The holidays are coming. And you're already worried about family and friends pushing food on you, saying: 

"Come on, live a little."

I know how you feel. I never wanted to hurt anyone's feelings during the holidays by being "rude." So I ate my face off instead of saying "no" if I didn't want something that was offered.

But when I lost my weight I started putting my own needs first. And today I'm sharing how to do it without feeling like a bitch.

Listen to "My Best Tips for Handling Food Pushers This Holiday Season," for:

• 3 reasons it can be hard to say "no" to a food pusher
• What food pushers really want (it's not what you think)
• 4 ways to deal with food pushers without guilt

Plus, I'm revealing the conversation that changed everything with my mother-in-law. (And one thing that made it much easier for me).

You don't have to stay home to lose weight during the holidays. But you also don't have to say "yes" to food just to be "nice." Listen to today's episode to know how to navigate food pushers like a boss.

Managing food pushers is one way not to give up on weightloss "until New Year's." Make this the year you wake up on January 1st feeling good, instead of stuffed with regret.

(00:01):

Hi, I'm Corinne. After a lifetime of obesity being bullied for being the fattest kid in the class and losing and gaining weight like it was my job, I finally got my shit together and I lost 100 pounds each week. I'll teach you no bullshit weight loss advice you can use to overcome your battle with weight. I keep it simple. You'll learn how to quit eating and thinking like an asshole. You stop that and weight loss becomes easy. My goal is to help you lose weight the way you want to live your life. If you are ready to figure out weight loss, then let's go. Okay, welcome back everybody. The holidays can feel like a complete minefield when you're trying to lose weight. So today I want to talk to you about a question I get all the time, and that is just how do you deal with food pushers during the holidays? 

(00:51):

I mean, the food is everywhere, but it's not just the food that is going to be stressful. It's going to be the people too. If you're not used to eating these kinds of foods all year long, of course the holidays are going to feel a little amped up and charged. You're not used to seeing cookies all over the place. You're not used to seeing casserole. You're not used to all the parties, you're not used to all of the opportunities to eat. But then we got all these people too who are around us, and during the holidays the food pusher in most people does come out. So you're going to have family and friends basically saying stuff like this to you. Come on live a little. I remember for years at Thanksgiving eating my face off because my family wanted me to live a little and living a little to them meant eating all the things. 

(01:45):

But let me tell you something that was crazy about my Thanksgivings. I didn't even like most of what was being served. Do not get me wrong, I loved mac and cheese, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, cream corn. Basically if it was the starch table, I was all in, dug in, but my mama used to always make cornbread dressing and in my family, her cornbread dressing might as well be the holy day. It is honored and revered. And so I used to eat it all the time, even though I couldn't stand it simply because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. I didn't want to hurt butt hurt because I wasn't eating it. I remember when I was a kid being at Thanksgiving and my grandfather would make a chocolate pie and everybody loved papa's chocolate pie except for Corrine. I liked banana pudding. I liked strawberry cake. 

(02:41):

I liked a lot of things, but chocolate was never my thing, but who was sitting there eating chocolate pie every single time because I didn't want to hurt papa's feelings. It was me. The pressure to kind of go along with everybody made it really hard for me to say no even when I didn't even want the food being offered to me. So I want to talk about this today because I think there's several reasons why during the holidays, so many of us find it really hard to say no to foods, even the ones we don't even like. So here's the first thing. First is just the guilt. A lot of us have a lot of guilt and we do not want to cause a scene during the holidays. We don't want to be seen as the difficult one. We don't want to seem to be rude. 

(03:27):

We don't want people thinking negatively of us simply because we are not going to eat something. I remember all the time thinking, well, I should have some granny worked so hard in the kitchen. That is how we get caught in this loop of feeling very powerless during the holidays because we make all these wild ass assumptions that for some reason someone is never going to be able to live their life if we don't eat a roll that was homemade. So I think the first thing that makes the holidays and food pushers hard is just that guilt that we self-impose. I'm not saying that people won't be butt hurt. I will give you an example. So for years I would eat my mother's dressing. I hated it every damn year, hated it. And then when I started losing my a hundred pounds, I was down. I think I had lost all my weight at this Thanksgiving. 

