Episode 335: How I Prioritize My Health Through the Holidays

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify

Do you tend to take the path of least resistance during the holiday season and tell yourself you’ll get back on the healthy lifestyle train in January? There’s a way for you to set non-negotiables around your nutrition, movement, and mindset so you can continue caring for yourself (and show up better for your loved ones, too). Tune in to learn some crowd-pleasing recipes, calendar tricks, mindset shifts, and supplements that will help you feel your best through the end of the year—and beyond!

In this episode:

Intentional travel & why I don't leave food to chance [14:24]

My favorite healthy holiday dishes to share [14:24]

Building movement into your calendar this season [24:49]

How to use your community to hold you accountable [27:50]

Does self-care make you feel guilty? [28:49]

Supplements I use for extra support [34:20]

Resources mentioned:

(Not from a Can) Green Bean Casserole

Carb Compatibility Project™ (Available for free within the Funk’tional Nutrition Collective)

Detoxinista.com

Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK) 

LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)  

Qualia Mind (Get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)

Ned Natural Remedies (get 20% off your order with code FUNK)

Learn more about Functional Nutrition

Related episodes:

332: Coffee Enemas: The Whys, Whats and Hows

80: Staying Healthy Through the Holidays

40: Conscious Holidays

8: Thriving Through the Holidays

  • Erin Holt [00:00:02]:

    I'm Erin Holt and this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that I've got a major bone to pick with diet culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us, but functional medicine isn't the panacea that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect, so I founded the Funk'tional Nutrition Academy, a school and mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same.


    Erin Holt [00:00:46]:

    This show is for you if you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share because you never know whose life you might change and of course, keep coming back for more. Hey friends, today we're going to talk about staying healthy through the holidays and I'll specifically share with you how I prioritize my health throughout the holidays, whether there's travel involved, holiday vacation, all of that. This was an episode that was requested and I really wanted to drop it now before we head into the holiday craziness, the busyness of the season, so you can get yourself ready. You have time to think more proactively instead of reactively. You can get your ducks in a row and map out a plan before we hit the holidays, because if we wait until we're in it, it's more like doing damage control than preventative care. I've been on my health and wellness journey for almost two decades now.


    Erin Holt [00:01:57]:

    There's a lot of things that I have on lock and the way that I think about it. It really breaks down into non-negotiables for me and I'm happy to share those specific non-negotiables for you. Just understand yours might be a little different. You might want to tweak, edit, refine and change. And that's perfectly fine. Totally okay. What is not okay is to not have any. You've got to have some health non-negotiables because without them you will default to the path of least resistance.


    Erin Holt [00:02:28]:

    And you know this. I don't have to tell you this nine times out of ten. Heck, ten times out of ten. The path of least resistance is not the thing that's going to be best for your health. So today I'm going to cover food, movement, mindset, how to strategize all of these throughout the holidays and also what to do if you are afraid of what might other people might think or say about you and your healthy habits. And then at the very end I'll also share my supplement routine that I like to take through the holidays to keep me feeling well. There's definitely some non-negotiables there, so we'll get to that as well. And it's a great time to record this because we're actually about to travel to Copenhagen in a few days.


    Erin Holt [00:03:11]:

    Our niece is over there studying abroad for the semester. Her parents, my sister in law, my brother in law are over there with her for a couple of weeks. And so myself, Scott and Hattie are packing up and going out on a family vacation. So it's giving holiday vibes because their winter market is all set up. So it's definitely going to be like in the holiday spirit for sure. We'll be with family. And so I feel like our holiday season is starting a little bit extra early. So I did want to get this out before we left.


    Erin Holt [00:03:39]:

    When we think about travel, when we think about a vacation or going on holiday somewhere, we pretty much always intentionally choose destinations that have some type of activity baked in. So Copenhagen, you can walk a lot. My sister in law just texted me yesterday. They walked eight miles. Just a casual day. We really like to move our bodies. When I think of a real vacation, like one that I can enjoy and relax, it is equal parts activity and then downtime where there's nothing on my schedule. I also really like good food and good wine and I'm very lucky that Scott, my husband, shares a lot of those same values and desires.


