Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1937: How to Avoid Gaining Weight During the Holiday Season

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover the habits and mindset necessary to avoid putting on fat during the holiday months. There are some things you can do to prevent the holiday weight gain and take advantage of the extra calories you will be eating this holiday season. (1:51) The TREMENDOUS health value of enjoying meals and being with family. (4:25) Specific Strategies on How to Avoid Gaining Weight During the Holiday Season.  Working on a better/healthy relationship with food. (6:45) Using the extra calories to build muscle, reverse diet properly and aim for strength. (17:57) Going for a long walk after your big meal. (25:01) Appropriately using fasting leading into the feasts with family. (28:34) Related Links/Products Mentioned Special Promotion: Intermittent Fasting Guide, Intuitive Nutrition Guide, or Reverse Dieting 101 HALF OFF! **Promo code HEALTHY at checkout** Visit Drink LMNT for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Weight Gain over the Holidays in Three Countries The Case For Taking a Walk After You Eat A Beginner’s Guide To Intermittent Fasting – Mind Pump Blog Chewing Your Food: Is 32 Really the Magic Number? Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salta Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about how to avoid gaining weight during the holiday season. So this is the time of year where people tend to gain a lot of body fat, tend to find that their health declines.

Now we know there's tremendous value in the holidays, tremendous value in bonding with the people around you, connecting, enjoying the flavors and the tastes of the foods around you. But there's a healthy way to do it. There really is a healthy way to do it. And you'll actually enjoy the holidays more. And in today's episode we talk about that. In today's episode, we talk about that.

In today's episode, we talk about how you can utilize intuitive eating, developing better relationship of food, how to reverse diet leading into the holidays so that you can use the extra calories for muscle building, metabolism boosting, and how to potentially use fasting as a healthy strategy. We have a fasting guide, we have an intuitive eating guide, and we have a reverse dieting guide, all three of which right now are 50% off to help those of you out that need the extra help. You can find all three of them at maps fitnessproducts.com, but just use the code healthy. Healthy is the code for 50% off. Now, this episode is also

brought to you by a sponsor, LMNT. This is an electrolyte powder that has the right amount of sodium for athletes, and especially those you on low carb diets. This will help you get better performance, better pumps in the gym, and more energy. Go check this company out. We've actually invested in this company, and so much will I come. Go to drinklmnt.com forward slash mine pump. Right now, they're offering all of our listeners a free sample pack with any order. So again, drinklmnt.com forward slash mine pump and right now they're offering all of our listeners a free sample pack with any order so again drink element t dot com forward slash mine pump all right here comes a show

when people gain weight throughout the year a large chunk of it happens to happen around the holiday season there are some things you can do to prevent this from happening and actually take advantage of those extra calories you'll be eating through the holiday season. You know, this, we visit this topic every year. You remember the, every year. The meme I used to share every year, I haven't shared it in a couple of years, so maybe I'll

have to dig it up and fight. You remember the meme I used to send around this? Yeah, stop blaming the holidays, you were fat in July. Oh yeah, remember that. You said everybody. Oh yeah. But I remember, I don't know how accurate this is, but I remember this being eight to 12 pounds.

We were told this, right, in the gym space, that the average American gains eight to 12 pounds over the holiday season and then doesn't lose it all afterwards, and that ends up adding up over the years. And if you look at a chart of weight gain over the year, a majority of it does happen around this time of year. And it's because there's a lot of food. So multitude of factors.

Family, there's a reason to over-eat, there's a reason to be inactive. And so what we tend to do is we tend to quote unquote, let go during this period of time. Should a shell of our disciplines for just a little bit? Yes. So this has been, this has actually been debated. It's like one of those things

like how many calories does muscle burn? Yeah. It's like one of those things. That's why I said it's been told. Yeah, personally, I actually think it's higher than that. I think a lot of people put on more weight than what you got. What's it saying? It says about a pound.

If yeah, that's a bunch of bullshit. Well, hold on a little. No, no, is it a pound after like done? Like that thing every day from things. Yeah, that's a bunch of bullshitts. Well, hold on, hold on. Is it a pound after like done? Like that thing every day from Thanksgiving? No, no. So despite our worst fears, the average American really only puts on one pound during the holiday season. Yeah, that's so hard. Okay, by the way, can I say something real quick?

