135. Rooted and Rested: Your Guide to a Saner Holiday Season

The holidays can feel like a full-contact sport: less daylight, more demands, and an endless push to perform joy on cue. We’re flipping that script. Heather shares a clear, compassionate plan to move through the season rooted and rested—anchored in what matters, nourished by simple food, and protected by boundaries that keep your peace intact.

We start with energy: why the time change hits hard, how a full-spectrum “happy light” can help mood and sleep, and the mindset shift that turns rest from a reward into a prerequisite. From there, we get practical about family dynamics. Think of it like your emotional grocery list—what you’ll give, what you won’t, and where you’ll refill when conversations go sideways. You’ll hear scripts to defuse food policing and politics, plus ways to step out of old roles without igniting new drama.

Food gets simple and sane. Eat breakfast for steady blood sugar, build a plate with color and protein, hydrate to protect energy, and let go of guilt so one meal doesn’t erase a month of care. We talk about realistic holiday nutrition, not diet rules—just small moves that keep you out of the crash-and-crave cycle. And because comfort starts in the kitchen, Heather invites you to a free live cooking class: a restorative, beginner-friendly soup that proves dinner can be calm, cozy, and fast.

Want support that isn’t noisy or salesy? Join the Midlife Lounge, our free community for women navigating midlife hormones, identity, burnout, and boundaries. November’s theme is rooted and rested, with live chats, recipes, and that free soup class to set an easier tone for the season. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a calmer plan, and leave a review to tell us: what will you let go of to protect your peace this year?

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE SHOW

My Favorite Happy Light HERE

Join The Well Nourished Woman Community HERE and get access to the FREE cooking class this Sunday! It takes a minute to sign up. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Time Change, Energy Crash, Happy Light
• 3:23 Reframing The Holidays Without Numbing
• 6:55 Letting Go Of Control And Busyness
• 10:35 Defining Rooted And Rested
• 14:00 The Midlife Lounge And November Theme
• 18:04 Free Live Cooking Class Invitation
• 20:21 Planning Family Boundaries For Peace
• 22:23 Realistic Holiday Eating Strategies
• 26:40 Soup Class Details And How To Join
• 28:41 One Thing To Let Go This Season