(04:18):

I went to my mama's house, my grandparents were long gone and she'd made her dressing. I just told her, I was like, I'm just going to have the Turkey. I was very focused on my weight loss. So I was going to have the Turkey, a little bit of mashed potatoes. I was going to enjoy some salad, I was going to enjoy the green beans, that kind of stuff. And I loved my choice. And when I told my mother, I don't want any dressing, she looked down, shook her head, and she literally said out loud, you'll never know how much it hurts my feelings that you are not eating my dressing. It was so dramatic and I remember sitting there and thinking, I am done eating to please people. I am now going to tell people no and tell them I don't need to eat to let you know I love you. 

(05:15):

So I just looked at my mom and I just said, mama, I love you and I enjoy being here and me eating the dressing is not going to make me love you anymore. In fact, if I eat the dressing, I'm just going to go home and feel like ass, so I'm not going to have it. But I really appreciate that you make thanksgiving every single year. That took some big girl panty moment for me. I mean, I didn't want to be the asshole at the Thanksgiving, but I also did not want to go home and be an asshole to myself, and I knew that that was what was going to happen. So I think that is one of the first big things that most of us run into is we feel really guilty and we assume that if we say no, we must be going to hurt somebody's feelings. 

(06:00):

So the second thing I think that makes it really hard to say no to food pushers during the holidays is we are surrounded by people that we might not feel like an adult around. So you might spend the vast majority of your life, let's say you're an executive or you've got a job and you manage people and you've got your own damn family and you're kind of the boss lady until you go back to your mama's house and the second you're around your mama and your daddy, you feel like you are a 12-year-old again being told to clean your plate. And that is very normal when you want to pay attention during the holiday for when, because I hear my clients say this all the time, oh my gosh, in my life I am the one who's always making the decisions, taking care of everybody and stuff, but man, when I'm around my parents, it is like I slip into that childlike version of me. 

(06:56):

I just want to tell all of you that is completely normal. And the answer to that is just to notice that and to remind yourself, you aren't a child. You get to have an adult relationship with your parents and you need to start thinking about what is the adult relationship at the holidays when it comes to food going to look like For me? That is an important question for everyone to ask themselves. And then the next thing that I think that makes it hard, this is number three, is that with food, this might be the only time of year where you actually allow yourself to take a break from all of your diet rules that you live by. A lot of us kind of have a code on the inside. It's like nine months out of the year we are buttoned up. You're always thinking about, Ooh, that's good for me, that's bad for me. 

(07:48):

All the rules are there. And this might be the only time of year where you actually allow yourself to be like, oh my gosh, I'm going to treat myself. Oh my gosh, this time of year it's okay to eat. This may be the only time of year that you do what's called permissive eating. You allow yourself to have things, but the problem is is that if all year long you think these foods are bad and all year long you're real buttoned up around them, the moment you start eating them, you will have this wash of guilt and shame and as if you're being naughty. And that's why so many of us, when there's food pushers around, it's like we can't say no because on the one side we're like, this is the time that I get to break the rules. This is the time that I get to relax a little. 

(08:35):

Then the next thing you know, you've never practiced eating those foods. You're eating a shit ton of them, and you think the problem is is that people are pushing food on you when the reality is is that the other nine months of the year, we need to be looking at all of these food rules because there's nothing wrong with enjoying foods all throughout the year. I will just tell all of you this, this is a bonus tip. No one listening to my podcast is overweight because of the types of food they eat. If you ate, I want you to think about, I don't care if you live on a diet of Twinkies and ding-dongs, nachos, chips, ice cream and full on soda, you are probably not overweight because of that, you might not be healthy. You might not poop very regularly. You might have wicked heartburn. 

(09:25):

There could be other diabetes and stuff, but when it comes to weight, we are typically overweight simply because when we have thoughts that we can't have something and we overeat it, it is the overeating of the food. If all that stuff, let's just pretend that you could eat that stuff without a health problem and you didn't think anything was wrong with that, and you just were like, well, I never have to overeat it. I never have to eat a bunch of it because I'm always going to have it. Sometimes I don't even have it because I get to eat it all the time. You wouldn't be fucking eating all the time. You wouldn't be binging on it. You wouldn't be eating it in secret. You wouldn't be trying to eat it real fast because you know it's going to come to an end. All of that shit would go away. 