No way. Everybody's like, There's only a pound, right? That's a pound that you don't lose of body fat. So ten years of celebrating Thanksgiving, Christmas, whatever, 10 pounds, no, I'm top of the other five. Okay, so I would give behind that.

Like it's a pound, you never lose, and it's compounding. So every year is fat. Yeah, every year, now your average is one pound higher that you maintain the year every year. And so. But that also means that half of everybody gains more than a pound, right?

Because that's the average, right? So on average, well, I guess that would be medium. But you get what I'm saying is that there's a large percentage of people actually gain more than a pound. But nonetheless, look, we all get this. We all feel this over the holiday season. We all know, with this is something that everybody understands that this is a time of year where it can be difficult

to maintain your health and fitness, right? It's things get a little bit more challenging. Now, I do want to say this first. We're not the fitness podcast, and we're not the trainers and coaches who will discredit the value of enjoying meals, enjoying glasses of wine, and enjoying being with family, because you're not going to be able to keep your six pack, or we're not going to tell you to bring your top aware to the Thanksgiving dinner. No, because there's tremendous health value Encelebrating these these times with your family

Especially if you don't see this these people on a regular base Especially if there's the only time you get to connect with these people So what you're not gonna hear from us is you know Insanity around that like there's real value around that. I think the challenge the problem is people go above and beyond that value. And it becomes this like, oh, here's where I, it goes from I'm enjoying myself and connecting with people too.

Oh my God, this is what I'm gonna binge. This is what I'm gonna make myself feel terrible. This is what my stomach's gonna be. Now I need to punish myself for this. Get me afterwards, right? Yeah. I tell you guys, I did a show the day after Thanksgiving. Yeah, I know.

Yeah, I'll never forget that. With a terrible the day after Thanksgiving. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I'll never forget that. With a terrible, I thought it was like a brilliant strategy. Like I really thought like nobody's gonna fucking do this. Like and I was like, I got the discipline. You forget you're competing and they like, I know, everybody's all neurotic. It was like a super packed show. So of course, like this is what they all thought.

They're like no problem sacrificing that. And I'll never do that again. And it could, by the way, Katrina always reminds me of that, right? If I say like, you know, we don't ever do what I want to do for the whole issue. Oh, really? You know, you don't remember an example.

Yeah, you don't remember driving down south, like eating at a Tupperware for Thanksgiving. I'm like, oh, you're right. I do remember that one year we did that. You know, and it's, you know, interesting, because obviously I was in the middle of a much larger goal that I was incredibly focused on, right? So I don't regret it.

I would never do it again. Just there's no more value. Why would you do that again? Yeah, yeah. And at that time, I really, really thought that it was a smart strategy to get to my pro card and stuff like that. And so that was the idea or when my first pro show, that's what I was trying to do. And I do remember how much I missed out on the family stuff. And I'm like,

oh, I'll never, I'll never do that again. And I'll never do that to you again. I remember telling her that like to allow us to miss one of the days of the year when all of our family makes an effort to make sure they are together and stuff, all to look a certain way or win some dumb trophy or to prove to everybody whatever. This is such an important thing to communicate because part of developing a good relationship with food as understanding all of its values and part of the value of food, a big part of the value of food is bonding and connecting with the people around you. It's enjoying being present with the food.

Like, I love, one of my favorite things to do with big meals around the holidays is to talk and experience the flavors with the people around me. Oh my God, did you try this? And oh, this is so good. And who made this dish right here? And I get the chills talking about

because it's this wonderful bonding moment. That's not when shit goes off the rails. Shit goes off the rails when your relationship with food going into the holidays already isn't great. And so that what happens is you go from this restrict binge model or relationship with food where you restrict and then when you go off, you don't go off and have like a little bit more

or a little pie, it becomes like this way in excess. Way in excess where you're sitting, I mean, how many times have people done this, right? You finish your holiday meal and you sit back and you're like, oh my God, it my stomach hurts. Like that was way too much. What did I, I didn't even enjoy, I'm not even enjoying this time right now because I hurt myself. So you've actually, you've actually lost the potential value of that holiday meal because you've gone off in this, and I quote unquote binge type of mentality.

