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TAKING ACTION: ✅ Did you know the week between Christmas and New Year’s is called Twixmas? Let’s have a little fun today—does Twixmas feel disorienting to you? If so, why? We’ve officially entered the strangest week of the year—the week between Christmas and New Year’s. (Did you know this time period has been named Twixmas?) It’s the season when we don’t know what to do, what day of the week it is, and if we should clean up our nutrition now or wait until after the new year. If you know, you know…😉 The next several days are often tricky because we’ve likely been out of our regular routines lately. Our bodies, brains, and cravings might be a bit confused this week. If you’ve been eating more lately, your stomach may growl a little more than usual. If you’ve been eating more sugar lately, your brain will crave it a little more for a few days. If you haven’t been exercising lately, you may have to dig deep into your discipline bag this week. What I want you to take away from this message is this: It’s okay. It’s okay if you’re a little hungrier, your cravings are a little stronger, and you have to rely on stronger discipline this week. If you plan for these things to happen, they won’t surprise you. You’ll expect them and already have an action plan in place. 🙌 When you work through potential scenarios ahead of time, you stand a better chance of being in control 💯: ✅ If you feel hungrier than usual, it’s okay to eat a little earlier. Intermittent fasting isn’t all or nothing, and it’s perfectly acceptable to work your way back into your regular eating schedule. Challenge yourself, but don’t allow yourself to get too hungry. ✅ When a craving hits, choose protein + fiber first. It isn’t the most fun option, but if you choose protein + fiber, and wait 20 minutes, your craving will subside! ✅ When a sugar craving hits all of a sudden, your blood sugar is probably dropping, per holistic nutritionist Elissa Goodman. “To keep your blood sugar balanced, eat a healthy amount of protein and add more high-fiber foods, like beans and legumes, to your diet, along with complex carbs. This will give you the fuel you need without the blood sugar spikes.” If you’re craving chocolate specifically, you likely may be deficient in magnesium. Eat more almonds, flaxseed, edamame, quinoa, or black beans to increase your magnesium.

TAKING ACTION: ✅ Even with it being a holiday week, everyone has at least one small win to celebrate today! Drop yours below. Remember, wins are wins—no matter the size! 🎉 Happy Friday, friends! We made it through Christmas, and today is the day when we celebrate physical and/or mental wins. It’s the day we get to celebrate YOU! 🎉 We’ve talked about it before, but oftentimes in our health journeys, we get stuck in the “all or nothing” mindset. This is applicable concerning our failures and wins, as well. Allow me to give you a couple of examples: 🥳 We do the work it takes (both nutritionally and physically) to get us to where we want to be—and then we stop. We experience success, and then we stop doing the work it took to get us there. The problem is, success is not final. It’s not a destination; therefore, every time we stop, we’re creating another dip in the roller-coaster. Don’t let the holiday season be the reason you stop! 🚫 We stumble or fail along the way, and instead of making the next decision a positive or healthy one, we throw the entire day away. This often leads to more and more missed opportunities. We view the act of failure as crippling, or often fatal, when in reality, it isn’t. Stumbles aren’t fatal. A few holidays aren’t fatal. Staying down after we stumble is. The problem with these different scenarios isn’t within the actions themselves. The problem is in the brain—in your mindset. It’s the “all or nothing”, “black or white” thinking. Neither success nor failure is permanent, so we shouldn’t treat them that way. The result of almost every action is temporary. You can’t stay there because if you do, you won’t grow. When we fail, we should own it, learn from it, apply what we've learned, and move forward. When we win, we should own it, learn from it, CELEBRATE it, and move forward. ➡️🎉

TAKING ACTION: ✅ What are your rest & recovery day plans? What questions do you have as we head into the second week of November? Alright, friends! Let’s wrap it up today, as we rest, recover, and plan for the week ahead! ➡️ Since today is a rest day, can you expand your capacity in another area? An example might be spending 30 minutes creating a meal plan for the week—or prepping some vegetables—or batch cooking protein so you have plenty to grab over the next few days. Speaking of rest days, it’s important to honor what your body needs after working your muscles all week. Take a moment to see what’s coming up in our group this week. Our first monthly November zoom is TONIGHT at 7pm CDT / 8pm EST. I can't wait to see ya'll there!!

TAKING ACTION: ✅ What’s your plan for Thanksgiving? Will you thoroughly enjoy a “memories over macros” day or focus on making the best choices possible? Share with us below! (There’s no right or wrong answer, by the way. 👌) ✅Focus on the fundamentals today and keep it simple—Water, Workout, and Whole Foods! Can you believe we’re already in November? I don’t know about you, but it seems as though time continues to fly by at a faster rate every year—and that’s why taking action now is so important, friends. You’re going to blink and one day, realize that you either took advantage of this life that’s flying by or you didn’t. Will you take action today? If so, a good way to start is by checking off your Action Items above. 💯 Speaking of time flying by, Thanksgiving will be here before we know it! Some of you will choose to indulge that day, and others will keep your decisions aligned with your overall goals. Remember, there’s no right or wrong way to do it. What do you have the capacity for? Either way, it’s always a good idea to plan ahead so you don’t get caught in a situation where you don’t feel like you’re in control. One way to do that is to start looking at some healthy Thanksgiving recipes ahead of time and decide which ones you’d like to prepare this year. 🦃 So, how about I help you out a little? 😉 Every Tuesday this month, I’m going to provide you with some healthier recipe versions of your favorite Thanksgiving dishes! However you choose to navigate the upcoming holiday is your choice—but either way, you’ll be prepared! 👏 Healthy Mashed Potatoes | The Clean Eating Couple