Untitled - December 8, 2025
00:00:00 Speaker: Hi, I'm Denise, host of the Working Moms Redefined podcast. Let's join together as we lessen the hold of mom guilt in our lives, thrive in our careers, and raise great kids. You are doing enough. Let us boost your confidence today on this episode of the Working Moms Redefined podcast. What does health even look like around the holidays? Does that look like two cookies instead of one? Maybe three cocktails instead of two? I don't know. Dare I say, maybe we don't even count calories around the holidays. And maybe calories isn't even the conversation that we are having. What's really neat is that my guest today, Doctor Meghan Garcia-webb, gets to have these conversations with all of us today on the Working Moms Redefined podcast. Doctor Meghan has helped CEOs, physicians, attorneys, consultants, people like you and I look and feel their best for years. She's triple board certified in internal medicine, lifestyle medicine and obesity medicine, and what she is doing is work that all of us really want to experience that pursuit of wellness and health without burnout or guilt. Sign me up. I'm very excited for this. I can't wait for you to see how we are able and should be able to enjoy the holidays without falling into stress, eating, or even self-criticism. How can we catch ourselves in that comparison game before we spiral and really, truly listen to our body's cues? Dare I say past the holidays? Doctor Garcia-webb, thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for having me. This is one of my favorite things to talk about. Absolutely. Let's dive right in. Let's tempt the audience, if you will. What will they gain by listening with us throughout our time together today? I think they're going to understand that they have a lot more control over the situation than they think. I think a lot of people are very scared. They hear the holidays are coming up and they're like, oh, oh no. And they feel like all these like things are going to happen to them. And my goal is to really let people know that the holidays can go exactly how they want them to go. And we really want to get out of that fear and scarcity mindset. And that's the first step. And isn't it funny how that type of lifestyle transitions and even, dare I say, translate really nicely into food noise or staying on track? Is it realistic for us to be able to do just that around the holidays with our eating? Or should we allow maybe some flexibility from time to time? Yeah, that's a great question. I think the first thing I tell people when they're thinking about the holidays is you really have to define what it means for it to go well. Like, what is the holiday look like if you have a successful holiday? Not just, oh, I avoided, you know, the pumpkin pie or I felt okay the morning after, but what would it really look like for you to enjoy the holiday? And that's going to be different for everybody. I have some clients who think, you know, I just want to let my brain go on vacation, eat whatever I want, and I'll deal with the consequences. And then there are some people who they don't want to feel terrible for a week, you know, and they. So what does that look like? And how do they navigate all the parties that they have to go to from that circumstance? You talk about balanced eating. What does that mean to you and how does that translate for us during this season? During the holidays, I think, um, again, balanced eating is, I would say first and foremost, listening to your body. I think nobody is really in touch with their hunger or fullness, their actual physical cues. And to really eat, you know, you can you can eat. You're never going to get into that much trouble if you stop eating when you're full. And I think that's one of the cardinal rules I think of holiday eating is even if you're not eating something that's technically so healthy, like if you stop when you're satisfied, um, before you get overly full, you'll you're going to be a lot happier with how things go. You mentioned us not listening to our cues. I am so guilty of that. We kind of smiled. If you're watching us on YouTube right now. What kind of cues should we be looking for? Is it more than that feeling of oh, my stomach feels heavy because I ate too much? And really, that's beyond a point of salvation type of thing. Um, I mean, I always love using the hunger scale, which, if anybody's ever read Intuitive Eating, I mean, that's just an amazing book for anybody who has food noise or, um, just a lot of diet culture in their brain. Um, but they really walk you through how to actually assess your hunger and fullness levels. But I think in addition to the hunger scale, a lot of things have to be present for you to do that properly. And a lot of that is really giving yourself enough time to have a meal, right? And I'm not talking about like a half hour, but, you know, ten, fifteen minutes. Um, having your meal and not being distracted. So putting the phone down, you know, turning the TV off, putting your book away, but just really listening to your body. I think it's so hard for people to know when they're hungry or they're full, if they're being distracted and they don't even really know what those cues are. And I think our body talks to us in whispers at first, and then it gets louder and louder if we don't listen. Right. And that goes with a lot of medical issues. But you know, your body is going to tell you, like, okay, we're kind of full. And for some people they you know, I have one client who says, oh, you know, when I'm full, I have this big like sigh at the end, you know. And then I have other people who say, you know, when I'm full, I, I tend to just sit back in my chair. And so these, these all these little tiny cues that we do unconsciously, but really are our way of our body's way of telling us that we're getting to that point of being full. But if we're not tuning in, it's very easy to miss. And then if we're not listening, those cues are going to get louder and more unpleasant. So, you know, of course, if you've eaten way too much, you're going to have that feeling of bloating and your stomach's going to hurt. But we, you know, the goal is to stop before you get there. So interesting that you point out some simple things, cues that could really be an underlying factor for all of us. That's so cool. You mentioned food noise. I feel as if that is something that I've heard so much more about today. For those who might not know, can you define what food noise is? Sure. Food noise. It might be a little different for everybody, but essentially it's just this constant stream, kind of a mental background noise of thinking about food, like, what am I going to eat later? You know, am I going to be hungry? Is, you know, can I eat this now? Oh, I shouldn't eat that. That's not good for me. Like, I really want chocolate, but I can't have, like, just this kind of. And it's, it's gonna show up in a different flavor for anybody. But especially with our, you know, American diet culture, there's this whole sense of like, these are good foods and these are bad foods. And I think it really conditions us to be hyper aware of things that actually aren't, that it's not a very healthy kind of all or nothing mentality, but