that really gets displaced by diet fear. And so gratitude really, as you guys know from Amy's podcast and Amy so big on gratitude, you know, can really really really change our mindset and shift us from that scarcity mindset to an abundant one. So hands over your plate, say a little prayer to whoever you pray for it or not, but either just way, just a great way to just connect to your food and slow down. And then the last tip I have for today is to not engage,

perhaps today just for today in disagreements. So we had registered dietitian Sam Private on Saturday's episode of Outweigh hopefully you heard it. If not, head on back and she talked about Uncle Larry, and she reminded us that before engaging in divisive conversation, whether it's about diet culture, or politics or something else in your family, really ask yourself,

is this person reachable or teachable? And if you are brand new to your journey of disordered eating and leaving diet, you may find that you're very eager to share with the world how toxic this is. Right, we're waking up to how awful this is. We want to change it. It's a beautiful thing that we want to be part of our change. But I have found that oftentimes, when we're new to the process, it could really be discouraging to enter these conversations and not walk out with somebody

seeing it our way. So, again, going back to that first thing that we talked about with our intention of just for today, I want to remind you that that doesn't mean that you can't be the change in the world any other day. But this is just just for today intention. Maybe it's not the time to have these conversations, right. So, if you are in a place where Uncle Larry, for example, is reachable or teachable, and there's an opportunity to have a conversation and you feel ready to have it, by

all means, go for it. But if you're not there, you're not doing anything wrong by staying silent. The best thing that we can do this holiday, or really every day is to protect our own energy and evaluate when it's appropriate to teach somebody the quote unquote better way, and when it's more appropriate it for us to stay protected and just take care of ourselves. Okay, that was a lot, and I want to make sure that you have the day to unplug and recharge. I hope you

have a safe and wonderful day or weekend off. You certainly deserve it, and we'll see you back on our way this Saturday, so in just two days for our next episode. Have a great holiday, everyone,