Health Hacks for the Holidays (with Coach Keri Lappi)
Getting or staying healthy can certainly be challenging any time of the year, but during the holiday season the temptations come at you hard. It begins with the first bag of Halloween candy you purchase in October and probably doesn’t stop until January 2. From holiday parties to the cookie exchanges and everything in between, how do we keep from going overboard without feeling deprived? This requires some expert advice, and we got it with coach Keri! In this episode, we focus not only on the holidays, but what to do when faced with staying healthy while attending events or parties for any special occasion, vacation eating and more. We even got some great general nutrition, fitness and weight loss advice.
Keri Lappi is an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach and holds a Certified International Health Coach Certification. She’s also a triathlete and the owner of Energetic Wellness Coaching. She wrote a book called “Just One Thing: Simplifying the Mystery of a Healthy Lifestyle.” We invite you to listen as Keri clues us in on how to set yourself up to be successful going into tempting situations using both psychology and biology.
We talk about how to keep from feeling deprived, the crazy pull sugar can have on us and even how the food industry could be setting us up to fail if we don’t know what to watch for. We’ll learn how sleep, stress and staying hydrated all have huge impact on both our health and potential weight loss.
Overall, Keri wants us to not focus on the scale or the size of our jeans, but on being healthy. She shares how if we can start with (as her book says) “just one thing,” we can begin the journey to getting there. Click play for some great health hacks for the holidays and beyond.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Sandy Kovach [00:00:02]:
This is Imagine Yourself podcast, where we help you imagine the next chapter of life with grace, gratitude, courage, and faith.
Lanée Blaise [00:00:10]:
Welcome to imagine yourself. I'm Lanee here with Sandy, and I want to ask a question to everybody out there who wants to be and get and stay healthy. Whether it's the Big holiday, whether it's special occasions, whether it's when you go on vacations. And because Sandy and I are not necessarily gurus on all of the nutrition and fitness and health things, we wanted to invite someone special today. Her name is Keri Lappi, and she is a board certified integrative, nutrition, health coach, author, athlete, and speaker. She's the owner and founder of Energetic Wellness Coaching. I even like that name, which is a health coaching practice that values holistic and research based approach. She's also written a book. Just one thing Simplifying. The mystery of a health lifestyle. Sandy and I always love when there's just one thing that we need to do.
Sandy Kovach [00:01:13]:
It's not as intimidating.
Lanée Blaise [00:01:15]:
We want to welcome to the show our Keri Lappi.
Keri Lappi [00:01:18]:
Thank you guys for having me. I am super excited to hopefully help all of your people. So, yes, let's do it.
Sandy Kovach [00:01:27]:
Let's do it. We are excited about getting some nutrition and health tips, just in general. And of course, we're going to focus on what we do during special occasions where there are extra temptations, including, and first and foremost, the holiday season. Because that's such a long period of time where it seems like there are constantly all these treats in our face, whether it's just baking cookies or Reese's trees in stockings or it's going to potlucks and holiday parties. And it feels like sometimes if you don't indulge in everything, you're missing out.
Keri Lappi [00:02:06]:
We have a societal response to the holidays of let's just go crazy. But then we start at Halloween and there's like 800 piles of candy, and that just lasts all the way until Thanksgiving when people overeat, and then we get into all the other holidays, whether people are celebrating Christmas or something else. It's all the get togethers, all the parties, the work parties, family parties. It is like two solid months of nothing but gorging yourself on food. And then January 1 happens, right? Yes. And people wake up in their Christmas pajamas and they look at themselves in the mirror. They're in their plaid pajama pants and they're changing their clothes and they look down at themselves or look over in the mirror and they're like, I have got to do something. Like, this is unacceptable. Right? Maybe it happens just right after Christmas, but I am here to help those people who don't want to be in that position of, it's January, and now I need to do something drastic because I just went crazy off the rails throughout the season. My approach is, how can you get through that season enjoying things and having those special times? Because that's part of it. But having it in true moderation. What can you do to help yourself and not just fall off the wagon?
