108. How to Build Your Holiday Plate Without the Guilt (or the Bloat)

It’s the season of mashed potatoes, pie, and stretchy pants—but what if you could enjoy all your favorite holiday foods without the crash or the guilt? In this episode, Dr. Stacy shares her practical, no-nonsense guide to building a balanced holiday plate that keeps your energy steady and your mindset strong.

You’ll learn how to beat the “I’ll start in January” cycle, calm the scarcity mindset that leads to overeating, and make simple food swaps that actually taste amazing. Plus, she shares her favorite leftover strategy for stress-free meals later (yes, turkey + roasted veggie soup is a thing!).

In this episode, you’ll discover:
✨ Why holiday meals trigger the “last chance” or scarcity mindset
🍗 The power of starting with protein (especially if you’re on a GLP-1)
🥦 How to add real color and fiber to balance your plate
🥔 Why choosing what you love most leads to better satisfaction
🧁 Smart dessert strategies that let you enjoy without overdoing it
🥡 How to pack “balanced freezer plates” and turn leftovers into healthy future meals

Holidays are meant for joy, not guilt. Build your plate with intention, enjoy every bite, and wake up feeling proud—not puffy.

Free 2-Pound Plan Call!
Want to jump start your weight loss? Schedule a free call where Dr. Stacy Heimburger will work with you to create a personalized plan to lose 2 pounds in one week, factoring in your unique circumstances, challenges, and aspirations. Schedule now! www.sugarfreemd.com/2pound

This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I want to talk to you about building a holiday plate, okay? The holidays are coming up, Thanksgiving is a big one, but that's not the only one. We also have lots of parties and everything else. So I want to talk to you about how we can make that work for us. So.

Maybe before what we did at Thanksgiving dinner, we sort of been looking forward to it all week. We've been planning it. We've been like on the group text with our family, like what is everyone bringing? And the plate is just like the tables covered with all of our favorite things. And we sit down, we start eating. And before we know it, we just like all of sudden get hit with that like, my gosh, I've eaten way too much, right? So.

maybe we can do a different this year. And that's what I've been thinking about. And so I wanted to talk to you a little bit about it today. We don't have to overstuff ourselves on Thanksgiving. And then we don't have to eat all the leftovers on Friday and Saturday and Sunday. And all of a sudden one festive meal is turned into like, I'll worry about that on Monday. And then on Monday, because we've eaten all that stuff, we're really, really hungry.

And then it's like, well, it's already the end of November, it's already December, like I have all these parties, I'll just wait and start in January. So if you've noticed a theme over the last few episodes, we're not waiting till January.

So let's talk about why we get so excited about our holiday meal and sort of start from the pre, like the brain, and then work all the way through to tactics, okay?

The psychology of our Thanksgiving meal has a lot of components, right? It's multifactorial. It's what we like to say in medicine. So it's not just the excitement and like the memories and the smells that sort of get our dopamine going, right? The anticipation of it. There's this huge dopamine response that kind of triggers ghrelin, if you remember, that's our hungry hormone, okay? So not only...

Do we have all of that working? But there's this little part of us that is like, this is the only time of year I get this, right? So if you remember, if you've listened for a while, I've talked about this with like the Girl Scout cookies, this scarcity idea. This is the only time I get this food. And then we have this wired response in our brain about all the comfortable things about family and Thanksgiving. And we've tied it directly to the food.

So our brain can't differentiate, is it the food that's giving me all these warm, cozy feelings? Is it the family? Is it the experience? Is it being with everyone? Is it sort of coming together that's giving me all of those things? So we have this nostalgia, this super connection with food, a little bit of scarcity, and then on the day, maybe a little bit of stress or a little bit of...

eating for the feelings, right, that starts to happen and our brain just goes nuts, right? So we've got the scarcity mindset and the nostalgia and like maybe a little bit of stress. And then these wired thoughts, beliefs, not only that only I'm only going to get this once, right? But I don't want to hurt so-and-so's feelings. She makes this and even though it's not really on my protocol, I don't want to hurt her feelings.

It's just today I'll be good tomorrow. Okay, I'm sure you can, your brain is telling you all the other things that it normally says to itself to sort of justify like let's just go face down in our food today and we'll worry about tomorrow's problems tomorrow.

