Do you find yourself feeling stressed about family meals or sticking to your health goals during the holidays? Tune in to learn how to navigate the holidays, enjoying your favorite foods while still keeping your health in mind. On this week’s episode, Jenn is reading emails that listeners have sent in regarding how to navigate the holidays. The questions range from indulging in your favorite foods, to eating around others, as well as balancing seasonal affective disorder and getting more movement in. Jenn has some amazing tips and tricks to get through this season, there will surely be a takeaway for everyone! Tune in to hear tips that keep you closer to your goals and best health this holiday season. The Salad With a Side of Fries podcast is hosted by Jenn Trepeck, discussing wellness and weight loss for real life, clearing up the myths, misinformation, bad science & marketing surrounding our nutrition knowledge and the food industry. Let’s dive into wellness and weight loss for real life, including drinking, eating out, and skipping the grocery store.  IN THIS EPISODE: ●  [5:48] How to manage eating when you aren’t necessarily comfortable eating around others.●  [10:22] How do you pace yourself around holiday food?●  [14:07] What are some things that you can do to avoid feeling bloated and lethargic?●  [18:38] How can you battle seasonal affective disorder?●  [22:00] How can you get more activity now that it’s gotten colder and darker?●  [24:25] Tips on balancing nutrition while enjoying holiday indulgences.●  [34:48] Jenn shares insight into the guests she brings to the podcast. ●  [37:00] How can you look at progress without getting caught up with BMI?●  [39:40] If you are limited in your options of what’s available to eat, is it better to eat fast food/junk food or to not eat?●  [42:57] If the sugar content in soda and a smoothie is the same, is one really more healthy than the other?●  [44:03] Is it possible to have too many vitamins?●  [46:21] A great recap email from a listener about being a saboteur.  KEY TAKEAWAYS: ●  It is natural when we end up around people, especially family, for stuff to show up such as trauma, comparison, uncomfortable questions, and old habits. Decide one thing you might do differently or one tweak you can make in order to stay on track with your goals. ●  If we have that dessert with the nutrition of our meal, it blunts the impact on our blood sugar from the sugar that we ate. So if you think of high glycemic foods like dessert as the color red and low glycemic foods like our protein and vegetables as the color white. If we mix them together we get pink. If we have more of the protein and vegetables and less of the higher glycemic foods, then it’s a lighter pink, now we’re getting closer to white which helps balance our blood sugar.●  You get to make the choice about how you feel and perfection is not required. Enjoy the holidays, progress over perfection. Let this time of year be a practice in balance and finding that gray area between black and white, on or off, good or bad.  QUOTES: “Maybe the three bite rule is your friend. Essentially, what we're saying is the only bites that we actually taste are the first, the second, and the last. So if those are the only ones that we actually taste, maybe those are the only ones that we need.” - Jenn Trepeck“Honestly, 10 minutes of walking, especially after a meal, is amazing. So, even if you just set an alarm and listen to something and say, "I'm not sitting down until the alarm goes off, and you circle the couch or you do laps around, it doesn't even matter.” - Jenn Trepeck“Is it possible for you to enlist an ally?...Then tell them what you need and what it looks like for them to support you." - Jenn Trepeck"Pay attention to whether something tastes as good as you wanted it to.” - Jenn Trepeck“Remember that you get to make the choice about how you feel and perfection is not required. Enjoy the holidays. Progress over perfection. Let this time of ye