    Erin Holt [00:04:20]:

    So we like to do the same things, which is great, makes for a great partnership. So how we thought about this trip, we were very intentional with it and I will, I have to give Scott pretty much all of the credit because he's the planner of the family. Like if it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't leave my couch. He puts all of the wheels in motion for everything that we do. He's like that one in the, in the partnership. So he intentionally found a hotel that has a little kitchenette so we can do some food preparation, maybe do like a breakfast or coffee or something like that in the morning. I Like to have a little bit of downtime in the morning. Honestly, I'm just going to say it.


    Erin Holt [00:04:59]:

    I wasn't planning on sharing this with you guys, but here we go. I need to have quiet time where nobody talks to me, where I drink a cup of coffee so I can poop. Okay? So he made sure that the pampered pooch herself had her little poop palace and all will be right with the world. Okay? But that hotel also has a gym. It has a sauna. So we don't have to break stride with our fitness and wellness routine, which is really, really, really important. He looked ahead at all of the restaurants and made sure that we found places that meet the dietary needs and desires of my family. I'm gluten free, my daughter's gluten free.


    Erin Holt [00:05:36]:

    I'm also dairy free. So it's like a little bit challenging to eat out. And so we always like to plan ahead for that and just make sure that we know where the restaurants are. That will be helpful for us. I don't eat like trash when I'm on holiday because I don't like feeling like trash when I'm on holiday. I want to feel good. I want to enjoy my life, I want to enjoy my vacation, I want to enjoy the holidays. A key component to that is eating well.


    Erin Holt [00:06:06]:

    That is a non negotiable. I'm going to get into food specifics with you in just a minute here. But I wanted to paint this picture. I wanted to tell you about how we strategize this Copenhagen trip to showcase a point. And the point is this wellness is baked into the fabric of our day to day lives. It is how we live our lives. It's not separate from, it's not an add on, it's not a like a separate component. It's not something that we turn on and turn off.


    Erin Holt [00:06:35]:

    Like, I take this with me through vacation, I take this with me through holidays because this is me. And the reason that I want to drive this point home is because we are so used to hearing about habits and behaviors. When we're talking about getting healthy, when we're talking about changing our health, we hear a lot about habits and behaviors. Eat more protein, lift weights, move your body like 10,000 steps a day. Last week we talked on the show about circadian rhythm supportive habits, and we talked about getting sun exposure first thing in the day, dim the lights in the evening. All of these things are habits and behaviors. And we all know habits are crucial to our success, to reaching our goals because it's the habits and the behaviors that get us those results, the change that we want to see, that's the stuff that actually helps us reach our goals. Right? It's going to be hard to run a marathon if you don't first create a habit of running.


    Erin Holt [00:07:37]:

    As James Clear says, we don't rise to the levels of our goals, we sink to the levels of our systems. And habits and behaviors really make up these systems. But what's not talked about very much but is so critical to understand is that there is a step before habits and that step is identity. It's your self image, the story you tell yourself about yourself, your inner narrative, your beliefs, who you think you are. That's all of what I mean when I talk about identity. And it's your identity that will determine what you're most likely to do, what action your most likely to take. So my identity is someone who is healthy, is fit, I value and prioritize health, I eat well. So because that is my identity, that's just what I do.


    Erin Holt [00:08:33]:

    I don't really have to think about it too much. It's just baked into the fabric of who I am. Now, was I always like this? Absolutely not. But it required an identity shift to get me from where I was to where I am. It wasn't just changing the behavior behavior. It was actually changing the step before that, seeing myself in a different light. We tend to approach health as though it's just habit change or just behavior that needs to change.


    Erin Holt [00:09:02]:

    But we actually have to change on an identity level first in order to uphold those new behaviors and those new habits. It's been said before that your beliefs are the root cause of your behavior. So if we want to change the behavior, we need to change the beliefs. So I say this because if every year you're like, this is the year I'm going to get healthy, this is the year I'm going to get fit. This is the year I'm going to make changes. But then you always feel like you're falling short or coming up short, you might need to change on an identity level first. See yourself as someone who prioritizes health.