(10:11):

So one of the things that we have to realize is that during this time of year, we get amped up and if the only time of year you actually allow yourself to be flexible with the things that you eat, it's during the holidays and then you've got people always offering you stuff. Yeah, it's going to feel like food pushers are all around you all the time and you're going to feel out of control. The fourth big reason and the last reason is when it comes to the food pushers is we feel comforted with the food that they're pushing on us. And I think this stems from, I think there's a lot of comfort eating that happens, and that is because a lot of us are around people we don't see very often. I know for me, if I'm going to be visiting family that I haven't seen in a long time, and let's say we don't have the best relationship or I'm worried what they're going to think about me and stuff, I haven't seen them in a year, I'm going in anxious, I'm going to want to soothe myself. 

(11:11):

I'm going to want to calm myself down. And for many of us when we are in that situation, we do not know how to do it in the room. The only way we know how to do it is by drinking or eating or a combination of both. So I think for a lot of us, we are around people that we're not around very often. And then if you're an introvert, the holidays again like food pushers, if somebody's offering you something and you're sitting there and you rarely are out, you rarely go out in public, you rarely go to parties and stuff and you're freaking out, of course you're going to be saying yes. So I just want you to think about these are some of the reasons that during this time of year we feel like we lose control of food. We are eating what people are suggesting to us out of reaction to what I would call root causal weight problems, and we want to be solving those because what I don't want all of you doing is becoming a hermit crab during the holidays and thinking, I can't go anywhere because I can't say no to anyone. 

(12:13):

So we want better solutions. So before we get into all of the steps that I'm going to give you, there is one other point I want to tell you. I want to talk about the food pushers themselves because I find a lot of women, this is where they have a time. We have a terrible attitude about food pushers. We think they don't understand us, we think they're being rude, we think they're being pushy. We have a lot of story about them. And after coaching thousands and thousands and thousands of women and losing my own a hundred pounds, here's what I have learned. Most food pushers are not trying to be mean and they're not trying to be rude. Let me say it again. Most food pushers are not trying to be inherently mean and they're not trying to be rude. They think eating is fun and their usually is, I want you to have fun. 

(13:11):

I don't want you to be miserable. And in my mind, if you are not eating desserts and rolls and all the things or getting a second plate or leaving the table with your pants exploding, I find it fun. And so if you are not doing that, I think you must be miserable or sad and I don't want that for you. I think a lot of food pushers actually do this because they have a lot of societal rules around it. Just like if you go to a potluck or something and people want you to please try, I made it special. They're not doing that to be mean. They're not trying to get you off your diet game. They're not trying to do all that. They're thinking, I have this expression of love and it would be rude of me not to offer it to you. So I just want you to sometimes consider that a lot of times we get so mad at food pushers when in reality if we were just a step back, take a breath and think about it, what could they be thinking? 

(14:13):

Why do I think if I was going to give them some grace and not think they're rude, they don't understand, they're just trying to make me fat, whatever the story is, what else could be there? I remember a long time ago I was working with someone and she told me that she finally had a really honest conversation with her husband about why he was always pushing food on her whenever she would start a diet. And he said, well, because usually when you diet, you're miserable, you're bitchy. All you do is complain that you can't have things. All you do is sit around and talk about how fucking miserable you are and I love you the way you are. I don't care if you lose weight, but I do care that you're miserable and it hurts me to see you like that. So when I'm offering you pizza or trying to get you to go to the drive-through, I know that when you're eating pizza and you're going to the drive-through, you seem happier. 

(15:19):

And she was like, no shit. That's when we had a breakthrough because then she was like, oh my God, I should quit complaining about all this. I'm choosing to do this and I have such better reasons for losing weight, but I never talk about that stuff. All I do is talk like a big ass martyr about what I can't have and how unfair it is, and I wish I was already thin. All I'm doing is showing everyone that what I'm doing is actually pretty fucking miserable. And if you do that at the holidays, if you stand around and say, I wish I could have that stuff, you are inviting food pushers because it is the holidays and everybody wants you to be damn happy. So I just want you to think about that. Alright, so this is what I think that you can do to help you deal with all of this so that you do not wake up on January one with your pants tight and your ass full of regrets. 