Sandy Kovach [00:03:38]:
Yeah, you said something in your book, gone are the thoughts of restraint because this is the holiday. I think it was your quote or something like that.
Keri Lappi [00:03:44]:
Yes.
Sandy Kovach [00:03:45]:
It's a mental thing, right?
Keri Lappi [00:03:46]:
There's two things that are happening. So first, we have a mental and emotional component of how we approach the holidays or vacation or whatever it is. And then we have a physical component. If we neglect either one, you're not setting yourself up for success. So, for example, let's say we're going to go to a Christmas party together. And if I want to not put myself into too deep of a temptation, then what I'm going to do is think ahead of time, right? I'm going to think if I go, what are some things that I'm really looking forward to? What at this party is going to be the thing. Like if my mom made pumpkin pie, I'm going to have a piece of pumpkin pie. Now, I don't personally eat gluten, so I got to scrape off the pumpkin pie off of the crust. But I'm going to have some pumpkin pie in the way that I can have pumpkin pie. Does it mean I need to have like five pieces of pumpkin pie? No, I'm going in and I can enjoy the one piece. And is there anything else? Well, maybe my sister in law's mashed potatoes are really special, so I'm going to really enjoy that as I eat. Mentally sort of preparing yourself as you go in and say what's really worth it, does this need to be a free for all? Am I a human in charge of my own desires? Or am I just going to go in like my puppy and just clear the whole table? So sort of anticipating what is going to be worth it because you're going to pay for it on the other side, did you enjoy this? If you go in and you're like, no, I'm just going to have lettuce at this party, that's another cost too, because that's not fun. Other people may look at you like, okay, what's your problem? But going in and participating in the things that really matter to you, just having an intentional thought ahead of time. So that's that emotional aspect. The other aspect is thinking about physically. If you go to the grocery store and you're starving, that is the worst thing you can do, right? Because then you're like, oh, these cookies look delicious, or I want these, give me all the carbs, right? All the things that you might not buy, but because you're so starving and it looks delicious, you are going to throw that in your cart. So with that same mentality, when you go to a party, have you had protein that day? Is this like a party that's 05:00 07:00 in the evening? Make sure that you're not walking into the party starving. Have some protein. Have some veggies before you go so that you have sort of a base where you can physically look at food and say, I can rationally determine if I really want to eat this or not.
Lanée Blaise [00:06:34]:
You'll have a much more discerning palate when it comes time. And don't drink too much eggnog either, because that might mess up your sensibilities, too.
Keri Lappi [00:06:47]:
Yes. I'm actually really glad you said that, because the liquid sugars or the alcohol, right? So that's one thing, too, to really think about as you go in, because if people are really looking to not gain weight or not to gain very much weight, liquid sugar is the number one thing that will just make you very vulnerable to gaining weight because it just goes in so quickly. There's no fiber, there's nothing that hangs onto it. Right. It just goes jumps right into your liver and hits your body and turns into fat.
Sandy Kovach [00:07:21]:
And then the inhibitions that you lose when you're drinking, right?
Keri Lappi [00:07:24]:
Yes. Absolutely.
Sandy Kovach [00:07:26]:
Makes you not make such great decisions on many fronts, including food.
Keri Lappi [00:07:31]:
Yes. Or you do not care. Right.
Lanée Blaise [00:07:36]:
I'm going to tell you that I'm about to go to one tonight, kind of for like a work event and wine tasting and lots of food and lots of platters are going to come by. And I'm thinking that I'm going to take what you're saying, especially the wine tasting part, and take like one sip of each little different wine so that I don't indulge too much that way. I did not know the part about that way. The liquid sugars go straight in, but it makes sense. And then I'm going to say no, because that's another thing. Emotionally saying no to certain things, you don't want to hurt certain people's feelings. You feel like, I always grew up honestly, where you're supposed to eat everything on your plate. Why'd you put it on your plate if you're not going to eat it? And your eyes are bigger than your stomach. But maybe we can just dial that back a bit. That's the thing about when you're on vacations or when you're at a party or whatever. It's not these same standards as if you have a home cooked meal and you've spent the time to put the veggies on and some nice healthy proteins and then you do need to eat your whole plate of food to get proper nourishment versus this is not that same category.