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:40

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the Real Food Stories Podcast. And if you are new here, I am Heather Carey, nutritionist chef and the no-nonsense midlife friend who's going to tell you the science-backed truth bombs about food, hormones, and why we're all so tired already. And it's only November. I swear we turn those clocks back once a year by one measly little hour, and you think that I had traveled halfway around the world. I feel jet lagged right now and so low on energy. And it certainly doesn't help that there's less light in the sky right now. I've officially broken out my happy light. And if you feel like you get affected by the change in light, also called seasonal affective disorder, I want you to run, not walk, to go by a happy light. Basically, it's a full spectrum lamp that you sit in front of for 30 minutes a day. It's really no skin off your back. You just sit there while you're eating breakfast or reading the paper in the morning. And I use it from October all the way until April when the sun is at its lowest in the sky. And I know that it helps me. And again, it's totally non-invasive and can't hurt. So if you feel like you get affected by that change in seasons in the sunlight, definitely go and buy one. I'm going to put a link in my show notes if you want to find out more. I don't get any commission for this. I just really want you to have one of these and to find out what it is and the benefits of having a full spectrum lamp. But mine's called a happy light, and I think that it helps for sure. But turning those clocks back, boy, that really affects me. So anyway, this could be a real game changer for you and your energy and your mood and your sleep if you're starting to feel like it's November and you're exhausted. So, all right, for today's episode, we're going to talk about how not to lose your mind this holiday season and how to actually feel rooted and rested instead of frazzled and fried. Now, during this time of year, I want to do anything and everything I can to support myself physically and emotionally. And we'll jump into some of the ways, besides my happy light, that I use to preserve my sanity this season because it can be really stressful and you know, just a kind of a nutty time of year. And by the way, I've also got something really fun coming up this weekend, an event, a cooking class that I'm going to be teaching, and that ties right into this whole theme of rested and rooted. So stick with me until the end of the podcast and I'll tell you all about it. Okay, let me just say this out loud because I'm not going to pretend anymore. I'm really not a holiday person. Okay, there, I said it. Between the time change, the sugar, the chaos, the family drama, and the pressure to be joyful on cue, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, I'm already fantasizing about hibernation. And if you're nodding along with me right now, welcome to my club because you're not the only one who's tired before the turkey's even in the oven. Now, listen, I stopped drinking a long time ago, and I will admit that this used to carry me through the holidays just fine until, of course, it was January and the party was over. And now I don't even lean on anything like that to soften the blow. Believe me, this is a good thing because honestly, I would rather feel all of it than numb out, only to be in a boatload of regret when it was all over. I really would. So as much as I might complain about the holidays, I'm showing up for all of the good and the bad and the hard and the stressful. And if you're used to numbing out during the holiday seasons too, this might be your sign to be present right now. Because the deal is, we've all been taught that the holidays mean doing more, being more, buying more, pleasing everybody more, looking a certain part, having the best decorated house, the best dressed family, the greatest Christmas card, despite our energy and despite our fatigue. But what if this year we just didn't? Now there's always something to do at my house, always a project. A closet that needs to get cleaned out, the spice drawer needs to be organized, something. And I happen to be married to a man that has the energy of about 10 men and is constantly juggling a fence rebuild or painting a deck or something to keep going, going, going. So it gets a little infectious when you are living with somebody high energy. I have joked with him that maybe a handful of times in the 30 years we have been married, when I walk into the house and see him actually watching a football game or sports anything in front of the fire during the day, my immediate thought is, what are you doing? Half sarcastic, but still, like, what are you doing? You're actually relaxing. Why are you sitting down? We have things to do. So I admit that to all of you and to myself, that I am a doer and a go, go, go person. And I have to work on this myself. And the reality is that I fantasize about doing just that sometimes sitting under a blanket all day with a fire and a book, not my computer, not my phone, an actual book. And just sitting there, not even the pressure to go walk my dog, just resting. This might sound funny to you, but I know plenty of women this age who can definitely relate. If we're not, quote, busy, something is very wrong. We wear busy like a badge of honor. There's no rest for the weary, right? We'll go until we collapse. We'll do for other people until we are just absolutely spent. I have done this a million times, I'm admitting it, for a million holiday seasons, and it never does me any favors. So why are we doing this? There are so many reasons, and that could be for another 20 podcasts, but really I think it's just a lot of cultural indoctrination. I just read in the paper the other day in the New York Times that Martha Stewart's original party book called Entertaining