(16:16):

The first tip is have a plan. If you're going to your parents, if you're wherever you're going, I want you to have a plan. You need to know who your food pushers are in your life, and I want you to decide what you're going to say to them before you even show up. You can talk to them before the event. You don't have to wait until the moment of impact to do it when you're jacked up and anxious. So I did this when I was losing weight. I called my mother-in-law about a week before Christmas, and I was going to be honest with her. I said, look, I'm going to enjoy a few things at Christmas, but it would help me a lot if you and papa didn't ask me to try things or try to get me to eat stuff that I don't put on my plate, I'm going to have way more fun if I'm not dealing with thinking I'm disappointing you or being rude. 

(17:12):

That was not an easy conversation to have, but I wanted to be upfront. And here's the thing for me, going home, feeling like I'd lost control was so much worse than the embarrassment and the honesty that I had to have in that conversation. I just decided to choose my heart and my mother-in-Law, she did not give me nearly as much grief as I expected. All she said was, well, are you sure you know can enjoy things once a year? And that's when I just told her, I said, you might be able to enjoy things like that, but for me it's not that simple and it's not that fun. I'm really trying to lose weight right now and indulging in one meal usually is a slippery slope for me. So I'm going to have a plan and this is the things I'm going to eat so that I can go home and have all the good memories of the holiday and not go home regretting how I ate and how much I weigh. 

(18:11):

So that conversation for me was a lot easier to have over the phone than trying to have it in person. So for some of you, you may just want to try that technique. My next tip is have people that you can reach out to at your events and at your holiday gatherings. So my No BS Women, we do an incredible program called, it's called Handling the Holidays and it's where you can lose 10 pounds through the holidays. We work really hard from Halloween all the way to January 1st, not on dieting. We work really hard on making sure that they get to have the holidays that they truly want so that when they start January 1st, they're not starting behind the eight ball. So they get together and they come up with little accountability partners and they come up with plans of how they can help each other. 

(19:00):

So my No BS women, some of them, they'll go to an event, they'll post in our private Facebook group and say like, Hey, I'm here. I'm feeling anxious. If anybody has any words of wisdom, give 'em to me now. And then the other thing that they do is they have accountability groups which are smaller groups, like somewhere between three and six people. They get on a text chain and when they're going places, they text each other and they give 'em a blow by blow. It's like, okay, I've arrived. I'm kind of feeling this way. Okay, I'm getting ready to make my plate. I'm going to take a picture and send it to all of you, and I promise not to go back for seconds, but I'm going to have everything I want on this one plate. They lean on each other because sometimes you just need someone in your corner, especially when it feels like nobody in the room gets where you're at. 

(19:52):

And that's one of the benefits of a program like mine, the No BS weight loss program. You've got a place and you've got people that you can lean on when you're feeling very isolated in any of your eating struggles. Now here's another big tip I want you to remind yourself. It's okay to say no. Most people are never going to remember that you didn't eat something the next day. But guess who does remember you? You remember? So I want you to quit training people to be food pushers in your life because the more you say yes, the more you're teaching them that all they really got to do is keep offering food to you until you cave. The goal now is to say it is okay to say no. It's okay to retrain everyone seriously. Every time I tell that dressing story where I quit eating my mother's dressing to this day, my mom is like, I don't even remember that. 

(20:51):

In my mind I'm like, this was a pivotal moment in my weight loss journey. And I've even talked about it on the podcast and in my courses that I give women, my mom is like, the fuck you even talking about? I don't even remember one day she literally told me, I've always known you didn't like dressing. I'm like the hell you did. I remember this day. So most people, if you say no to somebody's cookie in the teacher's lounge, if you tell somebody at a potluck, you're not going to have some. I guarantee you, you have not ruined their month. They are not going to remember your ass. All of us need to remember most of us, we ain't got that much power and we are not that special in most people's lives. And here's the last thing, again, we are not going to be martyrs about losing weight. 

(21:44):

Saying no doesn't make you some kind of hero. It just means you're doing what you said you would do and what you really want for yourself. So if you're going around saying, I wish I could, or that looks so good but I can't have it, you might as well be waving a big ass flag saying, come talk me off the ledge of my misery. Do not make a big deal out of saying no, and people are not going to feel like they need to save you from your so-called suffering. So just want to tell all of you, you can keep doing it like you've been doing it every year. You can give into the food pushers. You can tell yourself it's just this once and before you know it, you've eaten your way through the buffets, you have eaten more than you planned. You're going to feel stuffed and uncomfortable, and then all that guilt just kicks in. 