So working on a good relationship with food is crucial to having a good time with the people around you around the holidays. Now what does that look like? Well, it looks like this. Understanding all the values around food, which include the stuff that we talk about in the fitness space, which is, how this affects me physiologically, how this is how this affects me digestively,

proteins, fats, carbs, calories, what helps me perform better, what gives me more energy. It's also understanding, how do I eat when I'm stressed, how do I eat when I'm depressed? It's also being present when you eat. You ever catch yourself doing this while you're eating so fast that you're not even thinking about the food that's in your mouth that you're actually tasting. You're thinking about the next bite and trying to get the next bite in there as fast as possible. That type of behavior is not necessary. That's not really valuing the true value of food that's almost a numbing or distracting type of behavior.

So you have to go into the holidays and say to yourself, and by the way, some people do this on the holidays because they don't like being around family. They don't like being around certain people that make the major. So they get really drunk or they bury themselves in the meal. And that's also not a good relationship. So you have to go into it saying, I am gonna connect with the following people and I'm gonna try these dishes that I haven't had in a while and savor them, right?

Savor these dishes, not like pound them down as fast as I can, but rather enjoy this meal. And I'm not going to allow myself to get painfully full because there's no enjoyment in that, right? Nobody enjoys feeling so stuffed that they feel sick to them stomach. Yeah, stomach. It's the use of that opportunity to slow down So it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like,

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it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it's like, it it. And it's like this whole experience part of that, where you get to bond with your family. And it's like, I mean, this is just one specific day, or maybe a few days out of the year, where you get to spend that time with your family. And it's like to be so focused, myopically, on like, wow, what are the macros in this?

And what's this one gonna do for me in terms of like setting me back? And it's really like, nil in the grand scope of things. But to your point of like excess, you can indulge, but you can do it in a way where it's slow and it paced. And you have a lot better chance of not

like going completely in excess. Since you brought up signature dishes, what are like the worst signature dishes? Oh. And not necessarily from a macro perspective. Anything just, I think it's a shitty dish that someone brings all the time. Justin Hill on the table.

Would you say the yellow stuff? The yellow base. Yeah, the marshmallow jealous. Especially when they rebranded a salad. Like, what are we doing? And the one that's not salad. Jello fruit salad or whatever it's called. I'm not a fan of, I'm not a huge fan of the white meat in Turkey.

What? No, white turkey meat is dry. Depends how juicy the turkey is. But yeah, give me the brown meat. The brown meat is the good stuff. That's a bad example of a signature dish that is like really like white turkeyers all dry. I mean, I certainly do over a bunch of other things

over a can of cranberries or over freaking yams with marshmallows in and syrup in it. Like, yeah, there's a lot of other things. You like can't like that? I put it on my turkey all the time. You're more of a foodie. Come on, let's, what, what? Yeah, so the one you mentioned is sweet potatoes

with marshmallows. Yes. I desp come on. What's what? Yeah, so the one you mentioned is sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Yes. I despise that. It's horrible. But one year somebody came to our house for Thanksgiving and they brought their version from their family. Yeah.

And not only did they have sweet potatoes with marshmallows, they had red hots in it. Oh. Red hot candy? Yes. Oh my god. I mean, I really, I had a gag reflex. And they said, oh, this is so good.

We make it every year. Our family makes this. It was so horrible. There's a worse thing I ever tested. I never tested it from the old country. No, it wasn't. Well, they used to put peppers, but now we use Red Hots. Yeah.

Wow, I've never heard of that before. Yeah. So I've had it with like marshmallows and like a maple syrup and stuff like that. I'm just like, dude, that is just, sweet potatoes are so good. A little bit of butter and butter. That's it. If that, I don't even need butter on my own. Well, you guys, are there certain, so here's, I like to go in this direction.

Are there certain dishes that you normally don't have except for around this time of year that people tend to make stuffing? Stuffing, stuffing, that's what I'm talking about. I never eat stuffing, but it on Thanksgiving. Is there somebody in particular who you found? Oh yeah, my mom, my mom makes incredible. And she does it the traditional way where you actually stuff the turkey and stuff like that.

So, and it's homemade from scratch, so she's not using like a box of, you know, she cuts up all the little pieces. And my godmother makes really good stuffing that I look forward to. And I make sure to have a little bit of it because it's I never have it. This is a hundred year old recipe too.

