096 Finding Balance: How Athletes Can Navigate Nutrition Over the Holidays

The holidays are a time for celebration, connection, and, let’s face it, a lot of delicious food. For athletes, this season can bring challenges in maintaining nutrition goals and routines while also enjoying the festivities. Striking a balance between giving yourself grace and staying on track is key to maintaining physical and mental health during this time.

Here’s why it’s important to stay mindful of your nutrition—and how you can approach the holidays with both discipline and kindness.

In this episode I discuss:

• How planning ahead will optimize your nutrition goals
• What following the 80/20 rule looks like in action
• Why hydration is CLUTCH 
• Types of light movement to engage in for optimal digestion 

Visit readysetmindful.com for FREE resources and appointments.

Transcript

  Hi, I am Kerri Bicskei, professional athlete, licensed therapist and mindset coach. I created Ready Set Mindful as an online mental health resource for athletes and high performers like you. And this is the ReadySet Mindful Podcast. 

  Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the ready set, mindful podcast. I'm your host Kerri Bicskei. And today is going to be a solo episode.  Just talking about the importance of nutrition for athletes over the holiday season. Um, really, if you're not an athlete, you can definitely benefit from.  This information as well. 

I'm just finding this conversation. And this topic come up in a lot of my client sessions. I work with a lot of high achieving females who are perfectionistic type a. I have. High expectations for themselves.  And nutrition is always, um, just a common thread in terms of, uh, the work that I do with athletes because nutrition. Is such a fundamental piece of your mental health and impacts. I mean your, your mood, emotional regulation, energy focus, all of these things that, that play into.   How we show up in our everyday interactions.  So let's go ahead and get into how you can navigate nutrition over the holidays.  While leaving time for celebrating, connecting. Um, and eating some delicious food, right? So for athletes, This whole season, the holiday season can bring a lot of challenging, you know, um, situations in terms of maintaining your nutrition and fitness goals and routines while enjoying. Time with your family. Different events, things like that. 

So striking a balance between giving yourself some grace and staying on track is so important to maintaining your physical, mental health goals, and also having a stable, nervous system   And having a stable nervous system will just allow you to navigate having healthy, emotional responses. When things do get stressful over the holiday season, conversations get heated, that kind of stuff. We want to make sure your regulation of your nervous system is always in check. So here's why it's important to stay mindful of your nutrition and how you can approach the holidays with discipline, grace and kindness. 

Giving yourself grace. While having a routine, um, can seem a little bit counterproductive, but both of these things truly matter. Um, for athletes, right? Like as athletes, we have really high expectations of ourselves, whether it's in our performance or our daily habits, like nutrition. So it's vital to fuel our bodies properly, but it's equally important to allow room for imperfection. Life to come up, um, especially during the holidays, right? 

Like, are you making room for, um, the connection and community and enjoying food, um, you know, with your family and friends? So the importance of grace is really important, acknowledging that. The reality of the situation is that one or two indulgent meals are not going to derail your overall progress. 

You've worked super hard to get yourself to your mental health, your physical health, your, your body, your fitness. Um, to where it is right now. And in fact, enjoying your favorite holiday foods. Um, without guilt can prevent the stress and anxiety that comes with rigidly sticking to like the quote unquote perfect eating habits. You know, stress, the stress of not eating quote unquote perfectly, um, is going to be more detrimental to you and impact you so deeply. 

Um, That, that stress and the overthinking of the, the perfectionistic tendencies is going to be really more detrimental than the actual food would be. So just keep, keep that in mind. Um, the role of routine is something that's really important for athletes during this time, too. Like at the same time, having a routine can be really great. Grounding force during this busy holiday season. 

So sticking to healthy habits for most of the time. Really helps you maintain, like we talked about before your energy levels, stabilize your mood, keep you feeling your best for your workouts, your practices, or your competitions. Um, and just being mindful of how food and mental health are connected. The connection between.  Food and mental health is, you know, well, evidence-based the nutrients and food that you eat directly impact your brain function, your energy levels, your mood. 

Um, like we said before, your emotional regulation. So for athletes who demand a lot from their bodies and minds on a day-to-day basis, Um, you know, proper nutrition truly can enhance your focus, reduce your stress, improve your recovery, all of these things that we know. Um, have a tremendous benefit for our performance. 

