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Saying it outloud!
Saying it outloud!
EP 105: Navigating Festive Temptations: A Journey of Sugarless Triumphs
Ever given sugar the old heave-ho only to find your taste buds in a state of utter rebellion? That's exactly what happened to us, Leo and Stephanie, as we ditched ourselves off the sweet stuff. Join us in this episode of Saying it Out Loud, where we recount our sugary adventures (or mishaps) and dish out our reviews about the best and the worst cookie shops in good ol' San Antonio. Stephanie spills the beans about her recent culinary experiments featuring sausage Alfredo pasta and hummus with non-nepita chips (you can't miss this). Plus, we get candid about our favorite holidays (more accurately, the lack of them) and how food plays hero in our traditions.
Here's an open secret - the holiday season can turn your fitness goals upside down. Sounds familiar? Fear not! We've got your back. Tread the tricky terrain of health commitments during the festive season without a drop of guilt or stress with our handy strategies. Allow us to guide you through the curvy lanes of mindset and the power it wields. Get ready to dive into a hard-hitting discussion about how past experiences can shape your current decisions and responses to stress. Most importantly, learn how to break free from the damaging cycle of body shaming, especially during the holiday season. Let's gear up to celebrate the festive season in style, without losing touch with our commitments to health and wellness.
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What's going on, everyone and welcome to Sang it Out Loud, a podcast created to help people who want to learn more about fitness and life. Our podcast will help you build a foundation and turn fitness into a lifestyle and help you conquer your life. I will be your host, leo, and my co-host.
Speaker 2:Stephanie, and we're the owners of a HALA Athletics coaching business built on our belief that a client aren't just a dollar sign and they are human. Now onto the episode.
Speaker 1:What's going on everyone and welcome back to Sang.
Speaker 2:It.
Speaker 1:Out Loud. You know the vibes, you know the deal, you know the Monday keeping it real Bars. Oh my God. Alright, let's get into this Tuesday first, because I got some words. So Saturday woke up in the morning, the usual, and what are you doing?
Speaker 2:Okay, stop chasing your imaginary friend.
Speaker 1:You're going to see it. How am I going to look at her? What's his name? In the morning woke up, saturday, what do we have? Donuts, a them, donuts.
Speaker 2:He nailed it Fire. He finally nailed it Like I. And you played three tries, four tries, three tries One, two, three tries.
Speaker 1:Here I was surprised, like I shocked myself, at how good they were.
Speaker 2:And then we them cookies fire Ten out of ten. Ten out of ten my cookies, you can go my cookies. Let's get that straight.
Speaker 1:Oh, I see it now. And was that it? Oh no, the pumpkin bread. The pumpkin bread, it was alright, I'm not going to lie, I could have bet on that, but that's just something I wanted to make, just because I wanted to make it. Then we went out, we went to Texas Cookie House.
Speaker 2:Texas Cookie Shop.
Speaker 1:Texas Cookie Shop Crumble. And dirty dough and dirty dough and let me tell you collectively all months. Okay, I'm not even going to hold back because I was a shorty. I was extremely disappointed at Everybody raves about these things.
Speaker 2:Especially crumble.
Speaker 1:Especially crumble, and I'm eating these cookies. I'm like how are people eating these and giving them anything higher than a three?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it for cookie shops, like we visited them all. No, no, we haven't here San Antonio, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's the problem. We need to get out. We need to go somewhere else, because why do you just smoke there? No, it's time I'll go get food from another state, because Texas right now is letting us down and, like I said, we're probably the harshest critics. I don't know, it might be us, but, as I say, go try it, because and you let us know- Because we've healed our body. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So we don't have F'd up taste buds.
Speaker 1:I looked it up to figure out what could be the problem. But once you stop eating high amounts of sugar, it actually changes your taste buds. So all these people who are putting sugar away every day, like all these snacks and stuff that they've eaten. It literally changes your taste buds.
Speaker 2:And also like all the toxins and foods as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's crazy. Those cookies just are not good.
Speaker 2:But not at all.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so that was very disappointing. And then we made by we I mean her, she made sausage and Alfredo pasta Fire. I wish I could eat more, but I just can't. I'd be so full bro, I can't eat that much. In hummus, In hummus, the hummus was good too. The non-nepita chips.