That's why it's kind of cool. Yeah, so you talk about tradition and things like that. That's what I mean. There's a lot of value. Yeah. So it's kind of cool to talk about it and how it's been passed down on the family when we have it. So I definitely, the stuffing is something that I would never eat that throughout the

year. I don't think I ever have stuffing on that day. Absolutely. There's this one dish that throughout the year. Russy here, I don't think I ever have stuffing on that day, I absolutely have. There's this one dish that my grandma made, and I think it's from Denmark, but it's like a, it's called Patita, I think, but it's basically a hazelnut bread that has, anyways, it's really good with butter.

We have it usually for breakfast, and it's like I would never eat it otherwise, but it's just like, one of those, like, we look forward to it, because it's sweet, it's like, I would never eat it otherwise, but it's just like one of those, like, you know, we look forward to it because it's sweet, it's like a sweet bread and it's delicious. So there's one, so we have monkey bread that I never have that gets from Katrina's family.

Her niece always makes this like homemade monkey bread that's bomb. That's the one you're supposed to pull apart. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so this is, this is great. I love that where you took this atom because there's definitely dishes that I look forward to because I never have them otherwise

and it's around the holidays. And I found myself go through this transition years ago. So years ago, the holidays became definitely binge time for me because I was like build muscle, trying to work out whatever. And so then I'd go into the holidays and especially if I was trying to be lean before that, which happened a little later on, I'd go into the holidays, and especially if I was trying to be lean before that, which happened a little later on,

I'd go in and it was like all, it was like I'd take the hands off and just go crazy. And I would always end up with it, too much like just painful, painfully full, not feeling good, taking a nap on the couch. And I lost, I would lose the value of the particular holiday. It became like this thing,

oh, sounds asleep on the couch, why, because you ate too much food in stomach hurts. Later on, I became much more present. I grab a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I sit there and I'd savor it, and then we'd share, and we'd talk about it. And it became a totally different experience, I gained way more value out of those meals.

Another one is like a peakampi, homemade peakampi, which I mean, it's, and just homemade pies in general. A little bit of vanilla ice cream with that. Yeah, so this is a big deal. Like, when you go into it, understanding this, like, okay, who am I gonna see? I'm gonna see my aunt, you know, and I don't see her all the time. And she makes this one thing, and I'm gonna go see this guy,

and he's gonna make my uncle and he makes this one thing, or there's this particular alcoholic beverage that my cousin likes to make. And instead of, you know, you know, what people screw up a lot on the holidays? Process chips, candy, soda, snacking, like shit that you can get at any time that nobody prepared, that has no real meaning

or, you know, to the holiday itself. Yeah, still be like the novel stuff, real novel stuff. Yeah, I do Irish coffees, you know, my father-in-law makes really good Irish coffees. But you know, that's actually a tip that you didn't put on here that I think is a good tip is actually to just, is to try and avoid all the generic crappy snack food

that gets put out before the meal comes. That has no value. Right, enjoy the feast with your family with the things that we're talking about, versus the all day long kind of grazing on this stuff that's just potato chips and ranch dressing, stuff like that, or the ranch dressing with the carrots that everybody globs and does that.

Those type of things like that, I feel like, I would try and restrict from that. That's accessible all the time. But yeah, it's only once in a while, does my niece make the monkey bread, or that my mom all the time. But yeah, it's only once in a while does, my niece make the monkey bread or that my mom makes the stuffing. It's like, so I'd rather savor for that.

And now you'll enjoy it more too, versus I'm already full in the now I'm full. I'm serious, I mean, this sounds silly, but if you go into the holiday saying, I'm going to savor these dishes that people prepared for this holiday. And I'm going to connect with people that I don't normally see and I don't normally have this opportunity to connect with.

You'll find you're far less likely to eat past the point of full. You're far less likely to overeat on garbage junk food that you could get any time of the year at the convenience store. You'll find yourself deriving the real value out of the holidays. This is what I mean by working on a good relationship with food. This is part of that. And now this is a process that kind of takes time. It's a continual process because your relationship with food evolves as your life evolves, but really identifying these things. And of course, there's tips and tricks like eat protein first and eat the vegetables first because that

helps provide more satiety. And we've talked about that ad nauseam, I think on previous podcasts. But I think if you go into it with what I'm talking about where I'm like, you know, I'm gonna really sit and enjoy, like put your phone down, don't be distracted, don't watch the TV, talk to the people around you or find those few family members you don't mind hanging out with.

