So it’s December…One of the biggest party months of the year with Christmas parties, gatherings, alcohol and sh*tty food. The temptation and peer pressure to drink and eat copious amounts of food is high, you don’t want to miss out on a “good time”.You stress about the calories so you restrict throughout the day so you can binge on alcohol and then binge on food to curb your cravings later.Sounds like a merry-go-round of f*ckery to me! One that I used to be on also.I remember up until 4 years ago, when this time of year came around, I would restrict my calories leading into the holidays because I knew that I was approaching a 2-week bender of binge drinking, binge eating and feeling like sh*t. My mentality back then was “So I can have fun, I need to restrict”. Not to mention I was completely unhappy in myself so I drank to drown my sorrows away.January 1st hit, the “New Year, New Me” set in and I thought all of that binging would be fine because I would start fresh the next year…While this was happening, my metabolism was f*cked, I wasn’t sleeping well, I was moody and my digestion was sh*t…Rather than enjoying the ‘most wonderful time of the year’, I spent the majority of it drunk and hungover.I now approach this time of year no different to any other day of the year...I do like to have the odd drink of a really nice champagne or a cocktail and I enjoy filling up my plate on Christmas day, but I do it because when I shifted my focus to getting better and healing, the decisions became easier to either not drink again or have one or two...not bloody 20....So should I drink? Well it really depends on your body and health goals and why you’re drinking? I used to drink to drink to numb my problems and pain. If I was sad or stressed I drank to cope. If you’re goal is to lose 20kgs, have serious hormonal or metabolic issues then maybe you need to really ask yourself does drinking align with my goals?In this episode, we discuss how we attack Christmas and how you can break the cycle of restricting then binge eating this year.We dive in to How alcohol affects our blood sugar levels and hormonesThe causes of binge eating at this time of yearWhat we used to do in the past, why it didn’t work for us and what we do nowThe advice we give to our clients when this ‘silly’ season arrivesNOW my body is now a well-oiled machine because I eat metabolically optimising food. Food that makes me feel bloody good such as liver, oysters, carrot salad, OJ, milk, sugar, fruit, potatoes, butter and the list goes on.I now feel like I can enjoy food, rather than feeling like I need to binge on it and binge drink because in the past I only got to eat yummy food every now and then...the rest of the time I was restricting myself, killing myself doing cardio and ruining my body.So with all of that being said, stop restricting, this leads to feeling unhappy and anxious at this time of year. ENJOY yourself, eat good food, when you restrict it leads to binge eating...it isn’t worth it and you only feel like crap then next day which just begins the cycle all over again.