Navigating Holiday Food Without Guilt: A Conversation with Health Coach JoJo Tabares

In this enlightening episode of Anchored Not Anxious, Terri welcomes health coach JoJo Tabares for a timely discussion on maintaining healthy eating habits during the holiday season. 

• JoJo shares her proven strategies for enjoying holiday gatherings without compromising health goals or falling into the cycle of guilt and shame. 
• She introduces practical techniques like the "three-bite rule" and emphasizes the importance of shifting focus from food to making memories with loved ones. 
• Drawing from her personal journey and experience helping clients, JoJo debunks common weight loss myths and explains how the food industry influences our eating habits. 

This episode offers valuable insights for anyone looking to navigate holiday festivities while staying true to their health journey. Find her at Facebook or YouTube. Interested in connecting with her coaching? Click below.

https://form.jotform.com/HeavenandHealth/FreeAssessment

Meet me on my Facebook Page at Terri L Hutchinson

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Transcript

0:02

Welcome to Anchored Not Anxious. This is where you gain a deep belief your life matters to God and discover the anchoring practices to manage anxiety and worry. I'm Terri Hutchinson, your host. Hello, everyone. And I am thrilled to introduce to you Jojo Tavares. She is a health coach with many years experience and Her goal is to match the appropriate food program to help people stop dieting to lose weight. I love that! Jojo helps her clients successfully develop and execute an eating plan. She directs them to utilize tips like the three bite rule to navigate various food situations and she equips clients with delicious Healthy recipes that they can use on their individual program. JoJo is a strong encourager, loves the Lord, and supports those on their journey to whole health. Welcome to the show, JoJo! Thank you so much, Terry. Thank you for having me. I just love talking about things like this. So thanks for sharing, because it's, it's an issue that a lot of people have. Yes. And the whole reason why we're talking about this is because the holidays are coming. That means gatherings, friends. Family, food, and food always takes center stage during November and December. And speaking on behalf of myself, and probably some others, uh, I believe that stress and anxiety gets heightened because of the emphasis on food. You know, there's the desire to indulge or we overindulge and then we have those well meaning hosts and hostesses saying, eat, eat, eat. And so the one thing we don't want is to face the mirror in January and feel the shame and regret, right? And I say that because in my 20s and 30s, that's exactly what I did. I'd overeat, then I'd be desperate to lose the pounds, and then I engaged in really negative self talk. So, that's why I believe that the huge emphasis on food increases our anxiety and stress. Now, for those who have recently met a health goal. Or those who are, in the process of a weight reduction program, or just trying to, change their diet for more healthy eating for maybe heart disease or diabetes, the holidays can really take us off course. For someone like myself, or anybody out there, and we want help navigating the Holiday Food Fest, what tips and direction would you give us? Well, there's actually about 11 things that I tell my clients around this time of year, but I also kind of pepper it in during the rest of the year because, yes, this time of year Is where you have all the holiday parties and the Thanksgiving and things like this. But you have things like this come up for you for birthdays and anniversaries and special occasions. So it's a thing that people deal with all year long. But at the end of the year, it's like. Massive. So the first thing that I usually tell people is to let your friends and family know that health you're on a health journey of whatever kind and to ask for support because a lot of times you like I my mother in law used to tell me she would make massive quantities and I was not used to eating. And she would say, eat, eat. And I feel like I was letting her down. I was not being, you know, I, I wasn't showing her that I liked her cooking if I didn't eat massive amounts. And so this started for me a long time ago. And this is why I share these things with my clients, because the first thing is to kind of get a buy in. You know, gain support from your family and friends, especially around the holidays. Let them know this is important to you and have them give you that blessing, that support, that it's okay that you don't eat everything that they expect you to normally eat or everything like that they, that my mother in law used to expect with my husband ate. Huge quantities. So I felt awful eating this little bit, and once I told her I physically can't eat that much, it was much better. But until I said something, I felt guilty, and she felt bad, and it was just difficult situation. So that's that's the first one real important. Yes. And my mother in law as well made tons of food and it was food. I wasn't used to eating. So