And then like, saver and enjoy the food around you or find those few family members you don't mind hanging out with and then like Saver and enjoy the food you'll eat slower and you'll end up really deriving the real value and you'll avoid the shitty Overstuffed crappy feeling that that really is why people gain so much weight They just overdo it now is there is there anything that you guys do in regards to training and eating Leading up to that. So let's say it's the week of, so it's Thanksgiving's Thursday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and your cognizant of what Thursday is, you know what you're probably gonna enjoy yourself calorie wise, and maybe you're not even gonna be moving as much,

or whatever, you know what your day looks like. And so are there certain things that you guys will do, leading up to that day, as far as you're eating and you're training looks? Yeah, so personally I have specific ones for me, which include not eating any foods that cause any digestive issues with myself, leading up to it, knowing that I'm going to have things that

like gluten and stuff like that. So three, four days before I eat super like easy digestible food, because if I go into it with poor digestion, it really will ruin the experience for me. But that's me personally. With clients towards the end of my career, this is when I'd have them reverse diet. Not the three days before, but I'd have them reverse diet working into it because it worked

well into the reverse diet because you're going to have extra calories anyway. So why don't we make this like a short bulk period anyway. So now when you're in the holiday meal and you're eating the extra calories, it works well with our goal which is reverse dieting, building muscle, fueling muscle growth. So that's more generally. I don't know. No, no, I love that. So that's similar to it. So I would normally do like a mini cut like at the beginning of November. So I'm in a calorie deficit and then that week leading into it, very similar. I would start to reverse out of November. So I'm in a calorie deficit. And then that week leading into it, very similar. I would start to reverse out of it. I would start building the calories up. I also, if there's a week or I'd say a couple days where I might overreach it almost intentionally,

it's going to be on this too. Yeah. So I would, I would do a little bit longer workout or kind of push a little bit harder than usual than the advice that we normally give, knowing that I'm going to be extra sore, knowing that my body's going to want potentially extra calories to help me recover, since I know I'm going to be getting them anyway. So, those are probably the two things that I do between like the training and the diet, like leading into that. So I actually organized a little personal holiday around this strategy. You guys know this?

Every, I love that, you know. I started incorporating some of this stuff. After everything's giving, this will be year, I don't know what this is gonna be, year nine or 10, maybe nine or 10, where, so almost a decade, I've organized what we call the post Thanksgiving, and we say the Guido workout, because it's my cousins and I, what's so racist.

I know. And what we do is we all have our things giving together. And of course, we're gonna eat more than we normally do and enjoy ourselves and that stuff. And remember I said that the goal, my personal goal was kind of this reverse diet or sorry, excuse me, should I say this, this goal that I would give my clients like reverse diet,

uses to build strength. And I thought this was perfect. Like let's meet the day after and do heavy lifting together. And so it's really more bonding, it's more family time. But I've also hit a lot of PRs on the day after Thanksgiving. So it's just really cool to utilize all this stored energy. Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's a really solid approach.

Because, too, you're able to now put a lot of that to banked energy, just consumed to work work and why not go through a book? Why not go through, you know, part of that being a performance enhancement? Well, I've got to, I've experienced it, I think twice now with your family. And one of the things I really appreciate about it that I liked, it's different to than if I were to compare it to normal. It is nothing like a normal workout. And it's actually, I think it lasts like almost three hours.

But it's a lot more talking. And it's connecting. And it's, but it's this law, which what I love about that is, we're not eating. We're not eating because there's no food around. So all we're really doing is connecting, drink a little bit of water, lifting a little bit, doing challenges, bull shit, and making telling jokes, talking business,

oh, back to lifting a little bit. And it turns into this like three hour, you know, semi fitness type of event that we're doing where I'm not eating food. I'm not sitting down. I'm connecting with family. I'm moving and burning calories. I'm sitting a signal to build muscle. I really, really love this is like this cool traditional thing that you guys have done.

