Podcast: Navigating the Holidays: A Wellness-Focused Approach

Introduction to Podcast

Are you dreading the holiday season, worried about derailing your health goals? Stop right there! Dr. Orlena is here to revolutionize how you think about wellness during the festive period.

In this game-changing episode, you'll discover a refreshing approach that goes far beyond traditional diet advice. We're talking about:
- Transforming your mindset from weight obsession to holistic wellness
- Giving yourself permission to enjoy the holidays without guilt
- Practical, science-backed strategies to maintain your health while still having fun

Whether you're looking to manage your blood sugar, create delicious healthy alternatives to traditional treats, or learn how to set boundaries during family gatherings, this episode is your ultimate guide to a balanced, joyful holiday season.

Get ready to enjoy the holidays like never before - wellness and enjoyment can absolutely coexist!

Transcription of Podcast

Dr Orlena (00:02.666)
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Fit and Fabulous with me, Dr. Orlena I hope that you are feeling amazing today. I am busy supping on my hibiscus and fruits of the forest tea. It is quite delicious and high in antioxidants. So thank you, Lidl, for my cup of delicious healthy tea. Okay, today I wanna talk about the holidays.

The holidays are coming up. How has that happened? As I record this, it's a week before it goes live, but the holidays are just around the corner. And this always springs up on me in Spain. In Spain, the sky is nice and blue and the weather isn't freezing. And I get to December the 24th and think, my goodness, it's Christmas tomorrow. But this week, this year, I feel more prepared.

So I want to talk a little bit about how you can navigate the holidays and get that balance right of healthy living and enjoying yourself. Here's my biggest tip for you. Forget about losing weight and let's talk about gaining wellness. And this is a really big mindset shift that when you can start thinking about your long-term health as opposed to how much weight

are you losing or not losing, then suddenly it becomes so much easier to make these changes. And you will notice as well that if weight is what you want to do, if you want to lose weight, then that is just a happy consequence. And I know from working with clients that this time is a really tricky time. I'll give you a couple of stories. I'll give you a story of Sarah who...

always found that in the holidays, whether it was Thanksgiving or Christmas, she would put on weight. And one of the things that we've really worked on is changing the shift to healthy eating and really nailing turning to food for comfort. And that includes social eating as well. And I know social eating is really difficult, particularly at times like this, such that when it's a holiday and I always say, how are things going? She's like, it's great. And I didn't put on weight. That's a mark of success is that, you

Dr Orlena (02:13.064)
or a mark of difference, I should say, from what life used to be like before.

Another lady who I've worked with is called Kate and she really found holidays very stressful being with families and particularly young kids and finding it just so difficult with expectations from family and friends and juggling all the things. And a part of balancing the holidays isn't necessarily about eating and exercising and things like that. It's more about setting boundaries for yourself. And so actually now she really looks forward

to spending time with her family and holidays and has the tools to be able to manage that situation. So a few things to think about. The first tip I want to tell you is that you can choose what you want to do. So one of the things that I always talk to people about when they're faced with whatever event it is, there are basically three strategies that you have.

of moving forwards. Now, the first strategy could just be, I am going to stick rigidly to whatever my new system is. And if you're on a diet, that kind of looks like staying on a diet. And quite often that involves feeling like you're depriving yourself. The second is the other side of the story and saying, do you know what, I'm gonna totally indulge. If something is offered to me, I am just going to...

eat it or drink it. Now, one of the things that I would say about that is there's a really fabulous quote which goes like this, it's not important what you eat between Christmas and New Year's, it's important what you eat between New Year's and Christmas. So if you just take out that week and go, do you know what, I'm gonna totally overindulge, but then I'm gonna get back to nourishing myself and looking after myself in the New Year, then that is a possibility. Now the third.

Dr Orlena (04:12.37)
section, the third option really is to get a halfway house and think, do you know what, I'm going to indulge a little bit, but I'm not going to totally overindulge. Now, the question of which one you plan and which one you do are two different things. So you might plan one and you might do a different thing, but really whichever way you go, there's no right or wrong answer here. And part of it is about

self-awareness and how you work. So I have worked with clients who've said, I'm to do number one because I know it's actually going to be easier for me. And the minute I eat a mouthful of sugar, I just want all the sugar, or it could be alcohol. could be, do you know what? The minute I've had one drink, I just want to have 10 drinks. And part of that is where you are in your journey. So if you have just started your health and wellness journey and sugar still has a huge, great hold over you, you're going to find it more difficult. If you're further along in your journey and you're like, you know,

actually I can take it or leave it, I can enjoy some sugar if I want to, but you know, I'm also perfectly happy not eating the sugar, then you're gonna find it easier to say, yeah, I'm gonna have a little bit and then I'm not gonna overdo it totally, totally. So it does kind of depend on your self-awareness and knowing yourself a little bit.