then on top of overeating, then I really didn't feel that great. And so, yeah, I understand what you're saying there. Yeah, I, my mother in law was from Mexico, so there were lots of things. I didn't even know what was in the food. It was not something I would eat. So yeah, I get you on that one. The second one that I tell people is to really focus on The holidays are about friends and family. And so most of it, like you had said, I forgot how you put it in the intro, but it's the holidays is about friends and family and having, you know, making memories and things like that. So. If you go into the holidays thinking it's all about the food, it's going to be all about the food. If you go in thinking, I'm going to make me some memories with my, my family and my friends and my coworkers and whatever. And the emphasis is on my, my dad always said the emphasis is on the correct syllable. If you go in thinking it's all about making memories, having a good time being with people, it's easier to not, you know, because my third one is, you know, don't spend all that time at the buffet table, talk to friends and family, make memories, go do things. Oh, I love the emphasis on focusing on the people and making memories. Yeah, that really does shift things. And it shifts, how you walk into that environment. Yes. Great, great tip. Yeah, and it just makes it easier. And then the next thing that I tell and I usually help my clients with this is make a plan. The biggest problem that people have when they go into a situation where you've got food for miles and it's stuff that you haven't had for a year because people only make it. You know, my mom used to only make her special stuffing on Thanksgiving. It's the only time of year we had it. She made these pies all from scratch and everything. And so you go in and you think there's, it's all there. If you don't have a plan, you're going to do whatever. You're going to be tempted. You're going to feel guilty. You're going to feel stressed. You're going to, every time you go and you see all this stuff, you have this crisis within you. And then after it's all over, like you said, then comes the guilt. And then you feel you're a bad person. You didn't have willpower. You didn't do what you were supposed to do. Oh, you're awful and you can't do this. And that's really not true. It makes you feel that way, but it's not true. Thing is, if you make a plan going in, you don't have the guilt. And I tell my clients, there are really three different ways that you can plan for the holidays. So the first way is you can say, I'm not going to eat anything that I know I shouldn't eat on a regular basis. I'm going to stick to whatever my nutrition plan is, whatever my diet plan, whatever you're going to do. I'm going to stick like glue. I'm not going to eat anything that I shouldn't be eating. That's great. You're going to meet your health goals and everything that way. But there are going to be things there. That you may not see all the time. The other way that people go into it is It's the holidays. I'm going to eat everything. I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to just, you know, stuff myself and have everything in two and three servings of this pie and, but then you get out. And if you make a plan to do that, understand there are consequences to that. You're not going to feel good after eating all that stuff. You're going to get off your butt. Whatever plan you're on for, you know, making sure that you're healthy or losing weight, you'll need to kind of start again. But there is a third way, and most people don't realize that. The third way is to do the things in moderation. So if you make a plan to go in and you say to yourself, I don't want to eat the potatoes and I don't want to eat the this and then that, but There's a pie that my mom makes that I've got to at least taste. There's the stuffing that I really want to have because we only have these things once a year. So I have, like you said, a thing called the three bite rule. I didn't make it up, but I learned about it. It's really, it does work. So the first bite is to taste. The second bite is to savor, enjoy. And the third bite is to say goodbye. So you, you have a taste, you've maybe not stuck entirely to plan, but three bites is really not that big a deal in the scheme of things. And then you're having the things you feel better because you've, you've not deprived yourself of all these special things. And maybe it's only one or two special things. But you decide you make the plan. So going into it, understand that if you stick entirely to plan. You're going to meet your health goals, but you're not going to be able to enjoy some of the things you don't normally enjoy. Um, if you completely go off the rails, you're probably not going to feel good, and you may gain weight, and you may gain a lot of weight, and that's not going to feel good coming out. But it's a choice, or you can decide I'm going to do this, that, and the other, I'm going to take three bites, or maybe only one piece of pie, instead of normally three pieces of pie. And then at least you have a plan, you stuck to your plan, coming out on the other side