And I've been lucky enough to be a part of it a couple of times. And that's what I find is different. It's not what I have done in the past where it's like it's a workout, right? So it's another workout where I get after it's like, no, no, no, you've really turned it into more about connecting with the family. And therefore it doesn't matter that it gets stretched out for three hours or whatever because we're just having we're having fun. It's fun to and it's it's probably going to start morphing because now everybody has little kids. Kids will be right around. Well, no, what we might end up doing is bringing the babies together and doing something that's like,

like maybe we'll do some strength challenges, but in the meantime, we have our kids with us. Especially since we have this place, it's so perfect to have let them kind of run around and everyone take turns doing stuff. Yeah, and they get to see, you know, and what a great, you know, maybe it'll be a tradition that they end up picking up, you know, because all of us have little boys actually.

Right. So it'll be kind of cool. But, you know, I like, I like, I used to love telling clients, okay, here's what we're gonna do. The week before we're gonna start your reverse diet. So the holiday is going to be a part of your reverse diet. And the goals in the gym have changed.

Our goals in the gym are, let's see how strong we can get. And then what ends up happening is, it works perfectly because I'm not doing a cut during the holidays, that's really hard. You just talked about what that looked like when you were getting ready for a show. It's part of the reverse diet, right?

It's part of the getting stronger. And then when you go back to the gym, rather than worrying about the two pounds of water weight that you gained from the extra bread and carbs and whatever, you're like, oh my God, I added five pounds to my bench press or 10 pounds to my deadlift. Well, that's why I like the great combination. I like to back it up even a little bit further.

So if you start with like a little week or two week at the end of October, beginning of November, like a cut, and I like to do kind of an aggressive cut in that short week or two, and then I'm reversing out, and the part of the reversing out is leading into what you're talking about. So we're starting to slowly increase calories, leading into Thursday, and in addition to that, I'm switching up my training. So whatever I was currently doing before that, I'm transitioning into a new focus, typically love something that's strength related,

and then kind of coming up. That way, even knowing that I'm probably going to intake over my chloric maintenance, the idea is that any of those extra calories I'm hoping that a majority of them get partitioned over into building muscle. Why not? And not just storing body. That's the goal. The goal is can I take this extra fuel?

And again, we started earlier with talking about good relationship with this. This isn't binging. This isn't eating till it gets sick, but you're gonna eat more. You're gonna eat more and you're gonna eat foods you don't normally eat. Why not take advantage of them

within the context of a reverse diet? Because what a reverse diet is for people who don't know. In essence, it's the slow increasing of calories over time in combination with proper and appropriate strength training. Cause the goal is to build muscle through a reverse diet and speed up the metabolism. So at the end of this process, if you reverse diet properly

and incorporate the holidays in it, you could end up with a faster metabolism afterwards, which will make you getting lean easier, because the challenge then becomes, how do I get lean if I did gain extra body fat after these holidays? The other thing that related to exercise that we do, even though, by the way, notice

that nobody said anything about long bouts of cardio anywhere. We, we love to do this. And I get, I don't know, anywhere I think as little as three of my family members to as many as like seven of them have, have joined me before, but post, uh, eating, I'll just go for a nice like, oh yeah, just a nice stroll, like a nice long stride again, more about connecting, talking, laughing and joining, doing stories nice long stride again, more about connecting, laughing and enjoying, doing stories, reminiscing, but going for a nice long walk after the after eating

a big heavy meal like that. Oh, I feel you feel so much better just by doing that. And it's not a lot to ask. I'm not saying I'm gonna go for a run. I'm not saying I'm gonna go push the way. It's like we can go walk outside the weather in California around this time of year. It's always beautiful too. So it's like the perfect temperature to go out there and California around this time of the year is always beautiful too

So it's like the perfect temperature to go out there and walk for like a nice hour hour and a half I know some families play football. I always play Do you guys that we used to play basketball and but too many injuries I can't imagine my uncles and Yeah, you said basketball used to be a tradition I was gonna say Justin would help place football with you? They don't really. Yeah, it's more just like touch. Yeah, it's a tag at this point now.

Yes, we just throw the ball around and just try to run without like pulling hammies. So it's like, yeah, it's not like super rigorous or anything. It's just for fun. That's how the basketball, or the walking came about for us. It used to be like this crazy, like basketball tournament thing we would paint it in the first.

Yeah, very competitive. And we've now been, we've been walking for the last like four years. So it's been a while since we played. I mean, I would love to do the basketball, but it's like, there's always like one or two of us probably shouldn't, we're not conditioned. So you know what the theme is though?