Speaker 2:And then we watched Die Hard with the Vendants. Overall it was a good cheat day.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, that's how we did. So, yeah, let's get into it. Let's get into the episode now. That's out of the way. Anything else? Anything else? No, no, okay, okay, all right Episode. Gochujangadere, gochujangadere. What's your favorite holiday?
Speaker 2:Can you know? Is that?
Speaker 1:time in a year. Are they coming? What's your favorite holiday?
Speaker 2:It used to be New Year's, but only because we would dance on it.
Speaker 1:You got a holiday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but now, not now.
Speaker 1:What's your favorite festive holiday?
Speaker 2:They're all the same to me.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, she's clearly not human.
Speaker 2:I never had traditions, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm not from dancing. I'm not to go with Thanksgiving Because I love to eat me some good old Thanksgiving food.
Speaker 2:Christmas food is technically the same as Thanksgiving food.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I don't have to buy anybody anything Fair. I ain't got to do it with nobody else. It's just me and you. We just eat.
Speaker 2:Well, that's how it's going to be for Christmas?
Speaker 1:Probably, not Probably not what's your favorite holiday or something she comes here.
Speaker 1:She can't. Mom, have you ever heard this? You come to see us. Four hours drive is just too far away. Anywho, back on track here. Topic of the day, it's going to be a little bit of both of Mindset okay is the main talking point but more specifically, mindset around holidays when it comes to your goals and everything that you want to achieve if you have fitness goals and whatnot. If you're pursuing some type of fitness goal, whether it be weight loss, weight gain, muscle gain, muscle- loss.
Speaker 1:Medicine in anything under the umbrella, and I think it's pretty important because we've been learning a lot lately about Mindset and the mental state and how the body literally Hold on to a lot of yeah, nervous system trauma and that's keeping a lot of people from making choices that will otherwise Benefit them and they tend to think that it's their fault, there's something wrong with them, when in reality, at your body has been conditioned from whatever you experience over the years and that has built, I Guess, a reaction that your body goes through every time a stressor pops up.
Speaker 1:So I'm not saying that it's you're off the hook for your actions because you still have a thought that goes with that and you still Decide to act on it. I'm just saying that that's how it gets triggered. So that's what we want to talk about on the holidays, because a lot of people these traumatic events or whatnot or whatever happened to you happens a lot during the holidays, especially when there's food involved, especially if you have bad body image and Especially if you have fitness goals that you've never been able to achieve and you're like all this year's gonna be different. And then the whole cycle starts and then you See system overload and you freaking blackout and they seem to know your 20 pounds heavy. So With that we're gonna hand it over to Stephanie and she's gonna It'll never stop.
Speaker 2:You say my Okay, oh, that's not so funny, okay, whatever. So holidays, keep them on as fancy event Christmas, and then maybe New York City, I guess Halloween too, okay, and then if you're Puerto Rican, latino or whatever, they can stay. Those are Literally like maybe one month apart and it's one day. I want to keep that in mind because I feel like a lot of people and make it seem like it's a four month process of just an excuse to not work out, to eat whatever and Just to give it, and that that is not okay because, yes, although you might have been Nailing your nutrition and your workouts for all year, four months as a huge For you to easily derail yourself and I feel like a lot of people do not take that into consideration and a lot of people do all the wrong things during the year and they're just completely burnt out.
Speaker 2:On top of like their response to Quote-unquote stress I'm stressed I want to eat more because that's what calms me down and you feel like crap. Then you want to like Do all the cycle over again, whether it's over exercise, try to diet or whatever it is. Um, and that's something that he was talking about is kind of like a trauma response. But again, like, even though that might be part of your cycle built in, you do have a lot of self-control built in there. Like, if it's not part of you, then of course it's going to be a lot easier for you to like give in, but you still have control over your body and what you do. So that's why I always say like the holidays, if this is not part of your lifestyle. It's very important to have a coach throughout this process because we're going to help you throughout how to like out of plan, nutrition wise and everything like that. But one thing I want to talk about specifically with functional medicine, it can be harder if we're going through protocol. Yes, and I totally understand that. But I do want you to know that this is just one holiday season Like you're going to have many more after this that you can fully enjoy, and you need to understand how many years you've literally been beating yourself up to this point, to the point that we literally need to put you on protocol.
