35 - Winter Nourishment + New Year's Resolutions!

Winter is not a season for pushing harder, it’s a season for support.

In this episode of the Nourished Living Podcast, Courtney shares how to nourish your body during winter with warming foods, nervous system regulation, blood sugar balance, hydration, rest, and sunlight. She also reframes New Year’s resolutions, explaining why most fail and how to set realistic, sustainable health goals that don’t revolve around weight loss or dieting.

This episode is a gentle reminder that slowing down is not falling behind, it’s how you build energy for the year ahead.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Best winter foods to support digestion and energy
• How to calm your nervous system during winter
• Simple blood sugar balancing habits
• Why rest is productive in this season
• How to set realistic New Year’s goals that actually stick 
• Why it's ok to not set a New Year's goal

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 A 55+ page holistic wellness guide to help you feel grounded, energized, and supported without dieting or overhauling your life.

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@healthywithcourtneyy

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the Nourished Living Podcast, where we go beyond diets and quick fixes, and reconnect with what it really means to feel good in your body. I am Courtney Podany, nutritional therapist, personal trainer, energy worker, type one diabetic, and mom here to guide you toward health that feels simple, sustainable, and aligned. Each episode will explore how to nourish your body. Balance your energy and strengthen your intuition so you can thrive and actually understand what your body is telling you. So grab your favorite drink. Take a deep breath, and let's jump into your new nourished life. Hello, hello and welcome back to the Nourished Living Podcast. I am your host, Courtney Podany, and I am back from the dead. There has not been a podcast episode out for a few weeks now, because I literally got so sick like I. Don't really think I can remember another time in my life where I was just constantly sick for about seven days. I would say typically in all my other illnesses, definitely by like day three I'm seeing some type of improvement, but I was just dead like could not function. Became one with the couch four, seven. Straight days. It was wild. There were points where I was contemplating like, is this just how I die? And you know, it's bad when even the kids are spending their whole day sleeping, right? Like typically, even when they have a cold, they are still running around like wild banshees, they've just got like some snot and coughing going on, but. They also spent most of their time just out sleeping, daytime, nighttime, all the times. So anyway, that is not what I'm here to talk about, but it is why there has been a brief pause on podcast episodes because I literally could not do anything. Not even a form of thought it felt like. So anyway, today we are talking about winter nourishment, how to best support your body during this season, which will also lead into New Year's resolutions. So hopefully you are listening to this. Before January 1st, or since January 1st is a Thursday this year, maybe just listen to it before the first official week of January. That would suffice as well. So I did a fall nourishment episode back in September and fall was all about grounding and releasing things that no longer serve you and just letting go. And there are some of those themes as well with winter. So we'll look over that. But I wanna start with winter. Food and produce that is most supportive during this time. These foods will be found in the local section of your grocery store or at your local farmer's markets. Root vegetables like carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, and rutabaga, squashes. Cruciferous vegetables like Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli, dark leafy greens, onions, garlic, leeks, and shallots, and then also sweet potatoes, potatoes, fennel, and celery. For our winter fruits, we have oranges, mandarins, grapefruits, lemons, limes, apples, pears, pomegranates, kiwis, persimmons, and cranberries. Winter produce is supportive to us right now because it is grounding. They are mineral rich, which help us to achieve steady energy. With the citrus, it provides vitamin C, which is great for our immunity and stress resilience, and especially during the colder weather. It's easier on us to cook veggies and choose warm foods like soups, stews, and slow cooked meals because it is easier to digest. So that helps our gut and nervous system. There are also warming spices you could include, like ginger, cinnamon, turmeric, and cumin. And I would recommend avoiding living on like cold smoothies and salads. Of course, you can incorporate them, but I wouldn't rely heavily on only smoothies or only salads. Right now, like I said, during the colder weather are digest and slows, and it's a lot easier for us to digest warm cooked foods. To regulate our nervous system during winter, we want to slow down. Winter can amplify anxiety, especially with the lack of vitamin D from the sun. So you could start your mornings slow without any phone messages, notifications, anything like that For the first 15 minutes, practiced deep breathing. You'll wanna focus on more gentle movement instead of intense workouts and maybe honor a cozy ritual. You could have some tea in the evening to calm down. You could light a candle while you read a book with a cozy blanket, or even take a warm bath with some Epson salts. When you have a calm body, it is so much easier for your mind to be calm as well. With the shorter days, we are likely to have more cravings and just wanna reach for more like dense, heavy comfort foods, so to help regulate our blood sugar. We wanna make sure that we are eating regularly, so you don't want to go more than about four hours without either a meal or a snack. Of course, one of the themes of my life and. Podcast and message is always to pair carbs, protein, and fats together. Those are the three macronutrients, and they work best when paired together because they slow digestion and prevent a blood sugar spike, which anytime there is a blood sugar spike, it will be followed by a blood sugar crash. So. Just like any other day of the year, we want to pair carbs, protein, and fat together. We want to start our day with a protein rich breakfast to get our metabolism started for the day. That will also help with the cravings and comfort food needs. And also you could go for a short walk, just like five to 10 minutes, after your meals to help regulate that blood sugar. So when our blood sugar is stable, it reduces anxiety, fatigue, and mood swings. If you are able to get sunlight, I would definitely recommend it since it is not always available during the winter, and the light tells our body that we are safe and awake. So it's recommended that you want to try and get morning sunlight within one hour of waking up if you are able to do so in the morning. The light helps support our circadian rhythm and mental health. And I also want to mention that right now it might be a good idea to start a vitamin D supplement. The sun is the absolute best way for us to obtain natural vitamin D. However, you