Cause here, we just talked about the post Thanksgiving workout that I do with my cousins, there's like, you know, and brothers, there's like eight of us. You talked about the basketball football, then you talk about walking, you're talking about hiking. Really what it's evolved into is the real value of the holidays,

which is connecting and bonding with family. So the workout, the walk, the hike, it's not about the crazy workout, it's about being active, but using activity as a vehicle for connecting with your family and your friends. So the workout is not like I'm going to go hit my arms and shoulders and all stuff. We're going to use this as a vehicle to connect and activities a great way to do it. What you'll notice by the way when you go on a walk with family members is the movement and the activity promotes wonderful connection and wonderful conversations. It actually induces good conversations versus just sitting down, feeling lethargic after

you just ate a bunch of stuffing. Also, keep in mind, if you're listening to this and you don't do any of these things, but you're hearing it going like, I would love to do that. You just kind of be the leader in the family. Do not be discouraged just because maybe only one or two decided to join you the first year because that's kind of what it looked like for me. It wasn't like everyone's like, yeah, let's all go work out. Obviously you're going to have some uncle that's sitting on the couch with his foot up,

watching football, drinking his beer and like, fuck that, I ain't going out there. That's going to happen. That's okay. Don't make a big deal about it. Like, take whoever will do that with you. I think make it very easy for the trying gainer. Because again, the main point for me is connecting with my family.

So the nice walk and stroll is easier to convince a handful of people to go do that. And you're not saying, hey guys, we're gonna go walk how fast and do this. No, yeah, one of the cool times. Yeah, we're gonna go to go walk, does anyone want to take a walk for me? And guarantee you'll get a couple of family members. Exactly. We'll connect and do this. No, yeah, one of the two go outside. Yeah, one of the two go walk, does he want one to go walk for me? And I guarantee you'll get a couple of family members.

Exactly. We'll connect and do that. And then what we've seen is over the time, over years, more and more of the family members want to be a part of it and do so. Now, another strategy that you can use appropriately, I'm gonna say appropriately, because this could easily go in the other direction,

is fasting. Fasting can be used properly and appropriately on days where you feast. So what does this mean? This means that Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner is coming, right? Some holiday get together dinner or meal is coming. So why don't I not eat leading up to that?

Like why don't I not eat leading up to that? Now here's where you could go wrong. If it feeds into the restrict binge behavior because it could encourage you to binge even more because now you've given yourself permission. No doubt. And then all of a sudden now it's free range. Right.

But reality what it is is if you fast leading into the meal and the fastest more of the spiritual fast where I'm not eating and I'm thinking about the people I'm gonna be with. I'm thinking about the value of my friends and family. I'm thinking about the people I'm going to be with. I'm thinking about the value of my friends and family. I'm thinking about the meals that I haven't had since last year and I'm going to enjoy them and really save them. What happens with the fast is it heightens your senses, it provides a little bit of clarity.

It actually improves your ability to save meals. If you've ever gone in a fast, even a short fast for 10 hours, you'll find when you eat something, you actually perceive the flavors as more flavorful. So can actually make that meal much more enjoyable. So I like using fasting in this particular way. So we're kind of dancing between general advice and then probably more of the advanced health and fitness person who has a good relationship with exercise and food. And I think that's important to make that clear as we talk about this because I'll share almost exactly what my protocol will look like heading in.

That's not necessarily what I would recommend to my client because maybe they're not there yet because I totally agree that the fasting could be a good strategy, but if you don't have a good relationship, then you just... You can easily abuse. Yeah, you can easily abuse it. So I personally like to go on a pretty hard cut for two weeks. And I, so reverse engine, there's back to like three weeks out. So this would be the end of October.

I will start a pretty hard two week cut where I restrict more calories and I normally would. And then I give myself a nice week and a half or so leading into Thanksgiving, which gets me that gives me that time to slowly control my calories back in, and I don't feel like I'm having to come from a, I would never do a hard cut right into there, because then I even, you know, with my discipline, I know that would promote the overeating. So I want the hard, I want the hard cut,

you know, at least three, four weeks out before the Thanksgiving week, and then I'm slowly introducing calories, leading up a reverse dieting, and then the day of Thanksgiving is actually, I'm gonna try and hold out on eating anything until the main meal. That's exactly what I do.