from the 80s is getting reissued. And if you have any memory of this book, it set the standard on high-end entertaining. Martha Stewart said in a recent interview that she was the original trad wife. And if you don't know what trad means in today's speak, it's short for traditional wife, the stay-at-home mom, raising a gaggle of kids, making sourdough bread, growing her own food, raising a goat or two while having an online empire. But I'm not sure why this seems so radical. Haven't we all done this to some extent? I mean, I've raised three kids, made homemade baby food when they were little, grew and still grow my own vegetables, make my own bread, threw together millions of holiday dinners, run my business, and now years later, I'm tired. I think I want someone else to make the holiday dinners for me, but do I, do I really want to let go of that control? Can I release that much control? Anyway, I'm curious to know how it would feel to let go of the control and scared all at the same time of not being in charge and in control. And then I believe there's somewhere in between where we don't have to actually be completely checked out in order to get rested and feel good this season, but to give up some of the control and of being in charge. What if we decided that being rooted, like rooted into the ground and rested, like really grounded and intentional, was the new holiday flex? I'm curious to know how that would feel for you. Like a fail, like you are missing out, not doing enough. Maybe you actually love the holidays and get a deep surge of energy during this time. That's great. Maybe that is your grounding right there and your intention. So my question is, what would make you feel rooted and grounded this season? Like you can look back in January and say, that was a really nice few months. Maybe you need to write about it in your journal. I know that I do because I go through this every single year. I have this like feeling this like knot in my stomach. Maybe you need to talk about it. And one way to do that is to join me in the well-nourished community. I know I've been talking about this for the last couple of weeks on this podcast, but I really want you to come in and join the community so you can have your voice. Now, I'll be hosting a live chat just about this very topic in the community and thinking about what it would mean to feel rested and rooted right now. Now, this all leads down a road to feeling content. And I like that word. I like the word content. It feels peaceful and grounded. Now, check out the show notes for the details of any upcoming events in the well-nourished community. And it's free, okay? It costs you nothing to join in there. Just you can come in, take a peek around. I have the midlife lounge and I have the nourished kitchen, which is a paid membership, but I do have the midlife lounge, and you can come in and just take a peek around. So in the midlife community, I like to do monthly themes, and my monthly theme for November is rooted and rested. And I want to just decipher and tell you what that actually means for me. And here's how I see it. To be rooted means to be anchored. You know what matters, what's worth your time, your energy, your emotional investment, and what isn't. It's that feeling when you finally stop chasing every should. You're not trying to keep up with people who don't live your life and carry your load. You're standing still long enough to say, wait, is that actually good for me right now? Does that actually feel good to me right now? And to be rested, rested is not lazy. And I know that I have some opinions about that, like the example I gave with my husband, just watch watching a football game for an hour on a Saturday afternoon. I have to work on that. But rested is something I strive for. It means you feel regulated, that your nervous system is exhaling. It's your body saying, thank you for feeding me something besides caffeine and cortisol today. We've been taught to believe rest is a reward. Like you have to earn it after you've done enough. But what if rest is just part of being a functioning human? What if rest is the prerequisite for being grounded, not the prize for surviving another week? When I talk about being rooted and rested for women in midlife, what I'm really talking about is knowing your limits and actually respecting them, fueling your body instead of punishing it with crash diets or guilt or anything radical that you feel like you might have to start thinking about in January. And letting people have their opinions without letting them hijack your piece. Okay, staying in your lane and letting people do what they do. This season isn't about shrinking to fit someone else's version of who you used to be. It's about creating rhythms that make you feel strong and steady. Now, I don't want to drag old patterns into a new phase of life. I want to be the woman who says, you know what, my peace matters more than perfection. My energy is not up for grabs. So as you're listening right now, maybe driving or you're folding laundry or you're walking the dog, I want you to think about what being rooted for you could look like this month. What would feeling rested actually feel like in your day-to-day life? I'm right here with you, right? I'm working this too. So I'm I'm asking myself these same exact questions, but that's the energy I want to bring into this holiday season. Grounded, nourished, no drama. All right, so let's talk about something that I'm really excited about. I mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast, and that is my community, the well-nourished woman, and within the well-nourished woman is the midlife lounge. Now, before you roll your eyes, because I know the internet is full of join my group nonsense. Let me tell you what it actually is. Okay, it's not a Facebook group, it's not another spammy wellness chat. It's a space I built for real women, women