    Erin Holt [00:09:42]:

    If you were someone who embodied that, what decisions would you make? What actions would you take? What behaviors would you do? So like I said, I'm going to share with you some of my non-negotiables. These are the non-negotiables during the holidays, as someone who always, always, not just during certain portions of the year, always values and prioritizes my health. So let's start with food because, you know, this is the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast. My non negotiable is that there's always a strategy or a plan in place and that might sound overly rigid, but it really, truly doesn't come from a highly regimented or controlling place. Its actually a way for me to secure my joy. Because yes, joy is important when it comes to your health. And I love the holidays, truly. And I love to eat, truly.


    Erin Holt [00:10:36]:

    Like I'm a hungry hungry hippo. I love food, I enjoy good food. So because of this, it's not something that I leave to chance or make it someone else's responsibility. I just, I don't love having somebody stress out over my food restrictions because I mean I'm gluten free, I'm dairy free and I don't eat a lot of grains and so like a lot of gluten free options have corn or have quinoa or things that I don't really eat. So it like just feels like too much pressure and stress to put on somebody else and make it their responsibility if I'm going to somebody's house. So this is why I always bring a lot of food with me wherever I go. That really ensures that I can eat and I can also share that food with other people, which is nice.


    Erin Holt [00:13:42]:

    So I'm going to share with you some of the things that I will bring that are crowd pleasers that I can eat but other people also enjoy and I just make big batches of them. We have big families so we have like 12 different families between me and Scott and they're like all big.


    Erin Holt [00:14:38]:

    So I always make a lot of food. One is I stole this from my Aunt Wendy. It was like her special recipe and then I just like stole it, started bringing it wherever we go. So sorry Aunt Wendy, but it's a kale and brussels sprout salad. So I'm going to kind of explain to you because I don't have a recipe but this is what I do. It just like off the cuff and I like this because it holds up well to travel and people really, really do like it. It always goes like there's never any leftover. So I take brussels sprouts raw, not cooked and then I throw them into the food processor and just whaz it up until they're super Small.


    Erin Holt [00:15:16]:

    And that way there's lots of surface area for the dressing to coat and stick. Because if you think about eating a raw Brussels sprout. Ew. But when they're really small and coated with dressing. Yum. And then also lacinato kale. So I usually do like a big bunch of Brussels sprouts and then two heads of lacinato kale that's also called dinosaur kale. And you de stem it.


    Erin Holt [00:15:38]:

    And then I chop that up. I don't put that in the food processor. I just think it gets too small. So I just fine chop it up, Julienne, if you will. And then toasted almonds also go in the food processor and I whaz those up until they become crumbs. And that is basically the entirety of the salad. And then of course, you want to make a dressing. So I use shallots, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, little mustard, little honey.


    Erin Holt [00:16:04]:

    Kind of like your standard issue dressing. But those shallots make a big difference. Don't use onions. Use shallots. And then that goes all over the salad. I'll dress it like maybe like an hour or two ahead of time. I don't like the dressing to sit on overnight. With kale and Brussels sprouts, it's kind of fine, but I just prefer to not do that.


    Erin Holt [00:16:22]:

    And then you can also add Parmesan cheese. If you do dairy. I will also sometimes get a little wild and throw some dried currants or raisins in there as well for a little pop of sweet. So that kale Brussels sprout salad is a showstopper. Everybody loves it. And then you have a humongous pile of greens. I think we just under eat veggies at the holiday, so we tend to overeat sugar, under eat veggies. And for me, that's just a recipe for feeling like trash.


    Erin Holt [00:16:51]:

    So I always try to bring something veggie related. I have another kale salad that I used to make a lot more than I do now. And. But I'm going to share it with you because it's super easy. It's green curly kale for this. You can also use lacinato kale. The dressing is olive oil, Bragg's Liquid Aminos.