So those in general are your options. Now you might decide that you're gonna go with option one and you end up going with either option two or number three. Now here's the trick. Stop beating yourself up about it. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. It is what I call a learning, excuse me, a golden learning opportunity.

If you use your behaviour as a way of understanding yourself, it is always a golden learning opportunity. You learn something about yourself. But the danger is beating yourself up and blaming yourself and saying, my goodness, I failed.

Dr Orlena (06:10.25)
That, my friend, is just what I call negative brain, as opposed to, hey, what did I learn about this? Think of it as being someone else, or think of yourself as being an alien and watching yourself and thinking, that's interesting. That's what happens in this situation. But what happens to ourselves is we muddle up our emotions and we take an action, and then we start judging our actions, and then we start beating ourselves up on those actions, and then we feel even worse. You know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, that like, I said I was never gonna eat chocolate. I ate some chocolate, therefore I am bad and I failed and I might as well eat the whole chocolate bar.

That is flawed logic and it doesn't help. So here's another way of thinking. I said I wasn't going to eat chocolate, but I did eat chocolate. Well, that's really interesting. Let's have a look at what happened, what circumstances was I in such that I ate chocolate. And now you have learned something about yourself. And it might be just one of those things where you think, you know what, I ate chocolate, no big deal, and let it go. Or it might be, hey, do you know what? That is recurring behavior that I'm seeing over and over again. And now I can make changes.

such that I don't do that all the time. So my big message to you is nothing is forbidden in moderation. You get to choose. This is about your life and how you want to enjoy the Christmas holidays. But here are some other tips as well. So you want your cake and to lose weight.

And the answer is, yes, you can do that. And there's lots of different ways of doing that. One of the ways that I really like is creating healthy options. So if we look at, for example, chocolate cake, shop bought chocolate cake, it is made of flour, so much sugar, so much sugar in a different form. So fructus syrup and a different name. Like if you look at the ingredients, it's probably got sugar in there five different times, not to mention emulsifiers. So highly processed foods, we're looking at you.

Dr Orlena (08:12.512)
You aren't great for us. Now, if you take a standard cake that you have made at home, which is gonna have flour and sugar and butter and cream, okay, that's not exactly healthy for you. It's not nourishing your body in terms of giving your body good nutrients, but it's not ultra processed foods. So it gets a tick from that. It's like a step.

down in terms of badness or up in terms of goodness. But then you can actually take it a step further. And this is one of the favourite things that I like doing is working out how to create your favourite foods.

in more healthy way. for example, yesterday I made a cake. It is what I call mummy's yummy chocolate cake and it has aubergine in it or eggplant, which is basically carbohydrates, but it's carbohydrates and in that you've got some fiber and you've got some antioxidants and some other things. So you've got eggplant and

cooked apple, which I cook up and then whiz up and I added, what did I add? Some almond flour, some cocoa, I added a couple of eggs, because I wanted to put it in the oven, and some vanilla. And.

was surprisingly delicious. I was, and some tahini. And like, I don't have a recipe for these things. I kind of make these things up. Last week I did the same, but without the eggs. And instead of putting it in the oven, I put it in the freezer and it becomes like a freezer cake. Now it's obviously, what keeps it together is the ice. And so it's a bit more like pudding than cake.

Dr Orlena (09:47.828)
when I put it in the oven, if I wanted to make it more like cake, I could have added more of the flour, I could have added some oats, but you you need something and more of a binding, which would have been the eggs. And I only put two eggs in it. So it was kind of pudding like as opposed to cake like. If I'd added more eggs, it would have been more cake like. So that's a really good example of, do you know what? This is healthy food and it tastes sweet, but really,

It's like eating cooked aubergines and cooked apples, and that's it. Now, you might argue, okay, but you're gonna get more nutrients from your fresh apples because you probably got no vitamin C in that because you've cooked it all out. Yeah, okay, but you know, life and balance. So that is an option. Go for healthy options.