Speaker 2:And I feel like a lot of you do not keep that in mind. A lot of people just think of in the moment what they want to do, kind of like us being children, like I just want to do this, just want to eat whatever and if it, and pay with the consequences after, and then after comes, and then you just hate your body. You undid it while you're protocol, yeah, and you just have also this built in negative relationship around holidays. They just feel like you have to gain all this weight. So it's something that's important to keep in mind. Like, yes, I understand where you're coming from, but just think long term, like you're going to be able to enjoy holidays in general and not feeling like absolute crap, like you've been feeling for like your whole life, or you won't be gaining 20 plus pounds that come new years, you feel like you have to jump all over again, try to lose weight and start the process of over again, so it's something that's important to keep in mind.
Speaker 1:And that goes back to what I said in the beginning. Now, regardless of what you want to call it, how are you going to explain it? The trauma whatever you experience, everybody's difference. Everybody sees a traumatic bit differently.
Speaker 1:But the things that you've experienced when you were younger that are, you know, be into your nervous system. They stayed with you until when you're older. So if, say, christmas rolls around and you've had in the past bad experiences with Christmas, your body is still aware that you've had bad experiences during Christmas. So that's when that stress kicks in. You go on a fight or flight. You freaking know you're hungrier or you're more clouded, so you're making bad decisions. And the things that you did in the past was to eat to calm you down, and so your body still remembers that. So it's like you need to start eating any and everything so we can get back to a normal level, and that's how that happens.
Speaker 1:So a lot of undoing all of that is understanding where it stems from. If you don't know where it's coming from, you can't change it. So that's why a lot of the episodes that we talked about episode 11, getting to know yourself play even more significant role nowadays, because if you don't know where all your problems are coming from or where they stem from, you can't fix the issues and they're just going to stick with you. And a lot of these things you can't just do cold turkey. You can't just say I'm not going to be anymore. It doesn't work like that. You're just going to build up and you're going to have more and more urges and it's going to get harder and harder and harder and then you can just super binge. I don't know what the term is for that. So it's when we talk about the root cause, a lot of people like to make fun of that.
Speaker 2:They go.
Speaker 1:Oh, we're always talking about the root cause. You get to, yeah, because everything stems from somewhere. It isn't just randomly happened. This has been a reoccurring issue over the years. Take, for example, new Year's Resolutioners. They always want to get to the gym. They start, they never say why is that? Why is that cycle always continuously happen? Because something happened to them that is preventing them from staying committed. So they talk themselves out of it because of their stress goes up. They say, well, this is uncomfortable, I don't want to do this. Why are we here? To begin with, they find their comfort zone, which is not in the gym. So they just don't go to the gym anymore and they feel better than they don't go to the gym because they're not stressed anymore. So it all comes from somewhere.
Speaker 1:So you need to figure out, like I said, where is this stemming from? Why do I get, ask yourself. You gotta ask yourself questions. You know, why do I get so stressed out during Christmas? You know what happened to me that causes me to act like this? And once you find those answers, then you can start to undo, because now you can notice like oh, okay, I'm feeling that like that one time, and now you can be like okay, I'm more aware of what I'm doing, okay, I'm not gonna eat like this this time. So you can actually start calling yourself out. But if you don't know where it comes from, then you can't change it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so then I like to remind my clients, like wherever face that they're going from, especially like protocol-wise okay. Like whatever protocol you're on, sometimes you can't take on these food events and stuff like that. And I want you to understand I know it's like been drilled in us that the only way that you enjoy family events and holidays is food. That's literally not the premise of it pretty much just spending time with your loved ones and your friends, and you can absolutely do that and eat your own foods. I've done it in the past when I've had to, and sure, family friends might not be understanding of it or they kind of might make comments, but you are in charge of your own body. Like it's also very important for you to understand, like where you're coming from, what's going on and like if this is what has to happen for you to finally feel better and next year comes around, you can take on these things. We have to do that. Like, sometimes protocol-wise, one day sets us back and it's hard. I get that. I understand that, but we have to take things into consideration.