    Erin Holt [00:17:09]:

    You could use Tamari, but I usually use Bragg's Liquid Aminos and lemon juice and then a ton of cumin powder and coriander powder. And then you just massage, massage, massage. So put the dressing on and just massage it and then add the spices, massage it some more, shred some carrots that is so good. You want to put like way more dressing on than you think. And it's delicious. So some type of salad. I like kale salads because they travel well and they don't get like so soggy and wilty and gross.


    Erin Holt [00:17:41]:

    I also like to have protein. And so Scott, we have a green egg. I got it two Christmases ago for him. And so he'll slow cook either beef or pork. I don't really like pork, so he usually does beef for me. And so we have slow cooked pulled beef or pulled pork. And so I know that there's a protein option. I'm like, okay, my bases are covered.


    Erin Holt [00:18:01]:

    I got veggies, I got protein, I'm good. And then people really love that too. So it's another thing to bring that people tend to enjoy. I'll do an eggplant parm usually at Christmas time. And again, I don't do gluten or dairy. So my eggplant parm is gluten free and dairy free. But it is, it always goes. There's never any.


    Erin Holt [00:18:24]:

    I can make like double or triple the batch and there's never any leftovers. So that's another thing that I know I can eat. Not super high on the protein, but just a yummy little treat. And eggplant parm is pretty labor intensive, so I usually just do that once a year. Another labor intensive dish, but totally worth it is my green bean casserole. We actually have a recipe on the website for this. It takes a while, but it's just so good and so worth it. This is a Thanksgiving dish, so I bring this wherever we're going.


    Erin Holt [00:18:52]:

    For Thanksgiving. This year for Thanksgiving, we got our turkey from Vernon Family Farm. We're going to my mother in law's house. So we've procured the turkey and I'm going to ask her to cook it without stuffing on the inside. I made that mistake a couple of years ago. I forgot to ask the host to do that and so I couldn't eat the turkey. And she was so pissed at me for not saying anything. I didn't really want to be a burden and I was like, by the time I thought about it, it felt too late. So I just didn't say anything.


    Erin Holt [00:19:18]:

    And she's like, come on, man, that's the easiest thing I could have done. I wish you would have told me. So I do say that because most people aren't assholes and they actually want to support you in your healthy food endeavors or your dietary needs and so you can advocate for yourself, for sure. I just didn't. And lesson learned. So those are some of the really successful things. Oh, I also always bring a dessert and I pretty much get all of my dessert recipes from detoxinista.com I love her dessert recipes. They're always winners and they use less sugar and they're just whole food ingredients, so I feel better about consuming those things.


    Erin Holt [00:19:58]:

    So I do like eating and I do like treats during the holidays. And I recognize that there's just certain foods, there's like special foods that we only get at the holidays, and those treats can really bring joy. But I just. I think there's a huge difference between having an extra slice of pumpkin pie because it's your absolute favorite, and just like existing off cheese, and cookies, and booze for a month, because it's just there. It's the path of least resistance. It's just what's around you. One, you're like intentionally eating foods because you enjoy them. The other one is like you're just defaulting to whatever is there.


    Erin Holt [00:20:39]:

    One is not going to make you feel like crap. The other one probably is. So that's what I mean by having a strategy in place so you don't default to the path of least resistance. And that's another strategy that I have in place. I eat very normal the rest of the time, like around the clock. So, yeah, we might go to a holiday party, but when I'm not at a holiday party, it's just regular, regular food. So for me, I eat really in accordance with the Carb Compatibility project. That is a way of eating that I've mapped out in one of our programs in the Collective.


    Erin Holt [00:21:12]:

    It's lots of veggies, it's a lot of protein, and it's low sugar. It's just consistently how I feel. Too much sugar makes me feel puffy, swollen. I get headaches, I get fatigue. We know that refined sugar can lead to some blood sugar dysregulation that can lead to more inflammation. It can be challenging to balance moods when you're eating a lot of sugar. You might have noticed that for yourself in the past. And that's something that's a little bit overlooked or underappreciated about eating.