Okay, what else do I have on my list of tips to tell you? Okay, go for a walk and do some activities. We think about Christmas and that holiday period as being all about eating and drinking and eating and drinking and spending time with our families and that's an amazing thing to do. But I put it to you that you can go out and do some active things with your families, even if you have young kids or...

elderly people don't make the mistake I made I took my mum on a coastal walk and I forgot that actually part of the steps had been broken so my poor mum who is in her late 70s had to climb up all these boulders they fix the steps now so actually she'd probably manage that walk but you know make sure you pick a walk that is suitable for everybody but getting out in the fresh air and enjoying doing different things one of the things that I really love doing actually is roller skating now you might be thinking my goodness I don't know how to roller skate if you have a

A really good way of learning to roller skate is pushing the buggy because it gives you bit of balance and it helps you do that. Otherwise, make sure you've got appropriate, you know, those things, those elbow pads and things like that so that if you do fall over, you don't hurt yourself. But think out of the box, do different things. When I grew up in Devon, we used to go to Exmoor Christmas and we would walk along the coast. It was amazing. Just...

Dr Orlena (11:57.236)
Treat it as a treat. It's something different to get out and normally we're working the whole time and we don't have time to go out and enjoy our countryside. Okay, going for a walk, doing some activities. Here's another thing, thinking about the order in which you eat things. So this is really thinking about your glucose spikes and healthy eating isn't just about glucose.

Understanding glucose is important. We don't want our sugars to be constantly spiked, particularly if you are worried about...

Type two diabetes, if you're beginning to put on a little bit of what they call Menno belly or having, you know, truncal obesity, you probably want to be having a think about your sugars and how your insulin is working. But it's not everything, it's a piece of the puzzle. So for example, the other aspect that you really want to think about is how much saturated fat you're eating.

But if we look specifically at sugars, there are things that we can do to reduce our sugar spikes. And we don't want sugar spikes because sugar spikes are basically damaging our body. If you think about...

sugar as fuel, think about it as diesel or petrol. And we want the diesel or petrol inside our petrol tank and inside our engine. What we don't want is it flooding over and being in our streets and our car because that's just going to damage our lovely town, our lovely car. And it's the same in your body. We need fuel. Unless you are totally doing a ketogenic diet and in ketosis, then you are using glucose as your

Dr Orlena (13:40.016)
main energy fuel and we want that fuel particularly if you're active and running around we need that fuel to fuel us to do all of these amazing things but where we want it is in our cells in our muscles giving us that energy in our cells doing all the things that we need to do and where we don't want it is in our blood sugar and our bloodstream which basically it damages things that it comes into contact with and that is why people with diabetes get such nasty complications of

diabetes because that high blood sugar is basically damaging all parts of their body. So what can you do to minimize your sugar levels over the holidays? Well number one

you can think about everything that you eat. So if you're eating a plant-based diet and thinking about getting your carbohydrates from plants rather than refined sugar, you are automatically reducing your spikes. But beyond that, even if you want to keep the menu exactly the same, there are certain things you can do. Number one, you can drink vinegar. Now you can either drink vinegar as I like to drink a glass of vinegar and just with some water and a shot of vinegar,

It's actually surprisingly tasty. And if you drink that around half an hour before your main meal, it's gonna help you reduce your blood sugar. How does it do this? Well, there's a couple of different ways that it does this, but one is to help get that sugar into your muscles. So out of your bloodstream and into your muscles. Now you don't have to drink vinegar. side note, I would say avoid balsamic vinegar, which is much higher in sugar than other vinegars. Personally, I like apple vinegar because it tastes nice.

You don't have to have it as a drink. You could have it as a salad dressing. You could put it on your vegetables. You could do whatever. You can eat it as part of your food. So my daughter loves to have radishes, pink radishes, put some vinegar on it. It's the same thing. She's still drinking vinegar.