of the holidays, you don't feel the guilt and the shame, because you had a plan going in and you stuck to your plan, whatever the plan was. You understand the consequences. And you made a plan, you stuck to it. There isn't that I'm bad. I can't ever do this. I'm never going to lose weight. I'm never going to feel it. And that's not true, by the way. Those are weight loss myths. Correct. The plan. That is a key. Component of feeling like you were successful getting through the holidays. That's wonderful. So another thing that I do is I tell people and like you had shared, you can take some healthy versions of family favorites. To the event. So a lot of times when people go celebrate the holidays, you're supposed to bring something, so my mom would, she always hosted, but I mean, she had the stuffing and the turkey and we may bring a little something extra. Maybe a pie. We bring this back. Whatever you're going to bring, you can bring a healthy version of it. There are healthy versions of the potatoes and gravy. There's healthy versions of the stuffing. And I have a group that I can help add, that I can add people to that has a ton of healthy versions, healthy, recipes. And a lot of those are holiday healthy recipes of the things you normally would want to eat. So you can go and take one of those. And then, like I said, there is a, um, there's a lot of healthy options to those things you normally would like. And some of them, you can't even tell the difference. Like there's, yeah, there's a recipe for potatoes made with, cauliflower. And I cannot taste the difference between the cauliflower and the potatoes. That's fabulous. Yeah. So there are some great healthy versions and then there's a recipe. And then also you can follow me because I constantly am sharing healthy recipes. You can follow me on Facebook. And then I, can send those to you as well. So, I mean, there's all kinds of healthy recipes that you have. I don't think people, uh, they think it's, you know, this is the only way it can be made, if it's going to taste good, they never consider that, switching things out, switching out. I think it's oil or butter for applesauce in cookies and things like that. And, you've just allowed yourself to eat something that, is a little bit better for you. You can have three bites of that and feel good. Yeah, you can have that's healthy version. You could have a whole serving of that and feel good. Yeah. So. It's much better to do. Um, and the other thing is to think about what serves you. So a lot of times we think about, I want this, I'm depriving myself, but I want it. But if I don't have it, I'm depriving myself. If we think about what are our goals, what is going to serve us, And I, I don't remember where it is in the Bible, but it talks about not everything serves you. Do you know the verse I'm talking about? I can't remember now, but it's like, not everything is bad, but not everything serves you. There's a verse. Yes. Yes. Something like that. Paul said it. I think it says, you know, not everything is, um, bad for you, but that doesn't mean that it's good for you either. Yeah. And so if we think about what are, what are our goals? Will that serve me in the long run because there's some things that, you may not be allergic to or something like that, but then the things that bother your stomach, but you know, it's so good. You've got to have some, but every time you have some, you feel sick for days, right? Because it bothers you. It's not something that's really good for you. So, but if you think about it in those terms, even if it's not like a massive reaction. If it doesn't serve your goals, if it doesn't move you forward, because God put us here for a purpose. And I know for me, when I was in 2020, before I lost my menopause weight, I gained the weight in six months after my hysterectomy. And it took me forever to find these programs, I was so tired and I was so exhausted, just, I was living my whole life on my couch. Was I serving God in the way He intended doing that? No. Till I found a way to get healthy. Now I'm able to serve the way He intended. Now I'm able to help other people. I can go out, I can do things, I can run around, I can, I couldn't do any of that before. And I, a lot of times we don't realize it because it's not as massive as it was for me. Yeah, I really was not getting the proper nutrition my entire life. I didn't know it. I thought I was eating well, but I wasn't eating what my body needed from childhood. And so I struggled with that for decades. Most people don't have it to where it's such a massive thing in their life. But like my husband, a lot of times when you're not healthy, you have other health issues that can be serious. He had horrible diabetes. But he kept eating the cookies he couldn't get through his head until I worked with him This was not serving him. This was making him sicker. And actually right now We just came back on Monday from getting his fine or hopefully his final eye surgery Because of the diabetes for years and years It caused retinopathy in his eyes. Oh my. A lot of times we, the, the challenges, the health challenges we have are smaller and they kind of