    Erin Holt [00:21:43]:

    Food is medicine. The way that we eat and what we eat, it can give us more energy, it can give us even, balanced moods, which makes us less reactive with our family, with our friends, with our coworkers. The way that we eat can anchor us, it can ground us, it can resource us. And for some of us, especially those who are kind of lean toward overwhelm during the holiday seasons. We need to find ways to resource ourselves during the holidays, ground ourselves during the holiday. When we're under resourced it becomes really easy to respond to busyness or stressful situations with chaos energy. So I think that yes, food makes us feel good, but it also makes us like feel good, like emotionally more stable.


    Erin Holt [00:24:12]:

    That is how I strategize food and how I have my non-negotiables around food during the holidays. Now let's shift into movement, which is another non negotiable meaning this gets prioritized above other things on the to do list. That is what a priority is. You can't have 10 priorities.


    Erin Holt [00:25:04]:

    Something has to be at the top. And so a daily movement practice is very, very close to the top of my priority and to do list. Now for me personally, and this is where your non-negotiables might be a little different. For me personally, lifting, walking and yoga is where I feel like I get the most bang for my buck. I have found that if I push myself too hard so like a lot of HIIT or a lot of cardio, if I do too much intensity with a busy schedule and stress that can lead to burnout for me personally and I've certainly hit the holidays in a burnout phase and so I do really well with walking, lifting and yoga during busier times. I also like to have online classes in my back pocket so I can do like a quick 30 minute thing. You know, if you think about Thanksgiving morning for example, you might not have time to get to a studio class or go to the gym or go for a long run if you're hosting or you're traveling. So having a 30 minute workout out online or something planned that you can do at home is a really great idea.


    Erin Holt [00:26:15]:

    So I would bake that into your strategy too and have a couple of options like that in your back pocket. Otherwise you might default to the path of least resistance which is to do nothing, not move your body. So I would really think through and this is where the pre planning can come into play. What would it take for you to make movement a non negotiable during the holiday season? We've worked with thousands of people so we know that this is the time where people are so busy that taking care of themselves goes all the way on the back burner. And exercise can be can like fall into that category of like I'll just get back to it in January, I'll just get back to my routine in the new year. But we all know if you take a month long hiatus or two month long hiatus, it's just that much more challenging to get back to it versus just keeping some type of consistency moving forward. So what would it take for you to make this a non negotiable? I, for the past year and change, I've been working with a personal trainer so I meet with her twice a week.


    Erin Holt [00:27:17]:

    She's actually coming on the show so get excited about that. And that has the accountability baked right in. If I have an appointment with her, I'm not canceling, I'm showing up for her. You might want to prepay for studio classes. You might want to make a plan to go with somebody. Hey, I'll meet you at class. That's something that my friend Emily and I do often. She owns Steam House Yoga and Pilates in Epping, New Hampshire. It's the studio that I go to and so oftentimes the night before we'll text each other, hey, are you going to class? So if I know that she's waiting on me to go to class, I'm more likely to actually go to class also.


    Erin Holt [00:27:50]:

    I think in that situation it's kind of like all ships rise. So if, you know, if you have a buddy and you're both prioritizing health and you're both doing it together, I think it just kind of normalizes the behavior. I'm lucky that my husband is really active. He goes to CrossFit, he runs a lot, he hikes a lot. So it's not like, like that is really like the cultural norm in my household, in my fam. So it's just another way to reinforce that identity. Another thing that I do is put it on my calendar and schedule everything else around it. And I even started doing this for my work calendar.


    Erin Holt [00:28:23]:

    So my team has eyes on my workouts and so they know not to book anything else in that place. And so, you know, the philosophy is if it's not scheduled, it's not real. So if this strategy helps you or feels like it would be useful, definitely put it on your calendar, maybe even where other people can see it. So another thing that I do when I'm traveling, when we're going to somebody else's house or somebody else's place, I always have my sneakers with me. So I will be at a family member's house and I will go for a four mile walk by myself. My family now expects that of me. It's kind of part of the identity thing. That's who I am, that's what I do.


