Episode 87: Reset Your Health, Fitness, and Metabolism in January

Feeling out of shape and overwhelmed after the holidays? You're not alone! In this episode, Jo is joined by coaches Lauren and Leigh Ann to share practical, judgment-free strategies for starting fresh in January. Whether you’re looking to shed some holiday weight, build strength, or simply feel better, this episode is for you.

They’ll discuss:

• Why extreme diets and over-exercising don’t work—and what to do instead.
• Small, sustainable changes that make a big impact on your health.
• Simple tips to manage stress, build momentum, and ease back into fitness.
• How a healthy, speedy metabolism is the key to maintaining your weight and building a strong, fit body.

Plus, learn how to get personalized support with their Metabolic Makeover Program and take advantage of a special New Year promotion to kickstart your 2025 goals.

No matter where you’re starting from, this episode will help you reset, refocus, and feel confident heading into the new year.

0:00 Welcome and Introduction

00:39 Metabolic Makeover Program and Promotions

01:55 Lauren's Holiday Experience and Advice

03:54 Leigh Ann's Holiday Experience and Advice

06:35 Strategies for Navigating the Holidays

08:19 Avoiding Extreme January Resets

16:44 Getting Back to Exercise Habits

20:57 Managing New Year Overwhelm

28:40 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it.