What I want to talk to you about is maybe some other ways we can approach this. So as far as the scarcity, I know you've heard me say this, there is nothing that's being made at Thanksgiving that we can't make in December, January, February, March, any other time of the year. This is not our last supper.

As a matter of fact, most of the time, it's the first of many of the exact same meal for the next three or four days. So anytime your brain during the day or getting prepared or whatever gives you this idea of like, I'm never going to have this again, I want you to catch that thought. And if that's the only thing you do this year, that's the only change you can make is hearing that and recognizing it, like,

That is huge and huge congratulations. Because it's a really big part. Don't underestimate how important it is to be able to start to hear those things. So let's talk strategy tactics. You know, I love a good tactic. So what I want to say is start with protein. Start with protein. If you're on a GLP-1, you know this is even twice as important. But if you're not, protein is going to help

regulate your blood sugar. Proteins and healthy fats can counteract some of the spike that we can see when we eat really simple carbs or processed food. So before we dive into the stuffing, maybe we have a piece of turkey first. If you're making that stuffing, can we make that with like bone broth that's got more protein in it? So are there any simple swaps to add a little more protein? Can we, when we sit down,

eat our protein first. When we start with those things, the protein, you kind of set up this balanced energy, this balanced sugar response that is going to make you feel much better than the traditional like, eat all the high carb appetizers and then eat all the stuffing and then eat the dessert and then we crash afterwards. Right, we've sent our blood sugar up on this like incredible spike and then it comes crashing back down.

So if we can keep our insulin a little bit more stable, that means keeping our blood sugar a little bit more stable. That means really starting with protein that can help us not feel so crummy later in the day.

Add color.

Sometimes I have chat GPT help me. Like I give it an outline and it helps me a little bit. And sometimes I just love what it says. So on my notes, it says, add color, not for Instagram, but for balance. Add color to our plate. And what that means is that we want to add veggies. And I'm not talking about like marshmallows on the sweet potatoes with all the sugar and all the butter. I mean like real vegetables. So whether that be a salad, whether that be roasted veggies.

And if you're sitting there thinking like, Stacey, we don't have any of those things, then let's make those things, right? We can roast some Brussels sprouts and make them crispy and delicious. We can roast some carrots. can make a beautiful salad with roasted pumpkin and pomegranate seeds. Okay, there's lots of things we can do to add color. Even if we weren't asked to bring a dish, you know I've said this before.

think just recently in the tailgate episode, we can always bring something that fits on our protocol. And if nobody else eats it, that's fine too. Okay? So add color in whatever way that you can. And we can ask whoever's hosting or whoever makes most of the meals to do this or to make some simple swaps or reduce sugar a little bit. And they can say yes or no. And if they say no, that's okay. We can make our own. Okay?

So when we fill up on color, it's not just about the color. It's about that nutrients and fiber. And if we've cooked it with a healthy fat, like olive oil or something, right? Like that all helps with that blood sugar component that I'm talking about. It helps our body handle the rest of the meal. So if you want to think about it that way, like turkey and salad will help me and my body be able to process the pumpkin pie that I really want later. Okay, so maybe a little trade-off.

Thought switch there. Just make the veggies sort of crave worthy. Don't steam them into sadness or like boil them till they die and are mush, okay? Let's make them taste good. I always like a flavored olive oil. Warning, I did try and use ghost pepper oil once. It ruined the entire batch of veggies I was making. So a little bit of spice can go a long way here.

just if you don't like a lot of spice, really be careful with what you're using. The next thing I want to do is talk about carbs, right? So we've done protein, we've done veggies, and now we're like, gotta think about the carbs, because there's going to be a lot of them, and we know this, so it's not going to be a surprise. You should have the carbs, right? I'm not telling you to deprive yourself. I just want you to maybe try this tactic, where we pause and ask ourselves,

Which one do I love so much or which couple do I love so much that I am willing to slow down and really savor it? That's the one or two or even three that we want to focus on and then maybe let the rest go. Okay, again, this isn't about depriving, it's about picking the best. So if we love grandma's cornbread stuffing, maybe we skip the rolls.

If we love the mashed potatoes, maybe we skipped, a casserole or something. Okay, if we love dessert, maybe we skip a lot of the carbs at the main meal and we prep our body with our protein and veggies for dessert later. We don't have to have it all today. We can make it anytime and we could always make ourselves a plate for tomorrow. Okay, I want to.

just interject about leftovers for one second here.