Sandy Kovach [00:08:44]:
Recreational eating.
Keri Lappi [00:08:46]:
Recreational eating, yes, that's absolutely right. And really, I mean, if you think about it, when I go to a party well, first of all, I don't really look at other people's plates, but if I were to look at their plate, honestly, I really don't care what they're eating. And that's my job, right, is to look and to help people be healthy. But if my function is to be at a party, it doesn't matter what other people are eating or what they're not eating. I mean, you might be insulted if your thing that you made is the thing that nobody's eating. Right. Then it's sad. Oh, I forgot the ingredients in there. But other than that, people really don't care that much about what you are doing. We think that they do, but they really don't. I mean, think about your own mentality when you're at a party. It's like, I'm here to socialize and have fun, not judge people about what's left on their plate or not. Right.
Sandy Kovach [00:09:47]:
We think people are paying attention. And by the same token, if we are taking an extra treat, like we have decided ahead of time that we want it, nobody is going to judge us and say, oh, I thought you were supposed to be on a diet, or let's not use that word. Yeah, just have it in your mind what you want. Make those decisions. I'm going to eat this treat, not that treat. And you say prepare yourself ahead of time, like maybe have a hard boiled egg or an apple or drink some water, stuff like that.
Keri Lappi [00:10:12]:
Yes, absolutely. And water is a huge one. Sometimes our thirst and hunger signals can get mixed. When we really should be having some water, we may switch that into a hunger signal because there is a measure of hydration in certain foods. So you can get a little bit of hydration out of certain things. But if your body is truly wanting to be just hydrated and have the water, if you drink the water, you're going to check off a lot of things and that's going to shut down so that you don't have to feel like you need to eat some M&M's or whatever it is.
Lanée Blaise [00:10:48]:
Maybe you do a little delay where you drink the water, you wait a bit and then you see if things have leveled out. Because I have definitely heard that before, but I don't listen to it. But I'm going to try to actually incorporate that into to drink some water, like you said before we even go to make sure I'm not dehydrated anyway. And when I feel hungry, try to drink the water before I start. Because now you, Carrie, have lots of scientific based things that help us. What else can we take from you to just think about the science behind it? I remember when we were on our walk, you were talking about some of the things that food companies put into our food to make it irresistible. And it's like a hard fight that I don't want us to feel bad if we didn't know enough and that's why we're losing the battle.
Keri Lappi [00:11:41]:
Yes. There's a really interesting book called Salt, Sugar, Fat the Way the Food Giants Hooked US. I think it's by Michael Moss. He dives into the whole grocery store manufacturing, that whole association, and gets into where they are experimenting with different foods. So, for example, a pudding. When they're figuring out their recipe, it's not that they're saying, should we make chocolate pudding or vanilla pudding or butterscotch pudding, and should we have six eggs, or should we put four eggs, or whatever. A lot of it is that trifecta of salt, sugar, and fat. The reason is because in our brains, if we have one of those components that's too strong. So if you have something that's too salty, we react to that, right? If it's too salty, you are done, right? You get a drink of water, it's done. I'm not having any more of these chips right now. That was just a bit too much. The same with too sweet. If you get something that's too sweet and you're getting, like, the pain behind your ear because it's oh, that was, like, really sweet. It's kind of a turn off or something that's too heavy and too fatty, it would be I mean, cheesecake is delicious, right? Don't get me wrong. But you probably would have a difficult time just having two entire cheesecakes. That's all one would hope.
Sandy Kovach [00:13:11]:
Yes. Even I'm not that bad.
