Keto Holiday Survival Guide: Tips, Menu, & Recipe Ideas [E04]

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Welcome to the Ketogasm podcast. I'm your host, nutrition educator Tasha Metcalf. Here to help women like you take charge of your keto eating habits without the self sabotage. Each week, learn simple but effective tips that you can put into practice to transform your body health and well-being. We're talking all things keto, nutrition, habit change, mindset, self-care, and the behind the scenes of what this all looks like in real life. Let's dive in.

Welcome to Episode 4 of The Ketogasm Podcast, Easy keto with Tasha. That's me! Today we're going to talk all about keto and the holidays. [Suspenseful music] But in all seriousness, the holidays don't have to be a scary or stressful time for those doing keto. But I do want to talk about this because it definitely can feel like that to some people. You're going along great, you've got a routine down, and you really feel in charge of your eating habits. But then there are get togethers with family, traveling, office parties, celebrations with friends, and there's always food and drinks that don't align with your way of eating. And we want to be a part of the celebration. We want to experience the same things everyone else does. Or sometimes maybe we start to feel bad and we don't want to inconvenience people by requesting something special. Now most people who are on any diet, this all goes straight out the window this time of year like clockwork. "I'll start again after the holidays..." Famous last words! And it's the same thing every single year. Whether it's the barrage of comfort food seeping in from all sides, emotional eating from being stressed out this time a year, or just wanting to participate in the traditional festivities. Sometimes it can really feel like the holidays are just slowly pulling out a thread until all your efforts and intentions to eat in a way that aligns with your goals has completely unravelled. And I see this happen every single year.

It's been really eye opening for me as a writer. I can see the traffic to my website peter out right around the holidays. It's like a complete ghost town. Nobody visits my website over the holidays! And like clockwork January comes around and business as usual, back to normal. "New year, new me! Oh my god I can't believe I have to start all over again!" So I want to ask you, what are your plans for the holidays? Are you planning to power through and stick with keto thick or thin? Are you going to take a break? Or do you give yourself flexibility for special occasions? What do you think is the right thing to do? I'd argue that there is no right way to navigate the holiday season, but instead you need to focus on figuring out what works for you. But if you know me, then you might predict that I'm going to err on the flexible side of things if you struggle with the holidays. This time of year doesn't have to be all or nothing. You don't have to quit and start again in the new year. And you don't have to be overly rigid and deprive yourself either... desperately pining for the holiday experience and making yourself miserable in the process. Michael Pollan is one of my favorite authors, and he wrote in his book Food Rules that "There's nothing wrong with special occasion foods, as long as every day is not a special occasion. Special occasion foods offer some of the greatest pleasures of life, so we shouldn't deprive ourselves of them. But the sense of occasion needs to be restored." And I whole heartedly agree with this! Is every single day from October 31st to January 1st a special occasion? Of course not. But are there going to be occasions that pop up over the next few months that qualify as a special occasion? For sure. You just need to be honest with yourself and maybe give yourself permission not to be so overly rigid when those times do come. I'm not suggesting you go actively looking for special occasions or excuses to eat in a way that doesn't align with your long term goals, but you intuitively know these are special occasions where do you see them. Are they the holiday cookies that keep showing up in the break room at work? Probably not. Is it the beautiful family gathering with your grandma's famous home cooked dish? That's more like it! But I want you to think about the upcoming weeks and know that you don't have to choose all or nothing during this time of year... or ever really. Of course this is going to look different for everybody. Maybe it means you stick with types of foods you normally enjoy on keto, but decide not to pull out your food tracking app and kitchen scale at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Maybe you keep it super simple all year and decide to try one of the fancy ketofied baking recipes. Or maybe it just means taking a brief intermission for a meal and getting back to your usual groove.