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Transcript

0:43

Hey, everyone, welcome back today. I'm Joe and today we are going to be tackling a topic that is very important this time of year. And that is how to stay on track with your health and fitness goals during the holidays. And more importantly, how to avoid that dreaded feeling of starting over in January. And maybe how you can start to approach things in January as this podcast airs, it is the end of December recording it before that. But maybe as you listen to it, reflect on how December is gone and. Think about some of the things that we talk about as you approach January. I do still want to mention that we are still enrolling in our metabolic makeover program that enrollment will end soon. We do have a few spots left that is our signature 1 on 1 personalized coaching program. That will help you reach your health goals. We're also still collecting names to give away a free 12 week coaching session. So you can sign up for that in the show links. And if you do sign up for the metabolic makeover program this month for January, you will be part of our New Year strong start promotion and you will get 10 percent off. Your coaching package, and then also receive gift box packed with all sorts of goodies to set you up for success in the new year. So a link for that is also in the show notes. Okay, so joining me are two of our amazing coaches Lauren and Leanne, and they're here to share their expertise on navigating the holiday season while keeping your fitness and health goals on track and really how to get back on track in January if things have gone a little bit off the rails. So Lauren, let's start with you. Do you want to talk about your coaching experience and how this topic resonates with you? Sure. I will tell you that over the years, the way I've approached holidays. There was an amount of time for a long time where basically from Thanksgiving until New Year's, it was just a free for all. And it was accepted every year that I was just going to gain weight over that time. And then I would get back to it in January I accepted that.. And then when, I got into the bad habit of undereating. It would look a little different in that still, for whatever reason, Thanksgiving to New Year's was a free for all, but I would do things like. If I knew I had a party or something or an event, like I would not eat like the day before and the day after and then go crazy on the day of, or even not eat like the morning of some party or something I had and then go crazy that night and that is just like the perfect recipe for gaining fat because your body just doesn't, know that you're going in and out and when it gets more food, like it wants to just keep that food and keep those, keep that energy and keep that calories. But honestly, it's not like that anymore. Once, I. Learned how to eat more balanced and repair my metabolism, now holidays are not a free for all, but I also don't feel bad and indulging. And when I do indulge, my body doesn't overreact because I have repaired my metabolism. It's a really nice feeling now not to feel. sluggish by January 1st or not to feel gross on Christmas morning. So I think, that's been my experience. Okay. Very good. I don't know if anyone else has seen the meme, going around that it's a lady unwrapping a Reese's peanut butter cup Christmas tree, like the peanut butter cups shaped in a Christmas tree. And it we've now reached the point of the year where Reese's Christmas trees are protein. I think that is, in terms of it becoming a free for all, I think it can easily become that point. Okay, Leanne do you want to introduce yourself and share kind of your background on this yeah. Hi everyone. I'm Coach Leanne. So I've been a coach with Couture now for a couple of years, but I was very similar to. Lauren actually, where the holidays were very much a free for all for me. And it was basically an excuse to just continue to eat and drink, especially drink a lot around the holidays. So it just became a habit that was associated with a lot of holiday parties as well as I would say just friend gatherings, there's always that association then that was with the holidays was the drinks and the overconsumption. In a definitely low protein of those items. I would say, and I'll just even use my most recent example of Thanksgiving and how things have changed for me. I'm just in the simplest sense, so we had 23 people we hosted for Thanksgiving and. While I was doing all the meal prep and, but not only that, but the event we had the next day I was thinking about, okay we're going to have the basic Thanksgiving staples, right? Because I know not everyone likes to incorporate protein like myself. So I was lifting off the ideas and I said, you know what? We don't have enough recipes with protein in them. And my husband said, who cares? And I said, I care. I said, I get it. There's certain level of comfort foods that are still going to be there, but I'm still not comfortable with not having at least some, some protein heavy snacks that are around and available because then it's just. That just is a planning mechanism. I now put into place of having 2 to 3 dishes. If I'm having a huge group like that, that are going to have some element of proteins that I don't set myself up for only having some of those foods that are the traditional based on very heavy with the carbs and the fats that are set up there. Yeah, I would say holidays definitely look very different for me as well. Since I also have repaired my metabolism, I've also changed my perspective on, the foods, right? So instead of feeling like it's almost like a binge eating experience of being able to have an excuse to eat all the goodies, it's really. With macros, I've been able to throughout the year, work them into my lifestyle. So I don't necessarily now feel as inclined like I have to because it's something that's much easier to work in and to strategize for myself. So that's how it's different for me and what holidays have looked like in the past for me. I think it resonates with everyone because everyone has such a different experience around the holidays and but I think the most important thing going into the holidays is to first establish where you are. When I coach clients, I like to say, meet yourself where you are right now. Are you in a cut? Are you in maintenance? Are you in a reverse? And the best thing to do is going to be to create some kind of strategy to go into the holidays. We've all known How the holidays have gone in the past for ourselves, meet yourself where you are and come up with a strategy of how you want to approach things that can include your activity that can include how your day is going to look because. There's Christmas, Thanksgiving whatever holidays that might be celebrated throughout the year. That's