Keri Lappi [00:13:17]:
But when you have those three, what they do, they intentionally balance them so that your brain, so your tongue, your palate, will not send the signals to your brain. That one is too much. The perfect example is a tortilla chip. You put a tortilla chip in your mouth, the first flavor that you get is salty. That salt that's just on there. And then it kind of dissolves a little bit away. And then the chip, if it's a tortilla chip, it's made from corn. Corn is a grain, and that is what they use to fatten cows. It's like a sugar, right? It functions as a sugar in our bodies. So that's the sweet component. Even though we don't think of corn as sweet, there is sweetness in that register biologically. And then it's fried in an oil, which is a fat. So we go through this whole mini process. How many times have you ever just eaten one tortilla chip, right? That doesn't happen. Zero. It is intentionally balanced so that you're overriding our biology to make it so that you don't have a shut off. That's intentional. Going back to their research, right? So they will have, let's say it's a pudding cup, and they'll have do you like pudding cup? One or two? You make that choice. One of them may have a little bit more sugar. If you pick the one with more sugar, then they go up half a teaspoon, down half a teaspoon to say, okay, now which one do you like? Do you like three or four? It is mathematical. It is scientific reimagine all these things. They must have started in somebody's grandma's kitchen because it was so delicious, and now they made a business good for them. That is not what is going on. This is a scientific, mathematical industry designed to get into your pocket at the cost of your health. Wow.
Sandy Kovach [00:15:18]:
Grandma's not involved, is she?
Keri Lappi [00:15:19]:
No, I'm pretty sure she is not. Right?
Lanée Blaise [00:15:24]:
You have me so sad about the tortilla chip and about sea salt caramel cookies with the salt and the sugar and the fat, and I love it. But now I see it's a trap.
Keri Lappi [00:15:38]:
It's a trap. Yeah.
Lanée Blaise [00:15:41]:
Okay. I didn't know this.
Keri Lappi [00:15:42]:
So this is the biological component that's behind this. This is the why I hear personally, and you may hear too, so many people struggling with they're like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I just stop eating delicious salted caramel cookies or tortilla chips? What is my problem? Like, I want to be healthy. And I get in my car and I go to the grocery store, and I put delicious kale in my carts, and I get my lean meat and my grass fed beef and my free range, my pasture raised eggs. And then I walk down the aisle with the cookies, and I watch my hand outside of my body. It's reaching hand, what are you doing? And it's putting it in the cart. I see myself putting it in, and I'm walking to the cash register, right? Like, what is going on?
Sandy Kovach [00:16:34]:
And then you eat it in the car.
Keri Lappi [00:16:36]:
You can't even wait to get home, right?
Lanée Blaise [00:16:38]:
And in the line for the cash register, you have to pass by the candy aisle just to pay kale.
Keri Lappi [00:16:45]:
So that is actually another topic that is tackled in that book that I referred to. That is intentional. The placement is intentional where things are placed. So, for example, in the cereal aisle, if it's at your eye level, they pay more money to have that at your eye level. And then they put the kids ones with all the bright colors and the cartoon guys at kids eye level. So this is intentional psychology combined with overriding human biology to get your money. If you go into the grocery store and you're aware of this, you are so much more prepared to say, there is a battle going on for the money that I have in my pocket. And this is a whole psychological, almost psychological warfare level. If you're completely unaware of this, you're being taken advantage of.
Sandy Kovach [00:17:43]:
Okay? Being aware is number one. What else can we do? Like you said, your arm goes outside of your body and reaches the cookies. There's got to be something to help.
