Reasons Not to Wait Until the New Year to Take Care
of Yourself
By Christy Maloney, RD, LDN, CEDS-S
Transcript:
Hi everybody, I’m Christie Maloney. I’m a registered dietitian in Charlotte, North Carolina. My practice Enhanced Nutrition Associates focuses on helping clients heal eating disorders, heal disordered eating relationship with food, and then we practice medical nutrition therapy from a weight neutral perspective. My background is having a degree in psychology, a degree in nutrition. I’ve been a dietitian for 11 years now and I started my practice almost five years ago.
So I am here today to talk to you more about why we are not waiting until January to take care of ourselves. Reason number one, we are not waiting until January 1 to start that diet because we are not dieting! We are not going to do it! We’re done with diets. What we know is that 97% of people that go on a very specific weight loss diet will gain that weight back within a few years. 97%. So that tells us that dieting is really ineffective.
What can happen is if we think “I’m gonna go on that diet in January,” it leads us to not take care of ourselves right now because there’s kind of like, “Oh, I’ll deal with it later” effect. What we want to do in the right here, in the right now, is take good care of ourselves and not from dieting, because dieting tends to actually harm mental and physical health.
We we want to do things that nourish us now and keep us well now, but we will get to exactly what some of those steps might be.
When you look at pictures from this holiday season, you want to think about how much fun you had, how relaxed you are, how engaged and participatory you are, not stressed out and rundown and anxious.
Number two, the taking care of yourself. When we think about taking care of ourselves, not from a nutrition perspective, we’ll get to that, but we want to think about doing things that just enhance the holidays.
We want to not always be the one in the kitchen doing a million things. We don’t want to be the one that’s cleaning up and doing laundry while everybody else is chillin’ and talking and having a good time. We want to take that time. We want to know that the dishes will wait. We want to know that if every single piece of laundry is not done by Sunday night, like we’re good, it’s fine. In doing so, and giving yourself that rest, you’re going to feel your mental and physical best. Which is key, right?
Because when you think back on holiday seasons, and you look at pictures, you don’t want to look at your picture from Christmas or Hanukkah 2022 and think about how exhausted you were right? Pictures transport you back to like how you felt in that moment. When you look at pictures from this holiday season, you want to think about how much fun you had, how relaxed you are, how engaged and participatory you are, not stressed out and rundown and anxious.
So we want to have a good time, the ways that we are going to take care of ourselves…so we’re going to give ourselves a break, and we’re going to just enjoy our time together to be our mental and physical best.
How do we want to take care of ourselves? First, we want to eat at least three meals and snacks throughout the day. We want a mix of carbs, proteins, carbs, proteins, fats, and produce. Those are the things that are going to keep us full. They’re going to keep us satisfied. They’re going to give us what we need. They give us energy. They make our brains and our our bodies just work optimally. So that’s what we want to do. No foods are off limits. We want a balance of all things.
We want to stay hydrated. I like a glass of red wine just as much as the next girl. But if we let ourselves get too dehydrated, we will become sluggish and tired. So we want to avoid that.
We want to get some joyful movement in. It can be anything. It can be walking through the neighborhood to look at the Christmas lights, it can be putting the Christmas tree up like whatever, just enjoy yourself move around a little bit.
You want to find some alone time. You don’t want to give every waking hour and minute to everybody else. My daughter knows I take a 10 minute nervous system reset, take that. And you might just want to find a couch and a movie. Like maybe that’s what you need. Maybe you need to go watch a Hallmark sappy Christmas movie by yourself and relax and just know that that’s not being lazy. It’s taking care of yourself and sometimes we just need that.
I’ve had so much fun talking to you about this. Please reach out if you have any questions for me.
Christy Maloney is a Registered Dietitian specializing in helping those with eating disorders and disordered eating in Charlotte, NC. Christy earned a BS in psychology from Wingate University. Following a career in banking and finance, becoming an RD was a second career for Christy. After completing coursework for a BS in Human Nutrition and her dietetic internship, Christy has been an RD since 2011. In January, 2019, she opened her own practice in Charlotte, NC, Enhance Nutrition Associates, devoted solely to the treatment of eating disorders at an outpatient level. Christy has become a Certified Eating Disorders Registered Dietitian – Supervisor (CEDRD-S), now the CEDS-S certification . This credential shows Christy’s expertise and experience in the field. She also is an iaedp approved supervisor for other dietitians looking to obtain their CEDS certification.
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