In this episode we covered five emails Scott received from coaching clients about sticking to training and diet during the holiday season.
- Individual parties and whether you should take a night off.
- Taking entire weeks off training and diet.
- Worrying about “losing all your progress”
- Anxiety and what other people are thinking.
- What a healthy, anxiety-free approach looks like.
Two important themes were (1) the importance of context, and (2) being honest with yourself.
Handling the holidays is easier when you're not stressed out about the rest of the year. Also, using the holidays to relax can be very useful in the long-term. You don't want to be so stressed and anxious about dieting over the holidays that you feel guilty, and you want to really start with a “clean slate” on January 1st—to be *already* burned out from everything you've just gone through over the holidays. That's the worst of both worlds.
Conversely, when it comes to deciding whether to take a night off, you need to be honest with yourself and “know thyself.” One of the challenges of the holiday season is that there are so many parties and get-togethers spread out through December. It might be easy to have a night of indulgence with your family, but when one night of indulgence becomes two family get-togethers, the in-laws, your office party, your spouse's office party, a get-together with friends… well, that adds up.
A lot of the conversation was about how you have conversations with friends about this stuff, since it can be difficult to be polite yet firm about things.