Keri Lappi [00:17:54]:
Within each one of us, there is a little bit of a stripe of rebel, and sometimes it's used for good, and sometimes it's not. But if you can access your rebel stripe when you go into the grocery store and know, these people do not care about my health, this is at the cost of my health. This is not like I'm getting marketed to to eat delicious, healthy carrots. This is like fake cereal and things that you don't need using that human leverage that we have of, you know what? I am not going to be one of your victims. Maybe I don't know all the nuances of this, but I'm not going to succumb to whatever it is you're doing here. One of the things so particularly that you asked with grocery shopping, we touched on a little bit too. Don't go in hungry. Go after you've had a meal. You have protein. Stick to your list. It is the mentality of I am here to get things because I want to be healthy. There's a mentality between I want to be a certain weight and I want to be healthy. Those are two wildly different aims. If I have found that with my clients, if their only goal is to get to a certain number on a scale, that's not enough. That is not a big enough thing to hold onto. It needs to be big picture health. Do you want to be able to keep up with your children and potentially your grandchildren? Do you want to be able to when your family calls and they say, we're going to have reunion, we're going to have a canoe trip, are you going to be able to do these things? Are you going to be able to participate in life fully because you are healthy? Or are you going to choose to fall into these things or I mean, they kind of shove you in. Can you make it so that you can hold on to these things and get to your health goals, not just the outside exterior vanity goals that could.
Sandy Kovach [00:20:06]:
Be temporary too, right?
Keri Lappi [00:20:08]:
Yes. But the thing is, if you are going for health, it comes out in those other things. If you are aiming for I'm aiming to have 74oz of water today and seven servings of fruits and vegetables and whatever else is on your list of things that you're thinking to incorporate into your healthy lifestyle. Those inherently push those other things out of the way and create a lifestyle where you are losing weight, where you're not in a state of inflammation, you have energy, your mind is clear. So the aim is to go for health. And the side effects of health are weight loss and being able to do what you want to do.
Sandy Kovach [00:20:58]:
And this extends obviously through the holidays or anytime, but there are other things that we can do. I know that you talk about in your book to take care of our health that you wouldn't think had anything to do with losing weight or being well, being healthy. You would think, but definitely not losing weight. But you say, for instance, sleeping and stress. We lack sleep and go through a lot of stress during the holidays, but that could be anytime as well. So how do those all tie together?
Keri Lappi [00:21:25]:
Sleep and stress are two huge components for being things that can help with weight loss and health or hinder weight loss and health. When we don't get appropriate sleep. And for adults 18 to all the way up, the appropriate amount of sleep is a window between usually seven to 8 hours. But it can be seven to 9 hours depending on different health things. And that's excluding if you have a chronic health concern that's causing you to need to sleep more. But outside of that window, whether it's less or more that actually causes problems in your health. And I know that seems shocking, right, to say, well, if you sleep more then how could that be a problem too? But that's actually the case. So what happens when we don't get appropriate sleep? Our cortisol levels, which is our stress hormone that increases and women, you are in a state of increased stress. The very primal thing happens to your body. We are experiencing our modern day stress of I got to get the kids over here, I have to deal with this, whatever it is. But there is not a difference in a lion is chasing me and I might die soon. So it's a survival physical response coming out of our adrenal glands. And when that increases things like if a lion is chasing you, that's not a good time to reproduce or to shed any weight that you stored, right? Because who knows, you might need that. Your body says, you know what, let me do you a favor. I'm going to just hang on to all of that for you because I don't know, you're probably dying. So I'm going to save you, I'm going to do the best I can. We are going to hang on to all of this and let's get you through so we can outrun this lion that's coming after us. But that's not our situation. But biologically there's not a differentiation in that. So if we can attack our stress and do things that are truly like self care, taking ourselves down a notch, doing things that feed back into our lives, then our cortisol levels will come down and there's switches that will be flipped. Because if your body says, no, we're okay now, we're good, okay, well guess what's going to happen? All of those other functions like reproduction, weight loss, those things can come in because then it's a safe time biologically for your body to do those things. So one of the things that really helps a lot is if you feel that sensation of stress in your body, right? Like it's almost like that heightening tension of oh, I have a lot of things to do or things are not going my way, or whatever it is. What I recommend for people is to come at it with a physical response. So move your body. If you are in that tension, you need to take a break. When you can get out, go for a walk, go for a run. It releases endorphins to kind of rebalance that in a way it sort of burns up that nervous energy. So if you are not able to express if you think of all those days that you're like this is really stressful and tomorrow and I got to go shopping and I got to get their gifts and I need to make sure that I have this covered and I have to plan for the meal. So we think of all these things, make sure that you are combating that daily with a physical response of, you know what? I need to go do a vigorous walk because today is a doozy. It is going to be, oh, wow, this is a power walk. This is for real. Like, this is going on. So that is one of the major releases that can kind of help balance that out. When you are in that place, taking.