Speaker 2:Not everyone's the same. Some of my clients have to track on their holiday events to feel better, and that's okay. And some of my clients don't have to. They can take a cheat day and totally be fine. So it's totally fine. Whatever avenues you're taking, and whether you're being criticized or not, remember that this is your body and you are in charge of your own goals and your own health. Despite what everyone says and that's something that's important to keep in mind we might come see the nervous system response, because I feel like a lot of people get triggered by someone saying like oh, you should not be eating that, you should be eating this, you should be partaking into those all those other stuff, and they feel some sort of way when, in reality, just kind of remember what's going on, what your goals are, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And when you have a coach like us, you're open to Texas and we're gonna be helping you supporting you immensely throughout this process as well, so you don't feel like you're alone dealing with all of this, which is important, because sometimes, when people feel like they're alone throughout this process, it's a lot harder to actually stick with it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's about understanding where you're at in life, because I mean, he beat the dead horse over and over again everybody at a different spot in life period. I am completely different than another guy mentally, like people just aren't on the same level and you're comparing yourself to somebody else and it's like bro, you don't know what they've done behind the scenes, like the iceberg meme that you see, it's just the tip of the iceberg. You see on my success, but you don't see everything I went through to get there. So my journey could have started when I was 18, when I started to get my new self. And if that's the case, then I've been doing this what 15 years. And you could have just started. So you're comparing my 15 years to your one month of you doing it. It's not fair to yourself to be making those comparisons. So that's why you have to stay in your own lane and just get your head down and focus on where you want to be Now. Don't focus on where everybody else is or where everybody else is going. You need to focus on yourself.
Speaker 1:So when the holidays come around and you're like okay, I know, I'm not good at Thanksgiving, you start making mental notes of these things Like okay, thanksgiving's coming up, I need to hammer down and figure out a plan. And it's okay to have a plan because most people when they go on these holidays, they don't want to freaking, go crazy and eat all this food. They just want to enjoy the time, have a plate and relax and not hate them so much the next day. So that's okay. Even like us, bro, if we wanted to, we can go eat whatever the hell we want, but we don't even do that. We get a plate and we enjoy the family time.
Speaker 1:Then the next day we wake up and since we drank our gallon and stuck to our non-negotiable, we don't feel like absolute crap the next day. We're not bloated with water retention, our freaking GI is fine, and then we go on about the day. And that's how you want to feel, right. You want to feel good the next day about you. So you don't look in the mirror and just break down and restart the cycle and then binge that day and then you're like, well, I've been just asked my, so I just keep going right, the whole freaking entire month Is down the drain now, and then guess what? Christmas is next. So have a play, it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like even mine, like we've Done the protocols to, like we've done all the things, all the protocols to done all the things. So our DI is like set and when we have these, like events, holiday, whatever, like we just eat on that day and this is something that I always tell my clients like yes, I know the sigma is like, you know there's leftovers, so you eat it throughout the week, but you don't have to do that. You can give it away or you can throw it out. We literally throw it up like no shame in that whatsoever or literally give my cookies to my neighbor.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it really does not matter. You could just get rid of that food and that's. That's totally fine, because Some people are not there yet, so control wise to the point that they could. We literally have a fridge full cookies right now and I Could care less until cheat day comes, like I really just yeah, I just. Like I'll just wait till Saturday.
Speaker 1:I really don't care, it's not even that, but we got a whole pantry full of Oreos yeah, and she full of biscoff cookies. Can't you pull the freaking peanut butter? A pantry full of Reese's. We got so much stuff in there. But, bro, I'm telling you, once you put the work in, it doesn't matter to you anymore, because you know it's like brah eating what I want Now. Oh, I have to eat it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like we don't even praise stuff like that anymore once we feel their body, and that's something that we teach our clients to. Like you're gonna get to the point of it is normal. To get to the point, that's okay, that's fine. But at the same time, like Halloween is coming up, like you don't have to eat all the canvases or leave the canvies in your house. You could literally just get one or two that you like and then just give it away or Throw them out, like it really does. It's okay To just have that candy that day and that's it. And again, depends on where you're at and during it.