Make yourself a plate and don't bring the leftovers home. You know yourself best, and as always this is ultimately up to you. But I just have to bring this up because it's that time of year again where it becomes really clear that most people doing keto are playing the dieting game. They're either dieting or they aren't. They're either really super strict and obsessive about what they can and can't eat--or it's no holds barred, anything goes. And it's not just an observation I've made. It's backed by hard data. Year after year of analytics from the number of people visiting my site, other low carb sites, and even just searching the web for keto related things. So instead of not working towards your goals or eating in a way that doesn't really align with what makes you feel at your best for several months out of the year. What if you just kept doing your thing? But instead of beating yourself up over pumpkin pie or mashed potatoes you just went on with your life. What if instead of turning that one day of eating outside of your intended dietary pattern into several months of eating massive amounts of special occasion food, where you're squeezing in as much of your "off limit" foods as you can before you "start keto" again... what if you've just built in a little flexibility where there was no starting and stopping?

What if you were just eating? Pretty wild thought right? I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people out there who will disagree with this. And of course the keto gurus who love to tell you how terrible you are if you eat foods that don't fit within their black and white rules. But guess what? I don't care and you shouldn't either. Do what's best for you and don't mind the keto police. They don't even have real badges.

Now for those of you who are like, "Um... nope! Keto is my jam. I feel like a million bucks and no special occasion food is worth feeling like garbage." Awesome! I totally get it and I want you to do what's best for you. Can you just continue to do keto during the holidays? For sure. You don't actually need a mindset shift, maybe you just need some recipe ideas. Now one of the coolest things about keto becoming so popular is that there's no shortage of recipes. Seriously any type of high carb dish that you can dream up, there is almost guaranteed to be a keto version of it floating around on the web somewhere. Just Google it, head to Pinterest, Facebook groups, they're all over the place. So if you're hosting, you could technically pull off a 100 percent keto event if you really wanted to do that. Now if you're not the host, I'd encourage you to bring along a keto compatible dish (or two or three) of your own. If you don't feel comfortable making special requests.

And this isn't something that you have to even make a big deal about. You don't need to announce that it's "keto" to everyone. Especially if you're not comfortable talking about your eating habits with other people. But maybe you have friends and family that are also doing keto. It really wouldn't surprise me if you had a family member that would be super stoked that you came fully prepared with delicious keto dishes. My sister has always been super thoughtful about this around the holidays and she always comes through with amazing keto appetizers and side dishes. She's seriously the best sister in the world and it makes me so happy. But maybe you could be the thoughtful person that brings something. If you know someone's been trying to watch their carbs or struggling to survive the holidays without feeling guilty about their food choices, imagine how great they would feel if you showed up with food that they could actually eat. Now I'm not going to bore you by listing off a bunch of food dishes, but I am going to hook you up with a curated list of keto friendly holiday recipes in the show notes that ketogasm dot com. So be sure to check those out if you need a little inspiration in the kitchen.

If you're just getting started with keto, want to keep it keto during the holidays, but still trying to figure out what foods actually support ketosis, I do have a few tips for you.

High protein foods like any meat or egg based dishes are typically low in carbs and highly satiating. So not only will they support ketosis they'll also help to fill you up quite a bit. Perhaps leaving a little bit less room for the higher carb side dishes. Sweet and starchy dishes made with sugary, starchy fruits and veggies, breads, etc. Those are all higher in carbs than would generally support ketosis, OK? So instead, opt for non-starchy veggie side dishes like the green beans and salads. Sugary desserts would also fall into the high carb category to limit for keto.

There is a really good chance you have keto compatible foods present at your holiday meals already. So if you don't plan to bring anything special, you usually can't go wrong with protein and veggies. That's actually true every day, not just the holidays. Protein and veggies are keto done simple.

And for those of you who are listening to this and just feel like things aren't working out maybe things aren't going as planned or you're not feeling good about how you've been eating over the holidays. This is just a friendly reminder: It's not what you eat between Christmas and New Year's, It's what you eat between New Year's and Christmas. Just take it one day at a time. There is no better time than the present to start. But if you're waiting until the holiday pressure is off your plate, get started with carb restriction and take it one thing at a time.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of The Ketogasm Podcast. You are awesome. I really hope the show has added value to your keto journey. Making big changes to your eating habits can be a little tricky. But if you're taking the time to listen and learn about keto, you're well on your way. You got this. Be sure to visit ketogasm dot com for the show notes with full transcripts, references, and resources to help you out. Including a totally free course called Hello Keto. It's helped over seventy five thousand people start keto with confidence. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

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