Lanée Blaise [00:25:41]:
The walk is great, but for some reason, wiping down countertops I know this sounds really crazy. It feels like everything is out of control right now. I can't control stuff. I'm frustrated. I'm stressed. But I'm going to have these nice clean countertops because me wiping them down, I guess I never thought of it as being like movement, but it's movement and it's like one little tiny thing that I can control. And then I kind of get my composure back and then go back to fussing at my kids. But I'm much nicer about it.
Keri Lappi [00:26:11]:
Yes, you're absolutely right. So the psychological component is part of any stress is feeling that you don't have control over your situation. All of these things are coming at me. How can I be in front of this? So that's the thing that can get dangerous for people who fall into bad habits. There's a potential for self medicating in control. Okay, I don't have control in these areas. You know what I have control of? Eating an entire bag of Reese's. I have full control over that. That's like that borderline between taking control and self medicating. The sugar. There is such a powerful draw in sugar that it is literally on par with how your brain responds to sugar is the same things that it lights up in your brain. For cocaine, they have studies where mice have already been addicted to heroin or cocaine, and they offer them the drug or sugar. And the already addicted choose sugar over their drug of choice eight times as often. What? Yes. This is the level that our brains respond to sugar, and this is a whole big circle. But when we don't sleep appropriately, there's two hormones in our body that control our hunger. They're grelin and leptin. And one of them tells you you are hungry, and the other one tells you that you're satisfied. So we don't have a sliding scale. We have two different hormones that control this. Well, you know what happens when we don't get appropriate sleep? The one that tells you that you're hungry goes way up. And the one that tells you that you're going to be satisfied sinks down so that that space in your hunger is like you have a whole world that's even more. Right. So if you can think of a day that you did not get appropriate sleep, when you have that next day, your hunger levels are very high. And our bodies are designed for if you don't have energy, what is quick energy? Not a steak. Yes. You're not going for steak and broccoli. You're like, I need a cupcake right now. Right? Yeah. Sugar and carbs. Yeah. So this is all together. So my aim is to always think of our psychology and our emotions along with our biology and pair that together so that we can have win win situations. We don't need to pretend that we are absolutely unstoppable in our psychology while we are shooting ourselves in the foot with our biology. Right. If you don't sleep, if you decide, okay, I'm finally going to do it, I'm going to be successful, I'm going to eat so well, it's going to be great. And then you don't sleep that night, and the next morning your biology is saying, we have a problem. You need more energy. We're here to help. Right. Let me direct you to some cookies or open the cupboard. You know what's in this cupboard? You know what you need out of this cupboard? We have to pay attention to our biology, but not just our biology, our psychology, and the whole emotional component of that. Because if we are only paying attention to our emotional component and saying, I'm going to fight this through, if your biology is knocking on the door and you are starving, at some point you are going to eat, or if it's demanding carbs because you have no energy, it's going to happen. There's only a certain level of willpower that we can have after a time if your biology is demanding that you do something. So let's cover the bases on both sides.
Lanée Blaise [00:30:12]:
Yeah.
Sandy Kovach [00:30:13]:
And so if it's the holiday time and you've got stuff laying around your house with sugar in it, whether they be cookies or Reese's trees or whatever the case may be, you're a lot more likely to hit that up. So we touched on a lot of things, and I know you touched on walking a little bit, and I guess that would probably be something that we can try to do, too, is increase our exercise during the holiday time, which would be good anytime. But if we know we're going to be taking in more calories, we're going to be giving in a little. Do you just recommend, like, a percentage boost of exercising or walking a little further or whatever you do?