And then when the main meal happens, I enjoy. I enjoy everything in front of me. And I'm mindful of what I'm doing. I also fast after the main meal. You know what people really screw up? Is they have their big holiday meal with their family and friends, and then they take home a bunch of leftovers or the food is hung around, and then

on their own, by themselves, no more connecting with family, whatever. Now it's just... Gorgeous stuff, it is. Yeah, Gordon and Shovelet. Exactly. So I even will fast afterwards knowing that, well, I just, I over-aid, and also that was the value of that meal, and I'm by myself now, so there's no value now on me sitting here eating all this food, not connecting with them by myself. So then I also do a fast afterwards. So there's definitely a healthy way to use fasting, but it's not the avoidance of calories aspect of it.

It's really going into the meal with kind of clarity, right? And the side effect being, I eat less calories, as a result of it. It's really the side effect. So this, and again, I love saying this part. If you want to, you have to be conscious of this, if you've never done this before. If you go into these holiday meals, consciously saying to yourself, I'm going to savor.

Because think of, picture in your mind right now, what it looks like for somebody to savor a bite of food. Okay, it's not rushed, it's not fast, it's not washing it down with water or a drink, right? It's like, if you ever picture like, it's, it's enjoying the senses, it's enjoying the flavor and the smell and the texture. So it's just kind of slow process. If you are going into with that mindset and saying,

I'm gonna test this out, I heard Sal say this on the podcast, I'm gonna savor the meals that I mean eat in these holidays. If you go into it fasted, it's gonna enhance your ability to savor because it does up-regulate your perception of flavors and tastes.

Anybody knows this, right? You eat a lot of candy all the time. Candy starts to lose its value. You eat a lot of sweets, you eat a lot of anything. Starts to lose its value. If you haven't had it, you eat a lot of anything, starts to lose its value. If you haven't had it in a while, it all of a sudden has this different, you have this different, stronger perception.

And it's really cool experience. Like, when I first did this, and I was savoring the meals, it was like this explosion of experience that I had, that I hadn't experienced before. So fasting can definitely be a part of all of this. Now, are there mechanistic aspects that you can make with your meals? Yeah, you could do that, like I said earlier, eat your protein first, eat your vegetables first, and so on. But I think what

we talked about today is probably the root, right? The most important parts of the bulwark. Yeah. People really, honestly, only get in a lot of trouble when you get out of control. It is very difficult by the way. You can become unaware. By the way, if you were to like try to get quote unquote fat in a day, I mean, you've seen those YouTube challenges. It's hard to eat 10,000 calories a day.

Most people can't even get 10,000 calories. So that's not enough for you to put five pounds of fat on your body. So you actually, when it is, it's the mentality that's leading after all the other holidays. That's right. It's what happens. It's not so much what happened on that day. It's what that next kick starts. Because all of a sudden you go into this like I was restricting hard. I over and doled. I benched like crazy that day. And then I have it the the fuck off attitude for the next week after was all Christmas is in a month. And that's right. And that's where all the day. 100% this is why I like to use fasting afterwards. Because another way that fasting can be

used in a healthy way is it can be a reset. And what I mean by that is if you've ever all of us experienced this right where we eat a particular way and then we find that we crave those foods. There's actually studies on this where people will eat like fast food and then they find that they crave the fast food more and more as the the in the brain change, as the body starts to model itself after these particular types of foods. So fasting after helps prevent exactly that, Adam. It's not Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. It's Thanksgiving plus the weeks leading up to Christmas, Christmas plus the weeks leading

to New Year's. It's that entire period of time when people really screw up. Now, here's a deal. If you want help on some of this in guidance, I know this episode is helping everybody or can help everybody, but if you want more specifics, we have an intuitive nutrition guide that helps with relationship to food.

We have a reverse dieting 101 book which helps you with reverse dieting, explains how to do it. And then we have an intermittent fasting guide which kind of breaks down the different forms of fasting and the different ways to use fasting. All three of those are gonna be 50% off with this episode because we know that although this episode can help people out,

a lot of people need more specifics, they need more reference, they need more help to help them through this process. So again, all three of them are 50% off. You can find them at mapsfitinistproducts.com and the code is healthy for the 50% off. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

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