not the only day that you might eat high calories throughout the year. So think about some other celebrations you may have had. What went well? What didn't go well? And what would you have changed to make it more successful for the future? And apply those techniques now as you're going into the holidays. And I would say coming up with some kind of strategy based on meeting yourself where you're at is a great place to start. Okay, yeah really good advice. Okay, so let's talk about like I said, as this airs, we're through the holidays. And so maybe we're feeling a little overwhelmed as we're listening to this, because the holidays have stressed us out and we have been worried, or we've done that free for all thing, or haven't been as on track as we want to. And we're overwhelmed because we're worried about that. We've gained weight over the holidays, or we're feeling sluggish. We're just not feeling our best. What's your best tips for clients or listeners, as you roll into early January, and you feel like you blew it over the holidays Lauren. So the first thing you do not, you're going to be inclined to go into January and start doing these crazy diets just to get the weight off quickly. You're going to be, you're just going to want it off. You're going to feel yucky and you're going to want to do the thing that's as quick as possible to get some pounds off. Do not do that. Avoid that at all costs. Do not. Go into January and, all of a sudden stop eating carbs or all of a sudden only eat meals five hours a day or only eat soup or whatever, like whatever crazy crash diet, that promises the world. So first and foremost, don't do that. And the reason you don't do that is because it's not sustainable. So fine. You can stick to some crazy diet for a month or however long the weight is going to immediately come back. And you're also really not losing the weight. You're not losing the maximum amount of fat you can with those kinds of diets because a lot of that is eating into your muscle because you are just depriving yourself so much that like it can't just be fat loss. It has to also be muscle loss. The reason you want to avoid muscle loss and you want to have muscle, is it because it helps your metabolism. So this is all about making sure your metabolism is working, making sure you do not put the brakes on your metabolism, making sure that you're not wrecking your metabolism at any point in time during this. It's this process as well. So one don't go on crash diets. Instead focus on small sustainable changes and also focus on consistency. You come out of the holidays and you are like eating everything in sight, you're going to be hungry because let's just like for number purposes, let's say that normally you eat 2000 calories and then let's say during the holidays, you're like at 3000 calories on some days because you're just like eating everything. You don't want to go in. This is under the category of crash diet, but even you don't want to go in and be like, Okay. Now all of a sudden, I'm going to eat 1500 calories and I'm going to work out seven times a week and I'm going to, you don't want to do that ease into it. So maybe like at first don't concentrate on your calories, maybe just concentrate on what you're eating. So making sure you're getting protein in, like making sure that maybe you're stopping the snacking or stopping. the drinking or whatever was excessive during the holidays. And then stay consistent. So that, and again, this goes with sustainability. It's much easier to stay consistent if you have sustainable changes. So really, it's just day by day doing the same thing and doesn't have to be perfect, but it does have to be consistent and stick with it. So that is what I would say as far as, going into January, just, The biggest thing is do not all of a sudden go to a thousand calorie diet. That is just a recipe for disaster. Yeah. I think there's statistics that most people abandon their new year's resolutions, like within two weeks. It might make you feel better for a day or feel like you're doing something for a day, but it's not definitely not a long term strategy. Okay. I guess Leanne thoughts about avoiding the extreme January reset. Yeah. So I think some great items to focus on instead of an entire reset, because a lot of it is just like mainstream media, right? How a lot of stuff is pumped into our minds about the dining industry. One of these items is always starting over in January. So instead of always focusing on starting over in January, I would say focus on rebuilding your fundamental habits that. That you have been building, or you would like to start building just general foundational habits like hydration your balanced meals, balancing them with carbs, proteins and fats and of course, getting sleep going back to the balanced meals as I mentioned before, a lot of times, These meals during the holidays are really high in carbs and fat. So if you notice that, maybe 2 or 2 macros are a little bit higher than the others identify. All right, let's get back to the basics of this balanced intentional eating where, okay, where can I focus my intention on where I need to go with these basic habits? With that, even sleep if you have some kind of night routine that has worked for you, such as putting down your phone by 830 at night removing or removing your TV from your bedroom. I don't know, getting off of social media by a certain time. There's a ton of different sleep routines that can be developed to help work towards a good sleep routine. Oftentimes, if we end up staying up, enjoying time with family we tend to get into a little bit of a deprivation over time just by, there's nothing wrong with that. We're trying to enjoy time with family and friends. But I think getting back into somewhat of an established routine and habits that, that help basically knock one domino down to another can be very helpful. I would just say those foundational bits are really nice. If someone's really struggling to even I would say going to the gym is one of the hardest things to at the beginning of the year. I have a few tips that I would recommend. The 1st, 1 would be to make a deal with yourself to show up for at least 10 minutes. Make a deal with yourself, put on your clothes, go to the gym. And after 10 minutes, if you really still don't feel like being there. Then you can go home, but your feet have to be in the gym and you have to be past the check in line or wherever you have to check in. Then after you're there for 10 minutes, if you really still, are feeling, feeling, I don't know, holiday blues or whatever. Okay, then you can go home. But more than likely if you're going to be there, you're past the check in line or wherever you're going to be checking into your gym. More than likely you'll even want to be like I'm here anyways. I might as well, go on