Keri Lappi [00:30:51]:
For sure. So the recommended level of activity for adults in the United States is 150 minutes of exercise a week. That's why we often hear 30 minutes five days a week. They're just breaking it up. Some people, depending on your personality, some people will. Say, well, I walked through that restaurant kind of vigorously. You know what, you need to push it. So there's health rate zones. There's zone one through five. Zone one is our very low. You're potentially sleeping, you're at rest. Zone two is a little bit more than that. Zone three is where you're starting to feel like I'm doing some work here. And you get to five, and that's like you're at the peak of your pushing it. I want people to at least be in zone three. This needs to cause discomfort to make changes in your body. If everything is easy, it's not going to change things. So if you think of weightlifting, for example, if you walk over and you pick up a pencil or you pick up your water bottle, is this weightlifting? No, not really, because it's not enough to cost anything to cause a change, to cause that response. Well, if you go over and pick up a 25 pound dumbbell, well, then that's like, oh, I'm noticing this. Right? So sort of that proportion with our energy output if we're talking about cardio.
Sandy Kovach [00:32:23]:
Okay, so at least at some points in your walk, you need to be breaking a sweat. And then if you have like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch or something like that, you can look at your heart rate or you can look at know apple will tell you if you get the exercise circle completed or if you're just getting your regular calories completed, it's a different thing. So I'm guessing that if you're doing the extra calories, just push yourself a little harder.
Keri Lappi [00:32:48]:
Yeah. So the one thing that really makes more of a difference, if people are really focusing on their health and one of their major goals is weight loss. 80% is food, 20% is exercise. Unless you're an 18 year old boy, right. Those kids can eat Taco Bell five times a day and not gain a single ounce. But for the rest of us, we are at weight percent, what you put in your body and 20% of your energy output. Because even though we have all heard a calorie is a calorie, what we put into our body, the quality of ingredients is completely different in how our bodies respond to things. So, for example, over the last, I don't know, at least decade, there's the whole thing of like 100 calorie packs. This is 100 calories of muffin, this is 100 calories of cookie. And we kind of think, oh, well, as long as I'm sort of staying in my calories, that's fine, right? Like if I'm counting calories what I have for energy expenditure, that should be fine. But think of having 100 calories of Mountain Dew, however much that is, right? You have 100 calories of Mountain Dew and you have 100 calories of broccoli. Okay, that's going to be a lot of broccoli, probably, but whatever it is, let's say that you ate that much. Now here's the difference. When 100 calories of Mountain Dew goes into your body, there's no fiber. That's all sugar. It goes straight to your liver. It kicks on your insulin. You're going to have an insulin response. What can't be used in your body if there's already you have glucose and going to all the cells of your body that store does fat in your liver. And then you potentially have I mean, if you do that repetitively or if you have chronic whatever, that could be a chronic issue. Right. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease that causes you later to be tired. There's certain things in there that neurologically kind of affect you. It doesn't do you any favors, but it's still 100 calories. Now, if we switch over to the 100 calories of broccoli, you put 100 calories of broccoli in your body, which is probably a lot of broccoli. There's tons of fiber. Sulforaphane, which is an anticancer component. It also sulforaphane for the men out there, sulforaphane is something this is particularly in broccoli sprouts. I know this is a side thought, but they'll really appreciate this. It helps fight against male pattern baldness. Okay, so that's the thing. I know the guys are into that. So then you're getting the fiber, you're getting nutrition, you're getting sulforaphane, you're getting these anticancer components. The whole picture of what is going on in your body when you have Mountain Dew versus broccoli is a world of difference. It's not just about the calorie. It's what quality of ingredients are you putting in your body and how will your body respond to that? What do you want? So that's more important. I think some people, if they feel like, oh, I overdid it at this party, I really went crazy, and now I'm going to punish myself. I'm going to walk on a treadmill all day long my desk while I'm working, right? Yes. But they're doing it as a punishment, not as something fun that they want to do. Right, right.