who are in the thick of midlife, figuring out their hormones, their moods, their food, their identity, and honestly, just trying to feel like themselves again and have that feeling of being grounded and content. Because listen, midlife is not a crisis. All right. For better or for worse, we are in this midlife time, and let's not think that it is a big giant drama show. Okay. It's a recalibration. It's that moment when you look around and say, okay, I've done everything for everyone else. Now, what do I actually want? And inside the lounge, in the midlife lounge, we talk about that. We talk about food, yes, of course, because I'm a nutritionist and a chef. So you're always going to get really nourishing, great recipes and food ideas and all the nutrition things. And we also talk about the deeper stuff, boundaries, burnout, body image, and this weird mix of empowerment and exhaustion that shows up when your hormones change and everyone still expects you to hold the world together. The lounge is totally free. It's that simple. You pop in and there's zero pressure. You can post, you can answer some of my questions, you can come in for a live chat, and or you can just scroll around quietly until you're ready to join the conversation. No pressure. Each month has a theme. This month, like I mentioned, is rooted and rested. And that means that everything we do in November is centered around slowing down, grounding, and nourishing, not just with food, but in how we move, how we think, how we plan our days, and even how we eat. Now I use the word rooted also as sort of like a riff because November is all about root vegetables and in the nourished kitchen, which is the paid part of this membership, we are going to be having a big focus on root vegetables and which are very grounding in Chinese medicine and very just seasonal and and calming. Now, this weekend coming up, this Sunday, November 9th, I'm doing something really fun to kick it all off. I am hosting a free life cooking class right inside the midlife lounge. Now, normally my cooking classes are in the nourish kitchen, the paid membership. But for this weekend to kick things off, I am hosting a free class for everybody. So you can get a little taste of the nourish kitchen, and you can just come and say hi and you can come and cook along. Now we're making one of my favorite soups, something so good, so nourishing and so easy that you're gonna wonder why you have ever made dinner complicated, because this is easy. You know, cooking takes time, but it doesn't take that much time. And we're gonna talk all about how to save time in your kitchen while making a delicious soup. And by six o'clock, you will have dinner ready while you're sitting and watching a she a show on Netflix. So I would love for you to join me. Now, if you ever wanted to cook with me live or just hang out while I stir the pot and tell the truth about midlife, this is your chance. So you can come and cook along with me, or you can just come and watch and ask questions. All you have to do is join the Midlife Lounge, which again is totally free, and then RSVP to the class. That's how you'll get the ingredient list and the recipes. And I'm gonna give some extra bonus recipes in there too. So if you've been listening to this podcast and thinking, like I could really use a place to land somewhere where women get it and we don't have to pretend we're fine all the time, the lounge is the place. We're not performing wellness, okay? We're practicing it. So come and hang out with me this weekend at four o'clock Eastern time on Sunday, and let's start this holiday season from a place that's rooted, rested, and ready for real life. All right, so let's get into it. The part that makes everyone squirm a little bit, but we're gonna talk about it: family boundaries and the holidays. Now, every year I tell myself, this time I am not going to get sucked in every year. Literally. I have a mental conversation with myself and I say, How can I do this different? I'm not getting sucked into the drama. And every year, someone inevitably brings up something political or comments, uh, what's on my plate, or am I knee deep in mashed potatoes and emotional whiplash? And so this year I decided I'm done reacting. I'm planning for peace the same way I plan the menu. You make your grocery list, right? You know what dish you're bringing to the party. So I want you to make an emotional grocery list too. And I want you to ask yourself this year, if you're with me on this, what am I willing to give this year? And what am I not willing to give? And where am I going to refill mentally and emotionally when I inevitably run out of patience or run out of the tolerance for the drama or any of it. All right, shifting gears a little bit, let's talk food. Okay, because I'm a nutritionist and a chef and I've seen it all. The I'll be good after the holidays crowd, the I'm gonna eat all day long, and I'll think about that tomorrow, or let me skip breakfast so I can really gorge later. I I've heard it all, I've done it all, I I know it, I know, and I I have I get it. So let's skip all that this year. Let's try to skip all that, that old kind of thinking, okay, because we still have to be nourishing ourselves. Just because you're having a holiday dinner at six o'clock doesn't mean that you're not allowed to eat breakfast. You want to feel good after Thanksgiving, right? Okay, so here's how we're gonna feel good after the day after Thanksgiving. First, on Thursday, the day of Thanksgiving, I want you to eat breakfast. Okay. Please, for the love of stable blood sugar, eat breakfast, please. It doesn't have to be the biggest meal of the day, obviously. That's gonna be dinner. But just eat something like an egg with toast and some vegetables or some oatmeal to eat a little something. Okay, something with protein, something with some color. Don't save up your calories. That's not