a treadmill for 10 minutes. The next thing you're in the zone, maybe a fun show comes on TV, something like that. So that's going to be one of my recommendations for just getting back into activity like the gym. The next thing is going to be adding some kind of shiny new penny to your routine. So this can be something like a new water bottle that you've gotten for Christmas or like a Stanley Cup, something like that. Bringing that to the gym with you now as something that you're, it's like a little something bougie it can also be a brand new workout outfit if buy something for yourself that you or, treat yourself over Christmas, or maybe someone treated yourself where that fun, new outfit to the gym that you will look forward to wearing it's going to be that little shiny new penny to your wardrobe. And then guess more nutritionally based, a shiny new penny might be to try a new type of post workout smoothie that you've been always wanting to try. And you're like, I'm going to try this. And so anyways, adding that shiny new penny elements to your routine. If you're someone that like a little shiny new penny helps inspire you to get back to your routine to help kickstart things and get the ball rolling, then those are just a few things I would recommend. Yeah I think the kind of what you just, you described as like a minimum baseline I will go to the gym this many times a week for at least these many minutes. That's doable that you can keep your promise to yourself about is a great strategy for making it through the holidays. Give yourself some minimum or minimum baselines during the month of December I will get to the gym 3 times a week, and maybe it's just for 20 minutes, but it will keep you in motion. So I love that both for December and January. And I like the idea of trying to incorporate something new in January like you said, maybe it's just something as simple as you're going to try a new flavor of protein powder or something that you look forward to. To counteract maybe that, that dread, or we're feeling guilty for how things went in December. So that's a good segue. Lauren, any ideas from you if you've gotten out of the habit of exercising, or maybe you're just not in your normal routine of exercising in December, how do you get back to those habits in January? Yeah, so my advice for this is very similar to my advice on avoiding the crash diet. You also don't want to go extreme the minute January 1st hits or January 2nd, you don't want to go from, maybe you've missed a lot of workouts in December, or you haven't worked out in weeks, or you haven't worked out in December, or you haven't worked out since Thanksgiving, who knows? But what you don't want to do is then think that on January 2nd, you're going to go lift four times a week and do three cardio sessions and get 12, 000 steps a day. And that's not realistic. It's setting yourself up for failure. So you want to set yourself up for success and even from a mindset perspective, you don't want to put too much pressure on yourself because it's going to be just very self destructive. So just do a gradual reentry into working out. So instead of let's say that you were doing, like some kind of like high intensity cardio a few times a week instead of doing that, just say that you're going to walk, like just commit yourself to go on a walk, certain amount of days a week, or a certain amount of minutes per day. And maybe if you were lifting, three or four times a week, just two times a week, two times a week is fine. And I like, I love Leanne's idea of just do something. to 10 minutes, right? Like just commit to something. For whatever reason there's something about when I get up in the morning and I put workout clothes on. I will go work. There's something about starting in workout clothes. And now this is, I work from home. So this is or let's say on the weekend starting workout clothes, like there's just something that like, if you have a sports bra on and you're just like I might as well go to the gym. I might as well go ahead and work out. It sounds silly and funny, but it actually works for me. But yeah, I would just say big thing is just do not, do not think that you're going to go back right into your routine that maybe you have missed for weeks and weeks. And the other reason you don't do that is because you will hurt yourself and then that's, a whole other issue. Yeah, that'll definitely set you back. I think it's also during the holidays and maybe that first month back the whole. Aim here is just to stay in the game in some capacity and not go all the way back to to square 1. And deals I've made with myself during December when things feel crazy and I've done a bit of traveling. And December is I'll go to the gym and I'll do what I like to do. It's not a real structured lifting, I like working out my shoulders. I'll just, I'll do the lifts that I like as long as I stay there a certain amount of time. And that is certainly better than doing nothing. I think what that really is just saying is manage expectations for December and January. If you're if you have the time and you have motivation, of course, do what you normally do, but just anything you can do to stay in the game. I think counts. Even if it's not like your typical. Guns a blazing workout that you're used to doing, you will get back to that. If you just get back in your habits and, it'll, you'll get back to it before, it, as long as you don't go crazy and hurt yourself. And the thing with setting unreasonable goals or setting yourself up to with these unsustainable diets or exercise regimes as you, they're not sustainable. And then you feel like a failure because you can't stick with it. And there's nothing worse. It's just going to compound itself. If you're already feeling bad because you let things go during the holidays, then you kick things off with some very intense, aggressive plan and you abandon that after a week, you're not going to be feeling real confident or real great about yourself. And that just makes it really hard to be successful later on. Manage expectations and just try to do, some keep moving anyway, you can keep moving, keeping protein, just try to stay in the game. And you will, you can count that as a win for sure. Okay let's talk now a little bit about mindset. And so 1st, like I said, a little bit earlier, it's easy to get super overwhelmed during the holidays, either because there's so much to do. Or maybe you get halfway through December, or towards the end of December, and you feel like you really have let things go and you're feeling really guilty and overwhelmed. What are some things that people can focus on to counteract that overwhelm? Lauren thoughts. It's like overwhelming the holidays, especially if you're a woman and you're, responsible for doing all of the things. But I do think it's important