So during the holidays being mindful of like what fuels your body while still allowing room for those enjoyment foods can help you feel balanced and ready to perform. When season picks back up for you.  So three quick tips to help you stay on your nutrition game over the holidays. Um, plan ahead before a holiday gathering an event like eat a well balanced meal with protein, like get everything that you need, your healthy fats, your fiber, all the good stuff. 

This is going to keep you from overindulging on the stuff that you're going to feel guilty for later, um, that overindulging in the sweets and snacks, um, and letting yourself go like Teeter into that space where your. Um, you know, you're feeling sick. You're not feeling good about yourself, all that, you know, the guilt layer comes on thick. 

So we want to just make sure that you're hydrated and you're fueled. Um, your body has everything that it needs, and then you can have some of those indulgences later, but just in moderation, right. So at making healthy choices. Um, if possible, bring a healthy dish to share or a healthy dessert or something that, um, you came up with that you feel good about eating that is nutrient dense. 

 So that even though you can't control what other people are bringing, at least you can ensure that there's one nutrient dense option available for you. So tip number two is to follow the 80 20 rule aim to eat nutritious whole. Foods 80% of the time leaving 20% for when you are allowing yourself to kind of get off track, you go out to eat. You have these holiday events that are coming up. It's okay. Um, and really getting that, getting used to that mantra in your head, like it's it's okay. 

I'm okay. Um, this balance.  Allows you to enjoy those holiday treats. Uh, guilt-free while staying on track with your nutrition goals, the third tip is to hydrate and stay active, whatever that looks like for you. So a lot of athletes really underestimate the importance of hydration. I definitely am not the best at hydrating. 

I have to set myself reminders and alarms and have. Uh, you know, fruits in my water, like strawberry water and lemon and mint and put stuff in it to really incentivize myself to drink more of it. So, whatever it is that helps you making sure that you are hydrated.  And kind of satiated and, and, uh, you know, filled up with electrolytes and water. 

 So water and electrolytes are key. I really like element L M N T a the salted watermelon. Oh my gosh. Those are so good. So those with a little bit of lemon in your water, um, makes you know, it, it makes drinking water. And hydrating yourself just a little bit easier, at least for me anyway. So make sure to keep those little packs around. Uh, this holiday season.  And, you know, make sure that you're staying active. 

So I know a lot of my athletes that I work with fuels super guilty for the active recovery or rest that they're getting. Um, and not doing a ton of there. Uh, high intensity exercises, um, that are to their standards. Right. But just knowing and reminding yourself that light activity, like walking, gentle, stretching, like hot yoga. These things will super good on your body, um, and help relief release some of the toxins and some of the, you know, not so nutritious food that you're eating. I'm doing something like hot yoga, gentle stretching, like walking outside. Um, You know, is super helpful, doing hot, cold, like contrast training is also really helpful too. So if you have a sauna available to you, go and do that and sweat out some of those toxins, um, something that's super good for cleansing your body when you're not feeling super great, maybe you're not feeling, uh, awesome about what you've been eating and you kind of overdid it a little bit. 

Get to the gym, go, go, do a sauna. Um, some gentle stretching, just any light activities. So set your bar a little bit, you know, a little bit lower than maybe where you would traditionally set it and know that that's okay for this like stage in the season that we are in, right. Also super helps with stress management. 

So go and get yourself into the sauna. So ultimately,  The holidays are about way more than food, right? It's about connecting gratitude, joy. , just community and you need to prioritize, nurture nourishment, nourishing your body, nourishing your mind. , and I hope that you, as an athlete can feel empowered to just embrace this season without compromising your goals, giving yourself a little bit of grace. And remembering that your body is your greatest tool and how we fuel. 

It plays a significant role in, again, like our energy, our mental performance, physical performance, our emotional regulation, our ability to handle stress and. Difficult situations and ultimately allows you to be more resilient. So if you want to show up as your best self, your highest self. The person, your dog thinks that you are this holiday season. Give yourself the gift of grace and a solid routine, and know that you, you know, you deserve that right. So I am signing off for this episode. 

 Hope you guys got something out of this and took away some little nugget, and I hope that you have a fantastic week. Take care. 

Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of the ReadySet Mindful Podcast. With me, Kerri Bicskei, if you like what you hear, make sure to like, comment and subscribe to the podcast. You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram or visit ReadySet mindful.com for free resources,  and other ways to work with me.

Until next time, be well. Stay mindful.