sneak up on us and we don't realize that what we were doing was not serving us or we didn't realize that. Yes. When you have a massive thing like my husband and I both had, this is why I'm so passionate about sharing this because there's so much the Lord has for us to do and we can't do it when we're not really healthy. And so if we think about what serves us, what am I going to be able to do? Will I hear, well done, good and faithful servant, because I stewarded my temple well, so I was able to do more. And so that made a huge difference for me, is thinking about what serves me, because I'm really picky about what I eat. And so eating was really hard for me, but if I think, does this serve me, it moves me forward. Yeah, I like that. I think we just think about food as Well, we use food for a lot of different reasons. And a lot of times it's not, it's supposed to be energy for our body to do the things we want to do. But then the food sort of becomes the focus instead of the things we want to do. And slowly that's taken our health, our energy, all of that just slowly ebbs away until all we're left with is the food. And then that's a bad place to be because, you've just got a mountain to climb. It's not insurmountable like you, you said, you know, you're an inspiration story for anybody you had no idea what was what the impact of what's going in your body but then when we find out we do well to take care of the temple and say, all right, I need to do a little bit of cleaning house here, like you said, um, one of the things that I tell my clients is we should eat to live. Not live to eat, right? And that understanding that that's what we're doing. That's what God had intended. The other thing, too, that I want to say with that. The food industry, a lot of people think, I'm, I'm bad, I'm not, I don't have willpower, I want to tell you guys, your listeners, and, and anybody that you come across, share this with them. It is not your fault. I don't know if people realize this, but the food industry makes a big profit because they put things in the food. That causes us to become addicted to it so that we go out and buy it some more. That's how they're making all this, because we get, it's literally an addiction. And our body, it's very, it's almost like a drug. Our body gets addicted to that. And what I help my clients with the first few months is as they're eating healthy, their body, it's, it's a struggle because they're, the doughnuts are calling their name and the cookies and all that. Go ahead. Um, they, eventually the body starts letting go of that and it learns to love and crave what is good for it. But it's the food industry that does this. I don't know if you realize, but the foods that we used to eat, we call them junk foods, right? They were so much healthier in our day than they are now. You should see what they add to it. So I want to share. It is not your fault. If you're listening to my voice. And you are addicted to carbs and, and sweets and things like, it is not your fault. The food industry does this on purpose so that you buy more, but I can tell you, I can help. So if you embrace eating to live rather than living to eat, it helps shift the mindset. And then you can start, and it is a bit overwhelming at first, and that's what I help people with, but you can overcome those addictions. My husband was totally addicted to sweets, and I know a lot of my, clients, it may not be sweets, it may be carbs. But it turns to sugar. Same thing. You know, yes, exactly. It is not your fault. That is a good message because I think a lot of people that's where the shaming comes in. It's like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I, but, I and I learned that if I don't have it in the house, then I'm not going to eat it. And so that was, that was a huge step, and pretty soon, I don't even think about it I'm not going to the closet, the pantry to get the, the cookies. So, and I used to be the cookie monster. I have a client who told me the other day, uh, when it was about two, three weeks ago now, she told me she loved these particular type of cookies and she was like, totally addicted to these cookies, loved the taste of them, would eat them constantly. She got on plan. With me and she said she's been on plan for several months and doing amazingly well. I think she's lost like 60 some more pounds and she said the other day she, now she did not have it in her house, but when she went to her, I think it was her son's house, he had them there. And she said, it was amazing. She told me what's amazing is I was not Craving them, but I was curious. And so she said, I just wanted to take a bite. And she said, you know what, Jojo, I didn't even like them anymore. Oh, wow. Because the body changes as you get healthy. The body doesn't want what it was craving before. It craves what's good for it. I had a client call me, I think it was two months into her program. I call her my birthday twin. She's born same day, same year as me. And so for 60 some odd years, this woman did not eat vegetables, especially green vegetables. Oh, no. She called me. That was one of the things she was saying. I don't know if I could do this