balance, that's punishment disguised as discipline. Okay, and it and it's gonna set you up later for overeating more than you had even thought because you're gonna be starving. Okay. Second, I want you to color. Second, I want color and protein on your plate. Now the turkey's not the problem, right? That's not the problem for Thanksgiving, nor are the Brussels sprouts, right? Or the sweet potatoes. It's the beige things, the stuffing. I mean, these are not bad. I I don't even want to say that these are like the bab things, but these are the things that you want to be mindful of. The stuffing, the mashed potatoes, those all those other white foods, the bread. So at dinner, add some greens. Bring some roasted vegetables with you, or whatever counts as a plant in your world. Add in fiber and protein to keep your energy steady and your mood sane. Okay? Fill your plate once, be mindful. Stop when you're full. And the third, I want you to make sure that you're hydrating. I know this is a big drinking holiday for some people. I know, I get it. It's like the one day of the year you have permission to start drinking at like nine in the morning all day long until nighttime. Make sure you're having some water, make sure you're having some herbal tea, a club soda. Just make sure that you are hydrating through the day. Dehydration's sneaky. It can make you feel tired and it can make you feel cranky and more likely to reach for sugar. You might actually be really dehydrated rather than hungry. So just keep mindful of your hydration. And fourth, and the most important, I want you to ditch the guilt over this holiday dinner. Guilt doesn't burn calories. Okay, it just drains you. It drains your joy about just enjoying the meal. You're allowed to eat pie and still love your body. You're allowed to rest and not, quote, earn it by over-exercising the next day. The goal here is not restriction. It's just recovery. Do your best. Okay, we've talked enough about the ways to eat and to be mindful on your plate and to be mindful about maybe not overeating. It's just a meal. Okay, it's just one meal of the many, many thousands of meals you will be eating in your lifetime. It's about waking up the next morning and thinking, okay, I enjoyed myself. I feel grounded, and I'm not in a food coma. Maybe I ate a little more than I wanted to. And today is a new day. Now that's what I teach in the nourish kitchen, my paid membership. Food that works with you and not against you. Real food, real life, no spreadsheets, no diets, no shame. Okay, I think that's it for now. We'll talk more about Thanksgiving as it comes closer. And speaking of food that works with you, like I said before, this Sunday, November 9th at 4 p.m. Eastern, I am teaching a free live cooking class that ties this all together. It's part of my rooted and rusted theme inside of the midlife lounge and the nourish kitchen in my community. Now we're making one of my favorite cold weather soups. I'm not even going to tell you what it is yet. You'll have to go and join the community to find out what we're going to be cooking, but it's something very warm and earthy and ridiculously easy. And you will have extra, you will be able to put it in the freezer, and you will thank me later. So I'll show you how to build flavor without stress, and I'll tell you why soup is basically therapy in a pot and how to make a basic pot of soup taste absolutely outstanding. There's secrets to making soup. So you can cook along with me, or you can just watch and hang out. Your choice, it doesn't matter. I don't care. I will be on Zoom cooking, and you can just come and say hi and chat. I'll walk you through the recipe. I will be answering questions. And because I can't help myself, I'll probably be talking also about hormones, about boundaries and midlife sanity while I stir and chop and cook. So if you RSVP in the midlife lounge, you will get the ingredient list in advance, the full recipe packet, and a few bonus recipes that I'm going to throw in because we all need backups when life gets loud. And this is a really good time of year to just right practice that getting rooted. And soup is one of the best things that you can be eating right now to help you feel balanced and energized and calm. So if you've been listening and thinking, I want this season to feel different, I want it to feel calmer and easier and healthier, then come join us this Sunday and just sit in at the very least and say hello. You'll see that cooking does not have to be complicated, and neither does self-care. So to get in again, go to the Midlife Lounge. All of these links will be in my show notes. Hit join. It's so simple. And then go and RSVP for the class. It's free, it's fun, and you'll end the hour with dinner and new perspective on cooking. All right, so here's your homework this week. I want you to pick one thing that makes the holidays heavy, and I want you to let it go. Decide that this year you're showing up rooted and rested, not resentful and running on fumes. You don't need to prove anything to anyone. You just need to feel good in your own body and your own boundaries. So I will hopefully see you on Sunday at 4 o'clock Eastern in the Midlife Lounge for our live soup class. And until then, eat well, rest often, and remember, doing less is the healthiest move you can make right now. All right, that's it for today's episode of the Real Food Stories podcast. If you are ready to stop running on caffeine and chaos, come find me in the Midlife Lounge. It's free, it's fun. And yes, we talk about everything from soup to stress to setting boundaries with that one family member who's always having something, a little more than extra to stay. Don't forget to RSVP for our rooted and rusted cooking class Sunday. And I promise one hour, one soup, one less thing to stress about. Take care, stay grounded, and keep your spoon handy. We're just getting started. Have a great day.