    Erin Holt [00:29:00]:

    It's expected, it's fine. I need a lot of alone time to recharge, reground, recenter myself. And, and during the holidays, when you're surrounded by people and you have people staying at your house or you're staying at other people's house, it can be challenging to get that alone time. So I just lace up and like hit the road. I just take myself for a walk because if I don't get that reset time, I can very easily become a bristly bear. I lose my patience. I will snap at people. It's like, like I'm not showing up as my best self, which is really not fair to the people around me. So if I take care of me, then I get to show up as my best self for everybody else.


    Erin Holt [00:29:49]:

    Which is why I don't have guilt with taking care of myself. I don't have guilt with feeding myself well. I don't have guilt with saying, hey, I'm going to go for a walk. I'll be back in an hour and a half. And there's no guilt associated with this. And I say this because talking to so many people, I know that a lot of you feel guilty for taking the time for yourself. And one thing I'll share with you and something that I've noticed in my own life, if you feel guilty, that's like a frequency you're emitting that other people will pick up on and they will, like, tap into that. Or you will run their comments through the filter of your belief, which is, I am doing something that I shouldn't be doing.


    Erin Holt [00:30:31]:

    So even though they may say something to you completely without the intention of hurting your feelings or making you feel like you're doing something wrong, if you deep down inside feel like you're doing something wrong by taking care of yourself, you will receive that comment as though they're saying it with that intention. It's just kind of like how our minds work. And so this is where mindset does come into play. How do you feel about making health a priority? Because you need to be squeaky clean on your side of the street. You have to be like, no, no. Like, this is what I'm doing. This is important. This matters.


    Erin Holt [00:31:06]:

    How I feel matters. My health matters. I am a worthy investment. So I'm going to put the time, the attention, the care into my physical health and how I feel. If you are like super, super clear and clean on that, squeaky clean, then you're just not going to get that type of commentary and that type of feedback from other people. Because I know that that is a big concern, especially if these actions are new for you. If all of a sudden you're like, new year, new me, I'm coming to this holiday season with all these new healthy habits. There might be some apprehensive apprehension of how people are going to respond.


    Erin Holt [00:31:45]:

    Friends and family. Now I will say this. My philosophy is, and has been for a while. I am not particularly interested in feedback or opinions from someone who has not done what I am trying to do or has built what I am attempting, attempting to build, it's just not relevant to me. This works in business, but it also works in life. If you have folks who are making comments on your healthy choices, who are not making those choices for themselves, my question to you is, why does that feel relevant? Because the people who get it, the people who are clicked into that identity, the people who do prioritize their health, they're not going to be making comments. They might ask you questions out of curiosity, but they're not going to be the little chippy comments to kind of like, tear you down. We also have to remind ourselves that so much of what people say is projections of their own beliefs and their own insecurities.


    Erin Holt [00:32:44]:

    So seeing you make forward progress, forward momentum, different choices might trigger in them a feeling of insecurity because they're not doing it. And so we have to just remind ourselves of that. To another approach, you could say, and this works for me because I'm a little snarky, I'm a little sassy. I can handle saying this to somebody. But you can say, like, if I don't do this, if I don't make these choices, then I feel like shit. Would you prefer that I felt like shit? Would it improve your life in any way if I didn't feel good? No. Okay, then I'm probably just going to keep doing this. And another strategy that I've had my clients use is to just kind of blame it on me.


    Erin Holt [00:33:29]:

    Just say, hey, I'm working with a nutritionist. We're on a plan based on my labs, and I'm feeling really good, and I want to keep feeling really good. So I'm just going to do what she told tells me to do. So I've got, Yep, I've got these supplements. I've got to eat this food. I'm going to go for my walks, and I'm just going to stay feeling really good. I'm pretty excited about it. And that approach does really seem to work well for people, because truly, the people that care about you, they shouldn't want you to suffer.


    Erin Holt [00:33:55]:

    They don't want you to suffer. So if you explain to them like, hey, these changes are really helping me feel good, and I would love your support. More often than not, they're going to support you. And if they're unwilling to do that, then of course it begs the question, should they be in your life at all? Okay, let's move on to supplements. I'll start with green juice. I'm a little bit of a fair weather friend when it comes to green juice. It's not really an everyday thing for me.