If we are making all the food and it's at our house, I want you to get takeaway containers. And when you are starting to wrap up and put food away, make portions, like single or double-sized portions of all the things, either to send home with people or even to put in your freezer for a night that you don't want to cook. So instead of taking like the big turkey and putting the big turkey in the fridge, like keep carving it and make a little individual

containers. So for yours, you can do like veggies, turkey, and whatever your favorite carb is. And then it's kind of pre-portioned. This is going to help us on the Friday afterwards when we all love to eat leftovers. It's definitely going to help us on a night that we're stressed and don't want to eat, like don't want to cook. It'll be there for us. We can even take it to lunch. So it helps in our food prep.

And it really helps everyone else, right? Other people want to maybe have those leftovers too. So sending some home in like pre-packaged containers is just really a great thing. And this time of year, they have so many like really cute single serve takeaway containers getting ready for the holidays just for this kind of reason. I think it might actually be for Christmas cookies, but we're going to use it for Thanksgiving leftovers. So let's talk about what happens while we're eating.

When we are sitting down and we're eating, and let's say everyone has been lovely and we're not stressed at all, we're still going to be distracted, okay? And when we're distracted, we can eat like 20 to 40 % more. There was a study, I don't have the exact ones, but we eat more when we are distracted. So just be mindful of that. So it's kind of even more reason, I think, to really load your plate with veggies and protein.

and maybe make that container to take your favorite things home for later when it's less distracting so that we can really enjoy and savor our favorite things.

The other thing is we don't need to eat like it's a race, okay? No one's taking our food from us. I hope no one's taking your food from you. No one's taking my food from me. I know that for sure. So I am fine with just taking it slow and trying to not be distracted. Not always easy to not be distracted, but we're going to work real hard on it this year, okay? And then the only other thing that I want to say about this is that

But let's talk about dessert real quick. Then I'll say my last thing. Dessert. This is not a moment for guilt. It is a moment for choice. So I want you to choose your favorite dessert and have some of that. And if they're all your favorite, like maybe we portion some for later. I remember coming to the realization that as much as I love my aunt's cookies, I never felt satisfied. So one cookie, 10 cookies didn't change anything in my body.

And 10 cookies is like a full day's meal, right? So I knew that I would not feel satisfied no matter how many cookies I had. That's what I finally figured out for myself, probably at the age of like 42. So I decided that I would have the other desserts instead in a small little piece. So there's three pies and I decided I love pie. I would have three like...

my three little pieces would equal one half piece of pie. And then I would eat it very slowly and try not to be distracted. So we can sample like one to two, three bites of each of our favorites, enough to taste. We can savor. We can pick one dessert that we really, really love, sit down and enjoy every single bite, try not to be distracted. Or we can share, right? Like take one bite, like.

bring a bunch of spoons, bring a bunch of forks, share with somebody, that way they kind of take it away for you. And we can get the flavor and the memory without the heaviness.

Quick alcohol, just like mention. I love starting with a non-alcoholic drink. We can put it in a fancy glass. No one will know. We can have that club soda with a lime in a fancy glass. Not one person at that party is going to know that you're not drinking an alcoholic drink. So if you're worried about what other people think, that is an option. If you're not worried, just like ask yourself, how much do I really want this? And intermix with water.

We've talked about this before. I just want you to be cautious with your alcohol. But there's great mocktail ideas for this time of year, like cranberry juice with lime, maybe a little club soda, a little pomegranate juice in there would be fun. You can still feel social and celebratory without being hung over the next day. Because hangovers and lack of sleep, just going to mess up your eating for the next couple of days.

So I want you to kind of zoom out this holiday season and make a plan ahead of time and just remember scarcity is going to be in there. And so flipping the switch, like making that mindset shift to satisfaction of like what's really the most important, what's going to make me like feel really good tomorrow can really be helpful. And always, always when we're in these social situations trying to disassociate food from fun.

So when we're sitting there and we're like, everyone's talking and you've got your mocktail and like your heart's feeling full, make your brain recognize it and be like, see, like I love everyone here. It's not about the food. It's not about the alcohol and start to help your brain pull those things apart. It's just going to help with everything. All right, so that's sort of how to build your holiday plate with confidence. I hope this has been helpful and I will see you next week. All right, everybody.