know, with the lack of sunlight. We aren't always able to fulfill our need, so it is present in some foods like cod, liver oil, egg yolks, salmon, mackerel, sardines, herring, dark leafy greens, butter, and mushrooms. But. Typically, it's not enough to make up for the absence of sun and vitamin D is crucial for our mental health. So it's just something to think about, but please consult with your doctor first before you start taking a supplement. We definitely want to keep up on our hydration and mineralizing the dry winter air causes increased dehydration and dehydration, stresses the body, so. A lot of times when it's cold, you don't necessarily wanna reach for water, so you could sip warm water or a tea and add electrolytes into your water, so that could be. As easy as adding a pinch of unrefined sea salt into your water, or if you would rather go the like electrolyte packet route element has a good one. Just ingredients buoy. You can find all of those to help. With your water, or you could even drink bone broth, which has many electrolytes, minerals, and is protein rich. These minerals help regulate our stress hormones as well. And of course, we want to prioritize rest and sleep. So winter is not the time for hustle. Since it gets dark a lot earlier, you could even promote an earlier bedtime at this time. You could start with a gentle nighttime routine, dimming the lights an hour before bed, journaling, reading, no screen time to kind of prepare your body for that rest. Magnesium rich foods are also helpful in winding down. So if you have things like dark leafy greens, nuts, bananas, as part of your dinner, that will help and also helps to ease anxiety. Or you could take a bath before bed as well during winter. Rest is productive. Mother Nature even takes a few months off during winter, as you'll notice by the bare trees and bushes that lost or shed all of their leaves during the fall with nothing blooming again until spring. So for winter, we are just being, we are just resting, no rushing and no trying to bloom. Okay. So think about working with the season not against it. And a saying that I like is spring energy is built during the winter, so will you rest during winter to produce the spring energy that you need. And this is the perfect segue to lead into my next topic of New Year's resolutions. As I have just outlined extensively in this episode, winter is for resting. And what changes within you from December 31st to January 1st, where we think we are now a completely different type of person that is going to implement six New Year's resolutions with ease and keep with it forever. Am I right? And everyone in the world is promoting a new challenge to be a part of. So this can be your year, but this is why 80% of resolutions. Already fail by February, and it's estimated that 23% of resolutions fail within the first week. That is a quarter of resolutions. Part of the problem is that New Year's resolutions are based on motivation, not actually upgrading your identity to integrate these habits as part of your lifestyle. But if you really wanna set some type of goal, I would just suggest one goal and make it realistic so you do actually have a better chance of maintaining it. Because the ultimate goal is keeping this habit in your life, right? So if you want to start working out, but you are not currently doing any type of movement, I would not set a goal of working out seven days a week. I wouldn't even set a goal for five days a week. I would start with three and aim for like 20 to 30 minutes because you can always increase things later down the road. If let's say you complete January successfully and you've worked out three times a week for 20 minutes each time, you could always increase it to 30 minutes or 40 minutes. It's rather than aiming for 60 minutes each workout and then having to decrease it down to 20, and I feel like a lot of the resolutions that people come up with revolve around weight loss. But I also wanted to provide you with a few other goals you could work on as well. If you know that you. You need to get a little bit more serious about your health. You wanna get healthier, but you don't necessarily know how you could try one new recipe per week, cook at home more, or if you need that to be measurable, you could say, only order, take out one time per week. Eat two to three fruits each day, or eat two to three vegetables each day. Since produce intake is considerably low in America, take a walk after your lunch or whichever meal fits best for you. Meditate for five minutes in the morning. Eat breakfast before you drink coffee. Get morning sunlight. Take five deep breaths before meals stretch for 10 minutes before bed or journal. So there are a few examples that would also support your health that don't necessarily revolve around weight loss and dieting and trying to shrink yourself. But I just wanted to mention that if you do not want to set a New Year's resolution, or maybe you've only done so in the past because you felt pressured. It is absolutely okay to not set a New Year's resolution. I do think it's good to have goals in life, but you don't need to set one just because we are beginning a new year. If, if you feel inclined to set a health goal, that is wonderful to help you become the best version of you and feel your best on a daily basis. But it does not need to be on some New Year's resolution term. Right? Do it for you. Do it because you need a change. Do it because you want to upgrade, but if you wanna just savor the slowness of winter and rest up, that's okay too. All right. So as we wrap up today's episode, I really want you to remember that. Winter is not a season for forcing change. It's a season for support, supporting your body with warming foods, stable blood sugar, gentle movement, rest, sunlight, hydration, and nervous system care, and taking care of those is not falling behind. It's actually how you build resistance just like nature rests. Before it blooms again, your body thrives when you honor this slower rhythm. And when it comes to New Year's resolutions, less truly is more one small, realistic habit. Practiced consistently will take you so much further than a long list fueled by pressure and motivational. If you're wanting guidance that brings all of this together, nutrition, blood sugar, balance, digestion, hydration, movement, mindset, and holistic living in a way that actually fits real life. That is exactly why I created my ebook glow from within. It is over 55 pages of simple, nourishing tools to help you feel grounded, energized, and supported from the inside out. Without dieting and without overhauling your entire life. You can find the link in the show notes, and I truly believe it's the perfect companion for this season of slowing down, reflecting, and laying a solid foundation for your year ahead. Thank you so much for being here, for choosing to support your body instead of fighting it, and I will see you in 2026. Happy New Year. Thanks for hanging out with me today and tuning into the Nourished Living Podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and found something you can start implementing right away to kickstart your nourished transformation. If you loved this episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who could benefit from these insights. Until next time, stay nourished.