    Erin Holt [00:34:22]:

    I eat a lot of greens on the reg, but during holidays and during travel, I definitely go hard with green juice and I do it every day. My favorite is from Organifi, their green juice powder. You just mix it with water so it's super, super easy to take to travel with. We keep it right by our sink, so it's like, okay, boom. Water and green juice. The reason that I love Organifi's is because of the ingredients. So it has ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen that can help to balance mood, energy levels, cortisol levels, and it contains 600 milligrams, which they refer to as a clinical dose. The reason they call it that is because that's the amount that you would get in a supplement.


    Erin Holt [00:35:04]:

    So I'll often recommend ashwagandha to clients, for example, and the supplement that I'll recommend will have somewhere between 400, maybe up to 700 milligrams of ashwagandha for it to actually be effective. And that's a big deal. If you're buying any type of greens powders or any type of powder, it will list all of the things that are in it, but you have no idea how much. So that's something that like I'm always talking about with Scott because I'll have like one little pill and he's like, oh, all the things are in this one pill. I'm like, there's no way that there's like clinical doses in there and that small little sample size. So anyway, I love green juice powder. It also has spirulina and chlorella and moringa.


    Erin Holt [00:35:45]:

    So these are all greens that are powdered down and they're really good for detoxification. They're very gentle chelators, so they bind up toxins. They are also really high in antioxidants. Now, where I tend to indulge. It's not so much in like the chips and the cookies and the snacks and the sweets, but I do like wine. And so I will, during the holidays ramp up my intake of wine. I will be very honest about that. So I do like to have support for my liver during that time because we know that alcohol really isn't great for overall health.


    Erin Holt [00:36:22]:

    So I am just eager to drink my green juice during the holiday season. If you want to try out the green juice powder that I love, you can head to Organifi.com/funk to save 20% off. That's O R G A N I F I.com/funk. Strong recommend. And then if you are somebody who gets stressed out by the holidays, just like the running around, being off schedule, maybe being with family can feel like a little unsettling sometimes. I really love nervines, so these are herbs that just support the nervous system and help to calm you down. Lemon balm, passion flower and skull cap are my personal faves and I go to our local apothecary. But you could get these at a health food store. You can get these at Whole Foods.


    Erin Holt [00:37:13]:

    And I like the tinctures so you just put a few drops in water. I'll do some in the morning and in the evening and that really just helps to support my overall nervous system through a busier time and definitely with travel and being around people and all of that. I do like to take melatonin to sleep so I'll do like 0.5 milligrams at night just to make sure I'm getting good sleep through the holidays. Also, as I shared before, I have a tendency toward constipation, especially if my schedule is has changed in any way or I'm like around more people. So I always make sure that I take magnesium and I travel with magnesium. We talked about coffee enemas a couple weeks back. If I'm going on a longer trip, I will bring the enema kit just in case because there's nothing worse than like being stuck somewhere and not being able to poop.


    Erin Holt [00:38:05]:

    You just like get so uncomfortable. Who here watches Housewives? Did you see Shannon in London? Like she needed an enema. She needed an enema. She didn't feel good. I get it girl. Truly, I get it. And we're actually going to be talking about colon hydrotherapy with a naturopath in a couple of weeks on the show. And that might be one to tune into if you do tend toward constipation.


    Erin Holt [00:38:27]:

    And then finally, I love to do my immune support basics. Vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc. Just the straightforward immune system support to prevent getting sick throughout the holidays. Especially if we're running and we're gunning and we're off of our schedule and all that jazz. So those are my non-negotiables for prioritizing health through the holidays. And you are more than welcome to adopt any and all of them for your own non-negotiables. And I hope you have a wonderful and healthy holiday season. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Funk'tional Nutrition Podcast.


    Erin Holt [00:39:10]:

    If you got something from today's show. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.

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Episode 336: The Lymphatic System: A Whole Body Approach to Healing with Dr. Perry Nickelston

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Episode 334: Circadian Rhythm Support for Daylight Saving Time