to, I know everybody says like self care, prioritize self care. It really is so important during the holidays. Stress is terrible for you. Stress is terrible for fat gain. And you just have to like, find time, whatever that is, or find something to decompress, like just anything. It's also important because and this is not like food or nutrition or fitness related, like you need to enjoy the holidays. You need to enjoy. Your kids and your family. And if you are just worried about one of many things worried about is like what you're eating or how you're working out. That's gonna not, that's not going to be good. Cause you're already, have this holiday overwhelm. So I would say like really try to find time to decompress. And the other thing I think is set real, like we already talked about this, but setting realistic expectations. Don't set yourself up for failure. Just do just, don't get out of the game, just like Joe said. And I won't go more into that just because we, I feel like we've talked about that quite a bit. And then just like focusing on small wins, like we've already said. So really it's just, don't put any more pressure on yourself and you don't have to. Yeah, I think that's really good advice. There's already enough to stress out about. Making time for yourself. I know if you're most moms listening to this podcast, we'll put yourself last during the holidays and it's okay. To not do that, if that means, getting to the gym for 15 minutes, the working out for me is a way to deal with stress. So you don't have to abandon everything just to make sure that you purchased all the presents for the kids. And you can delegate some of that too. In terms of letting things go or feeling overwhelmed and guilty because it's December 26th or New Year's Eve, and oh, my gosh, I just abandoned everything for the month, you can get back on track, and so it's with the small steps that we've talked about, but not all is lost. And so beating up on yourself, getting really angry with yourself that you let things go during December is not going to motivate you more to get back on track in January as much as we think it might. That just usually backfires. Leanne thoughts about things that can be focused on to mitigate. Holiday overwhelm or that new year overwhelm when oh, gosh, I really let things go in December. Yeah, so I would say, it's going to be really important to go into the holidays with a almost like a big picture of where you would like to see yourself. At the end of things, and at the end of things, it's not worth it to end up. Feeding yourself up, because what is that going to do? It's 1 of those where. Even if you go into the holidays and you're going to, you make a plan and something doesn't go according to what you set out your intentions for I would just say that's okay. Pivot. Okay. And then get back to 1 of the most comfortable things that you like. That's a part of your lifestyle, whether that be taking a walk outside and doing. A mental reset, especially some kind of meditation. But I would really focus on zooming out, enjoying life and self love. I don't think we really talk about self love very much. But all the things that year after year, our bodies do for us. Just remember that, our physiology is always going to be our physiology. So meaning that, yes, if we overeat, we can't will our body to not gain weight, right? In our mind, sometimes we just still might have some mindset work to do with some of these items. So I would say in the holidays just take little sticky notes for your mind. If there's something that you feel like Okay, I need to work on this. I don't have a good handle yet. Think of it as changing the picture of how you're viewing things. Like, how can I view this in a different way to where it doesn't seem overwhelming? Because everything else is going to be overwhelming as it is in the holidays. But changing the narrative of, okay, this is what happened, but. Let's change this narrative for the future and how I want this to look for me in the future, because this doesn't have to be it. So I hope that made sense zooming in zooming out a little bit, but ultimately just focus on what is going to serve you in that moment, knowing that you're putting your best foot forward. And if something doesn't go according to plan, I would say, try and do an after action review. But mindset is always going to be the biggest, I would say, piece that everyone has to work with. No one goes into the holidays. I think perfect as can be, and no one comes out of the holidays as perfect as can be even as coaches. It's going to be working on our self talk, it's going to be working on that self love, identifying what are my triggers during the holidays. Gosh, I realized I got so hard on myself like and this was a trigger for me. This was an emotional trigger for me. Okay, let's work on that. This is not going to be the last time this comes up. So let's approach this and figure out what we can do to avoid this in the future, or at least lessen that burden on our mindset in the future. Because all of us humans, we are just that humans. And so just trying the best we can, I would say to take little mindful moments for ourself with these moments is going to, I think, really provide some good peace and self love. Yeah, I think that's really good advice. I, I feel like every year it's so easy to have unrealistic expectations for in terms of how we're going to get through December, or even January, how our families are going to behave. I still feel like. I have these perfect ideals of, how the family dinner is going to go on Christmas or how extended family is going to behave or and it usually devolves very quickly. So I'm just now at age 51 getting to the point that like, no, don't do that to yourself because you're just, you're going to be disappointed and feel like like you failed or Things rarely go like the perfect picture that I think that they should. So that's goes into that all or nothing thinking too. that can vary when things don't go as you want or expect them can be very easy to fall into the trap of just throwing in the towel and everything. But like I said, I think our best advice. It's just stay in the game any way you can, even if you're only playing a couple minutes in the game and you're used to playing the full game. Anything you can do to just keep with your habits. I'd say count that a win. And then like you said, Leanne, think about what you want to do. Things to be like, at the end of January and move towards that. So I think that's all that we have for today about this topic. Thanks Leanne and Lauren for joining us and giving us your sage advice. And like I said, if you're interested in working with us in January, we can give you a plan for getting back on track. So make sure you check out the links in the show notes. Okay. Thank you. Everyone.