5 Ways to Have a Mentally Healthy Thanksgiving as a Female Athlete
I spent many of my Thanksgivings extremely nervous of losing traction on my athletic goals and back-tracking on my weight loss. If I could go back, I’d tell my younger self these 5 pieces of advice to actually enjoy the holiday without the fear:
Lose the running stress.
Are you a “turkey trot” runner? A “jingle jogger”? I didn’t even sign up for official turkey trots, but I would conduct my very own around my neighborhood for me, myself, and I. Running is one of the quickest and easiest ways to drop calories, and on a day when carb calories are the biggest challenge, I decided to do my biggest runs. I made many mistakes in doing this.
To start, I would run first thing in the morning. To make matters worse, I did it fasted. Because the rest of the day with family could be unpredictable, morning was the only time I knew for sure that I would have a chance. A rest day? No way! Not on a day that food, food, food would be there everywhere I turned.
Running fasted is hellish on the hormones. Morning is when cortisol levels are naturally the highest to wake us from sleep. While some cortisol is naturally needed, too much of it is a huge roadblock for fertility. Putting the extra physical stress of running on top of not eating when I woke up skyrocketed my cortisol levels to the point that I spent most of the day shaking.
As if this wasn’t bad enough.. I would pour some caffeine on top of that so that I also made this other crucial mistake…
Eat your other meals!
For God’s sake… eat all three meals on Thanksgiving. Don’t bother “conserving your calories” for later in the day. Coffee and tea are not meals. What I thought was helping my body was doing nothing but putting it in more of a state of panic. Most of my childhood was spent with everyone in the house waiting all day to eat Thanksgiving dinner. While we were cleaning for company, we’d be snippy and irritated with each other BECAUSE OUR BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS WEREN’T BEING REGULATED. Eating is not all about calories. Eating is also intaking nutrients to make your body function the way it needs to. Eating regularly keeps your blood sugar level from spiking and dipping. Eating well balanced meals (not just the spoonful of mashed potatoes to see if it needs more salt or licking the bowl of the apple pie filling) keeps our bodies in a place of regulation so that cortisol doesn’t come back and bite us in the butt. Not eating raises cortisol. Overeating can raise cortisol (especially if you’re a fellow health nut who worries about what food is going in to make your new cells). This easily brings me to my next piece of advice—
Don’t worry about how your family members cook.
Truthfully, it is one meal. I used to see every meal as a “make it or break it” opportunity for my health. As Gretchen Rubin so wisely says, “What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.” If Grandma uses margarine instead of real butter, if Aunt Tina likes to drown her green beans in a whole bottle of Ranch, if the eggs put into the casserole weren’t free-range and grass-fed… remember the quote. The fear that you have of the food raises that cortisol level as well. Are you seeing a theme here? Hormones in our body change how we use and process the food that we eat and cortisol can suppress these hormones. A body at true rest and peace will do the best.
Brush off those food comments.
Many hours of the days leading up to Thanksgiving were filled with me coming up with remarks to comments that hadn’t happened yet. I was prepared to tell them what I wanted to eat or what I didn’t want to eat. I had an exit strategy planned if they tried to make me eat seconds when I didn’t want to overeat. My outfit was planned out to avoid them asking if I’ve lost or gained weight. Timers on my watch would be set with little pieces of motivation on how I didn’t have to gorge myself like they wanted me to.
The truth was that I rarely got comments. Most of it was completely made up in my head. The few times any relatives pushed back on what I did or didn’t have on my plate was always a reflection of their own insecurities or a weak conversation starter. Through recovery, I learned that this was my own fear manifesting as a people pleaser who didn’t want to lose control, when food control felt like the only thing I could control in my life. As always, the problem was deeper than maintaining my health; the problem was that food was one of the ways control issues were showing up.
Quit trying to make all of the calories “worth it”—
Have you ever said to yourself, “If these calories can’t all be worth it, I might as well eat anything and everything I want and see!” or “If these foods aren’t exactly what I want, I’m refusing to eat”?
This is a perfectionist tendency! Hard black and white lines for food like this make you overthink and stress. Do I need to eat before I go? What if I can’t stick to my plan perfectly while I’m there? Rachel Hollis talks about this as getting a flat tire because you’ve “slipped from your routine” but then going and slashing all of the other three tires on your car because you’ve stepped away from your rigid plan. This is more commonly known as the Irish Mentality.
Focusing on every piece of food that you put in your mouth at a family gathering to make sure it’s “worth it” will only lead to higher stress. You’ll find that you didn’t listen to what anyone else had to say or the people you’ve waited all year to see because you were hyperaware of the food and your consumption of it. What a way to celebrate…
The best way to counteract this is to be an intuitive eater. This practice means that you pay attention to how hungry and full you are. You don’t eat to fill the silence of an uncomfortable conversation with your cousin. You don’t eat because you’re board or because you’re a giddy drunk. Instead of eating to emotions, you eat to how your body feels. You respect yourself to know when your hunger signals are happening, and you stop when you feel satisfied (not when your sister makes a comment about how full your plate looks).
Stay strong! The holidays are an easy time to feel like throwing in the towel on your health goals or buckling down so hard that you dread every moment off of your routine. My hope is that you spend this holiday taking care of your body with respect while giving yourself the right kind of grace to enjoy yet make gains.
How are your gains? Are you still flourishing as a hormonal female? Are you still cycling in a way that supports your fertility? If you’re looking for a personalized approach to your holidays as a fertile athlete, schedule a free discovery call! I’ll be offering a 10% discount to all coaching packages if you book between now and New Years!