Dr Orlena (15:37.054)
Now, what else can you do? Essentially, if you eat your highest sugar, so your dessert, your refined carbohydrate stroke sugar thing at the end of your meal, then you are gonna reduce the spike. So anything that you eat before it, and by anything, I mean protein or fat or fiber. Any of those things are A, gonna help you feel more full up, but B, they are also going to help you reduce that spike by basically getting into your stomach first and then

slowing the absorption of the sugar. Whereas if you do it the other way around and you eat the high sugar things first, so thinking about crisps, potato chips, if you eat them first, then they're gonna hit your stomach and go straight into your bloodstream, as opposed to hitting a full stomach. So think about eating those things last and thinking about eating...

fiber, protein and fat first. So for example, you could have a veggie starter like they do often in Europe, in France typically, and in Spain, you'll have either a salad or a soup or something to start off your meal. So that if you're having a starchy meal, you have slowed the absorption.

What else can you do? You can go for a walk afterwards. It doesn't have to be a walk movement, but there's a study that shows that just two minutes of walking after a meal helps you reduce your blood sugar levels. How does it do that? By getting that blood, sorry, the sugar into your muscles again, out of your blood and into your muscles. So you can do a two minute walk. You can do a 10 minute walk if you want to. It doesn't have to be just two minutes. You don't want to totally overdo it. It's not like you want to go and go for a huge, great, you know, run where you really get your heart rate.

You're just gonna be sick if you do that, but a little bit of movement. One thing that I really like doing with my daughter is putting on a Just Dance video and doing a little bit of dancing, or even just when we're washing up, you we like to have a Disney soundtrack. Well, let me caveat that. My younger kids like the Disney soundtrack. My older children like far more sophisticated music. So getting some movement in. Okay, and lastly.

Dr Orlena (17:39.434)
boundaries. I talked about my client Kate and setting up boundaries, but it's okay for you to put yourself first.

Like here's a question for you between work, family and life, where does your wellness come in? You are busy, you're doing so many of these things and the same thing happens over the holidays, you put everything and everybody else first. And at some stage you need to say, do you know what, actually I can take a break, I can go and do whatever it is for me that I want to do. So it could be going for a walk, it could be going and just sitting in your room and reading a book or going in your room and doing some meditation.

whatever it is that gives you energy. You need to know what gives you energy and you need to make sure that you're doing some of that so that you've got that energy to give to everybody else. And practicing saying no to people. If it's too much, if you think actually, you know what, I really don't want to do this, then just say, I don't want to do this. I mean, you can say it in whatever words you want. You don't have to be really blunt. No, I don't want to spend any time with you, but...

over scheduling yourself and putting too much on your plate really doesn't help. I remember when I was a student or after I stopped being a student and all my friends used to live in London and I'd go up for the weekend and I would try and see all of my friends who lived in London and it just became ridiculous. I was running from one appointment to another appointment. It was almost like I was just spending my weekend traveling around London so I could go and say hello to somebody and then jumping back on the tube to go and say hello to somebody else until I learned, do you know what? I can't see

that many people in a weekend. And I really learned to prioritize, okay, I'm staying with my sister, I'm gonna spend two quality days with my sister. And if I get to see one other person, fabulous. Now, I don't live anywhere near London and I haven't been to London for years and years and years. It doesn't matter where you're going, that still applies. Yes, we want to do so many things, but really thinking about how much can I fit in, particularly if you have young kids, because young kids always make everything take twice as long.

Dr Orlena (19:47.88)
and just going, okay, how am I going to enjoy this? Okay, so I think that I have covered nothing is forbidden in moderation. Give yourself permission to enjoy it if that's what you want, but really focus on your wellness and your health rather than losing weight.

Two, think about healthy options. Go fun creating healthy options. One thing that I do every year is to create healthy mince pies. Now, I live in Spain. We can't buy mince pies like we can in the UK. And how I make mince pies is like a fresh mince pie. So I put grated apples and carrots and raisins. I don't put any refined sugar in it, but obviously it has sugar in it because raisins are high in sugar. But it's a treat and it's much different from if I was buying...

ultra processed mince pies from the UK. But I make it fun. It's something fun that I enjoy doing. Okay, healthy options, getting some movement in.

thinking about your sugar absorption and things that you can do. So vinegar, the order in which you eat foods and also getting some movement in. By the way, I have a handout which is seven tips to reduce your glucose spike. And I will leave a link for that in the show notes. So if you want that, let me know and I will show you how to sign up for that. And lastly, setting boundaries and really thinking about prioritizing yourself and taking care of your energy and thinking about you and your wellness. So have a wonderful,

Wonderful Christmas and I will see you in 2025. Eek.