Sandy Kovach [00:36:16]:
So circling back to some of your earlier tips, watching what we eat and how much and just treating ourselves to certain things would be more important.
Keri Lappi [00:36:24]:
Yes.
Sandy Kovach [00:36:25]:
Anything else before we wrap the topic?
Lanée Blaise [00:36:29]:
The only thing I can think of, especially anybody who's doing vacations, I learned this from my sister. She will be at the if you're at the airport, maybe at the train station, wherever, too. But she walks paces back and forth, back and forth to get a little exercise. While she's there, she makes sure she eats something healthy before she goes to the airport so that she won't be tempted to buy expensive airport food or train station. Might not even have many choices for the food. Also doing things like getting instacart, because when you get instacart delivered, not that I'm a commercial for them, you really do stick to your list. You don't get tempted by those cereal boxes, shelves and those candy shelves because they're not there. And the people are going to pick the stuff and they can get tempted by it, but not you. And they drop it to your house. And I just wonder if little tiny things, even like your book, just One Thing Here and There, will add up and make these wonderful differences. And that's why we thought you would be just the perfect person, because I know that you're a great coach, but you have this scientific backup on everything that you say, and it always kind of blows our mind. And we just really appreciate and need that, because the more you know, the better your chances are of fighting all this stuff.
Keri Lappi [00:37:52]:
Really. Thank you. Thank you. That's very kind. And I do love to help because part of my I know it seems really weird to me, but all these people don't enjoy just reading the National Institutes of Health research. But for me that's pretty know. So translating that into practical life application for people because there are really fascinating things out there that if we know and understand, we can leverage for our health and for our own goals. Yeah.
Sandy Kovach [00:38:25]:
And so where can people get in touch with you to get your book or for coaching?
Keri Lappi [00:38:30]:
My book is actually it's on Amazon under Keri Lappi. And the book is just one thing simplifying the mystery of a healthy lifestyle. And if people are interested in contacting me about questions about health coaching, or they might be interested in health coaching, they can email me at energeticwellnesscoaching@gmail.com. I'm not in sales. My passion is to help people. I'm not in it to just gather every person I see into my coaching practice. I want to really work with people that I work well with because then it's a benefit for both of us. Are we a good fit? Do we get along? Do you trust me to help you? That kind of thing, right?
Sandy Kovach [00:39:14]:
And we will put all of your information on our website. Imagine yourselfpodcast.com as well as in the Show Notes.
Keri Lappi [00:39:21]:
Awesome.
Lanée Blaise [00:39:22]:
So, yeah, I just want to encourage everyone who listened to this, stop for a moment and think, like you said, about the different approaches as far as biologically, psychologically, emotionally, and just really imagine yourself, getting yourself, keeping yourself staying on track with fitness goals, nutrition goals, during the holidays, during the vacations, during the special occasions year round without beating ourselves up, but still trying to get back up on the horse each time and do better and better. We're rooting for you.
Sandy Kovach [00:40:00]:
Yes, we are. Hope you can root for us too. We'll do this together and we'll make sure to link up the resources you heard about in the podcast, including of course, Keri's book that'll be in the Show Notes. And@imagineourselfpodcast.com we hope that whatever platform you're listening to this on, if you can give us a rating or a review, we'd really appreciate that. It helps us shape the podcast and also helps folks to find us, particularly if you're listening on Apple, feel free to drop us a line, either via email or on any of our social media, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook. You can find those links too at Imagine Yourself Podcast.com. And until next time, when we have something new to imagine, wishing you happy and healthy holidays.
Get Keri Lappi's book: Just One Thing: Simplifying the Mystery of a Healthy Lifestyle
email Keri: energeticwellnesscoaching@gmail.com