(22:40):

And let's be honest, the moment you give in to a food pusher when you really don't want to, it's easy to fall into the mindset of, well, I fucked up. I might as well just eat this. It might as well turns into every single day finding another reason and another excuse to just go into fuck it mode and wait until January one to do something about your weight loss. But the problem is, is that shit feeling is not going to end when the Eaton's done. You're going to wake up the next day full of regret, probably maybe even pissed at yourself. You're going to step on the scale or look in the mirror and suddenly you're going to be thinking like, I have screwed everything up. I got to start all over. And then that guilt becomes shame. And then you start thinking about starting over on January 1st and then before you know it, you've gained more weight and you've spent weeks getting good at eating when you don't really want to, and I don't want that for you. 

(23:38):

So I want you to imagine this, that you show up to your holiday parties and shit with a little plan. You've already decided what you're going to say yes to. You've already decided how are you going to talk to people when they come around trying to push the food on you? You're calmly going to say things like, no thanks, I'm good. And you're going to remind yourself and the world won't end. I'm just going to stick to what I want because that's what's really going to feel good. I want to leave things. I want to leave parties and gatherings, feeling in control, not stuffed with regret. I want to wake up the next day relieved and proud of myself. I want to teach the food pushers in my life that I'm really changing. And there is a new way to talk to me about food. 

(24:26):

And the best part is when you do that, you break the cycle. You don't let one moment turn into weeks of overeating and guilt. You stay focused on what matters to you and you've got momentum going into the new year. Instead of waking up January one with more weight to lose regrets and you wish you had done things differently, I want you waking up feeling proud and ready to keep going. It's that time of year again in between the holiday parties, the family drama and all the chaos in shopping, it is no wonder that so many women end up saying, fuck it, I'm just going to lose weight after January 1st, but this year you are not going to do that because I have developed the lose 10 pounds by January 1st workshop and I'm going to show you how to lose weight without giving up what you love to eat during the holidays. 

(25:21):

You're going to still be able to enjoy the food. You're going to be able to actually enjoy your family and you're going to be able to have some fun while also keeping your weight loss goals on track. Now I know what you might be thinking, probably sitting there thinking, oh my God, karenne, it is impossible to lose weight during the holidays. I know I have been there. I used to spend every holiday eating my way through stress overwhelm. And to be real truthful, a lot of depression, family gatherings were like an all you can eat buffet of rude comments. My clothes were always tight and I was always up in my head about what everyone was thinking about me. Someone would say something about my weight and the next thing I knew I would be halfway through the dessert table without even realizing it. And then on January 1st, I'd come up for air and then be like, fuck me. 

(26:10):

I got even more weight to lose and what I started, and that is not what I want for you this year. Here's what I know. You can lose weight during the holidays. You do not have to skip your favorite foods, and you do not have to sit there with your arms crossed while everybody else is enjoying dessert, miserable as hell. I will tell you, it feels incredible to go into the holidays knowing that you're finally in control of food, that you know how to have a few drinks, you know how to enjoy some of your favorite foods and still lose weight without having to spend hours in the gym that you ain't got, or making yourself miserable by not having anything that everybody else is. So I have figured out how to make weight loss simple and doable even during the busiest, most tempting time of the year. 

(26:56):

And now I want to help you do the same. Losing weight doesn't mean you have to give up everything you love. It's about keeping it simple and making smart choices that fit into your real life. If you're tired of waking up on January 1st, feeling like you've got to start over or start fresh, I want you to join me for the Lose 10 pounds by January 1st workshop, and we're going to lose 10 pounds together while everybody else around you is just eating their face off and gaining the weight. In this workshop, I'm going to teach you exactly how to handle everything the holidays throw at you. I'm going to teach you how to handle family drama, how to handle the parties, the travel, and all the tempting food without losing your shit or gaining a pound. You're going to get live coaching, real talk, and all the support that you need to get through the season losing 10 pounds. So this is your year to stop starting over in January. You're going to be saying, I got this on January one. I do not want you to let another holiday season pass by feeling out of control and frustrated with your weight loss ever again. Sign up now@nobsholiday.com and let's lose that 10 pounds like a boss together.