plan because you have to eat vegetables. I hate. She was able to do it at first. She did not eat green vegetables, but then she started trying green vegetables. So she calls me on the phone. She says, Jojo, I'm craving green vegetables. I thought, no way! I have known her for a long time and I was like, no way! She said, yes! And she never ate them before. Your body, God created your body in amazing ways. Yes. It will crave what it needs. We, as a society, not individually, but as a society, in, you know, what we put in our food, the food industry, Has kind of stripped that out of us. So when we detox when we first start getting on plan, and we're not putting that in our house, but we're going maybe occasionally to a friend's house, family members house that has it there. Eventually, if we can, Keep clean if we can keep on program long enough the body not only doesn't crave it anymore But it starts to crave what's good for it. All right. Yeah. Well, I mean Wait, our body is a machine it utilizes that food for energy Yeah That, that's great stuff, Jojo. Oh, I'm so glad you're talking about this. It's incredible. It really is the way God made us. But I'll tell you, the last thing is the 11th tip that I usually give to my clients. And this is a big one because a lot of, like you were talking about, a lot of people blame themselves and shame themselves and feel guilty. It's my fault. I'm not strong. I don't have willpower. I keep messing up, and I keep making mistakes, I told you this before we started recording, nobody this side of heaven, ever, on this planet, aside from Jesus. Was perfect no, right if you think I'm a health coach. So I do everything perfectly. I'm here to tell you. I don't Nobody ever did it perfectly if we want to meet a goal never mind if it's a health goal whatever goal it is we think Success has to be linear. It has to be, you know, you're always doing the right thing. Then eventually you get there. I don't know if you or your listeners has ever seen this meme that was going around on Facebook a while back and it talked. It said success on the bottom and it had a line from the bottom left to the top right. And it had like an X in it or something like that. That's not success. Success is when you start the line from the bottom left and it does this. Oh, all those wraparounds and the detours. That's success. So what I want to tell your listeners It is progress, not perfection. You do not need to be perfect. Most of us can't be perfect. I can't be perfect, maybe for a minute. I don't know about y'all, but no, me neither. I, I, I've never in my life been perfect at anything and that's okay. God knows this and God knew this and that's why he created our bodies and everything the way he did. We don't have to be perfect. Because we're not. It's not going to work. But it, you can reach whatever goal you want. as long as you make progress and you're intentional along the way. Yes, absolutely. Progress, not perfection. Wow. These tips are incredible. And you listen to them and you think, well, that just makes common sense, but we don't think about those, right? I didn't before either. I am really excited to share this with all of the listeners. And, the one thing I do want to is Jojo, if listeners are interested in more information on your coaching and program, how can they contact you? Well, you, I think you have my, my link. Cause normally what I do is I send a link out with, some questions. It's a real short questionnaire that helps me determine which of the programs I coach would be right for them. So that's the first way. If they're really interested in, um, getting healthy weight loss, things like that, they can, fill out that link. It has, it'll have their phone number on it. I will then contact them there's never any pressure, no obligation. I just share. Um, and so then we get on the phone. I would explain the program and how I would tweak it for them. Cause it's an individual thing. God did not make cookie cutter people. Yeah. There's no one size fits all. And so I get on the phone, explain the program, how I would tweak it for them. They can ask me any questions that they have and then make a decision. Is it for them? Okay. Other than that, they can reach me, uh, Jojo Tavares on Facebook. And, I'm also on, instagram and LinkedIn. I have a YouTube channel, at Heaven and Health, which has my weight loss myths. And that's a series I've been doing, uh, this year. I think the beginning of the year is when I started, coffee and miracles. So I'll talk about miracles. So that's why it's heaven and hell. My son actually, business. That's wonderful. Well, I will definitely put all that in the podcast, episode description so they can see it right off. Well, this has been. Awesome, Jojo. And, I just want to thank you so much for being here. And I, I just pray that God continues to grow your, your health coaching, but also this ministry. I, I feel like it's a ministry. Yes, I, I do too. We call it a business tree because it is a business. But it is a ministry because I help people live better so that they can do what God has for them. Yes. Oh, that's great. All right. Well, listeners until next time.