Speaker 2:Some people cannot afford to do that and that's totally fine as well. Like I Hate candy anyway, so like I'm not gonna have any and I'm totally fine with that. I've always been fine with that. But there's strategies that we do for our clients navigating holidays depending on where they're at in their life, that Help them come up with plans so they're clear-headed and they can enjoy and be present and then be totally fine the next following weeks, instead of like gaining 30 40 pounds during the holidays which is more common than you think and then set yourself back in January and start the cycle over again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because people don't understand. Like Thanksgiving or not Thanksgiving, halloween, halloween. You're gonna have your friends Halloween, you might have another friend's Halloween, you have your family's Halloween, then you have the other family's Halloween and I say, you know that's four freaking parties in four weeks.
Speaker 2:That takes up the whole spend of a month and that's like the same with Halloween.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's giving Christmas and if you have four parties within the whole entire month for college. You're hating yourself and you think one week was gonna set you back when you like. I'll ask you back on track Monday and you have another party. Yeah, I'll just get back on track Monday, another party. They say no. All those Mondays add up and you literally been binging the entire month you, yeah, and I have to partake in all parties.
Speaker 2:You can literally go at night like we've done it before, and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's what we're trying to get at here is once you become mentally Capable, you'll realize that I don't need to eat the food to enjoy the company of the people I'm with.
Speaker 1:And you don't need to eat the food because you're stressed either so another thing that I want to talk about that I've been listen to videos on lately is, I Think, for the most part, when, say, we have a discovery call, and, and people always come up with the obligation that they need more time to think about it or all this is too expensive. And I want to touch on that because I hear I hear it a lot and at the end of the day Like I talked about earlier, how it's in their system response. I truly believe that people Want to get better, they want to heal, they want to gain muscle, they want to look good, but I think it's something deeper rooted in them that scares them from making that commitment. It's not the financial thing, it's not that they need more time. I just think that they're afraid To make such a big commitment, either because they're afraid to fail or they just don't know where it's gonna go. And I think you, instead of having such a negative mentality around making the commitment, I think you need to take a step back and just say yes. Because if you just say yes, you can just try it and if it doesn't work, then you can always back out. But if you never take up on that option, you would never know and you will. Like I said, it's deep rooted. You will never be able to get out of that cycle. And then, if you're always in that cycle, you're never going to make progress because you're going to do it on your own. But we know how that goes because you've been doing it on your own. And then every New Year's resolution it rolls around. You're right there in the gym and then two weeks later you're not anymore. So you already know how it goes. It goes the same way every single year.
Speaker 1:So how do you break out of that habit? Like, if you're truly fixated on getting better, eventually you're going to have to make a change. That is scary and that is putting money towards a coach to invest in yourself, because if you're not investing in yourself, what do you? I mean, that's like the highest type of investment that you can do is to give back to your health, and I think if more people just took the leap instead of saying, oh, I need more time, okay, well, how many times have you said that?
Speaker 1:How many coaches have you talked to and say, oh, I just need more time. And here you are doing the exact same thing again. You already know where it's going to end up. You're going to gain another 20 pounds and you're going to spend the whole year trying to get rid of that 20 pounds, just to get rid of that 20 pounds and gain it all back. So you already know how your habits are going to continue and you already know the outcome of oh, I need more time or this is too expensive. So maybe you make a change this year and actually just go with it. You know what that would do. That would help, that would get rid of your fear and it'll make you feel better because you know I did something for myself instead of just being no, you know what?
Speaker 1:I'll think about it or no, this is too expensive, and then restart the same habits. So I think mindset is extremely important. I think it's actually the most important foundation for anything you do, because mindset is going to carry you through your entire life and the habits you build and the experiences you go through. It's all mindset related and those are going to your. Mindset is going to dictate your choices you make. So if you're not clear headed, you can make some bad choices.
Speaker 1:But the more and more you heal, the more and more you fix yourself, the more and more you invest in yourself, you'll make better and better changes and life will become easier and easier. But if you always take the easier route, life is going to stay hard, which is weird to think about that. But the more fear you overcome, the easier your life gets, because then nothing scares you anymore. But the moment you're just like I'll just stay complacent and I'll find where I'm at and you're in a state of miserable. That's literally proven. There's no debating that, because how many of you guys right now would like to be somewhere else? But you're holding yourself back because you always say that's too expensive. I'll think about it. You know who you are. But with that, hopefully you enjoyed this episode and if you did, don't forget to like, comment, share and leave that fast. I love you until next time, see ya.
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