we're hyper vigilant about it. For sure. I think sometimes I've read this book where it talks about, you know, we really shouldn't label food as good and or bad because then we create that correlation in our brains. But man, that's how I was raised, so why wouldn't I? And that is really hard. So you mentioned that book Intuitive Eating. We'll be sure to put the link in the show notes. But, Doctor Megan, what tips might you have, whether it's to combat or work through food, noise and dare I say even specifically do during the holidays? Yeah. So I think in terms of food noise, there are foods that are going to make that food noise worse, right? So we don't usually get food noise from an apple broccoli. Right. Those are not the things that trigger us. What triggers it is usually things that are more processed. And I always like to zoom out and remind people that these processed foods, um, you know, there's like billions of dollars that's spent in research to try to make them, like, more palatable for us. Right? So they're you're sort of fighting with one hand tied behind your back if you eat a lot of processed foods because they're really made to get you to like them. And so, Um, the fact that, um, there's so much research going into this, I just feel like people aren't aware that, um, these foods are really engineered to get them to eat as much of them as possible. So and that's not to say people can't have processed foods, but that's really where I would take a look at, you know, are you eating a lot of processed foods? And that's an easy way to to try to remove some of the food noise from your diet. Um, the other thing is, you know, just looking at the regular everyday sort of quote unquote healthy foods that you're eating and see if there's sugar in them because there's so many foods that if we're not careful, um, are going to have things that we don't necessarily want to eat. Things like bread, things like tomato sauce, things like peanut butter, like, we're not going to notice if that has a lot of sugar in it necessarily. Like it's not going to impact how it tastes to us, but our body is going to perceive it. And so these are just little ways that you can try to remove, um, remove these things that are ultimately contributing, contributing to the food noise in your brain. I think sometimes when I think about food noise and the planning of your day around food, it is crazy to me how I actually dictate that and talking through that simple switches, right? Like even there's ketchup that we have that's fifty percent less in sugar. I will say our kids were like, this tomato sauce is different than like ragu compared to this type that I got off thrive. And I'm like, well, too bad, right? Like it's going you can necessarily see the impact down the road, because sometimes when you eliminate sugar from your diet, it helps you in so many ways. We are later going to talk about, you know, our mental health during the holiday, but something that I think a lot of people are intimidated to talk about Is medication around healthy living. And how can Doctor Megan, would you say working moms can really redefine healthy to fit the season of life instead of maybe discussing or trying to meet unrealistic expectations? Well, I think one way to look at it is that these lifestyle changes that we want to make, you really have to make them, whether you're on or off medication. So you might as well just make them before and see if you even need medication. Right? Um, but I think another thing that a lot of people don't necessarily realize is there really isn't. I mean, the medications are great, and for people, they need them. They can be really life changing. But it's also really nice if they if you don't need to take them, you're gonna like if you're working out how you want to work out and you're eating how you want to eat, you're definitely going to feel better, like regardless of what the scale says. So I think I always like to have people focus on the actions and what they can control, as opposed to necessarily just focusing on that number on the scale. Because while that can be helpful from time to time, I think we have especially living in America as a woman, there's so many things that we make that number mean. And you don't have really necessarily control over what that number says first thing in the morning, but yet it has the power to dictate your mood for the entire day. So I really like to shift people over to, okay, let's see how you feel when you're hitting that goal of exercising four times a week, because we know you're going to feel better and you can control that, and maybe you don't hit that marker the first two weeks, but that's something we can really focus on improving. You know, why isn't it happening? Those are things you can control versus this random number that you know is going to fluctuate from day to day for so many reasons. I love how you personalized that thought process of we realize that when we look at that number, it has the power to just totally take us out. And I hate that. But at the same time, I'm not I'm not ignorant enough to realize like, yes, it does that for me too. That can be really hard. And how do we really start looking at our health instead of. Mm. It's it's those small doable lifestyle changes that you talked about. Right. Like reaching your goal at four times of working out. That's so so so good. And yet I know a diet is such a large part of that when it comes to healthy lifestyle and staying healthy, dare I say, without medication, while knowing that there is a need for that down the road. How do you talk through with moms who feel disconnected, maybe from that intuition of listening to their body and thinking, oh, I need to go find this diet or rushing through meals to rebuild their trust within themselves to know, okay, no. I'm done. Yeah. So I think you nailed it. And a lot of it is really just slowing down. And I think it's really realizing that you are in complete control of everything that you eat, even though sometimes it doesn't feel like that, even though you might have a lot of food noise is that you really like, nobody's putting the food in your mouth, right? So if you're not happy with how you're eating, you can definitely change it. And I actually, I just had a client the other day who we were talking about something, and she was like, somebody was talking to me about food noise. And I realized, like, I just don't have that anymore, right? And she's lost thirty pounds, no medications. And she just realized all these, all this chatter in her brain, she didn't have it anymore. And so I think just really the first step is recognizing that you are in the driver's seat. Even if you have kids who are picky eaters, even if your husband eats totally different than you do. Um, you really have the power to change, and you have the power to think about how you want to eat. Because I think so many of us are taught, you know, to be people pleasers. And then I think we're also so used to listening to all these other sources tell us, oh, you you should do this, you should do that. You should count calories, you should count your macros. And I think that's one of the first steps in taking responsibility and accountability for how you eat is like, how do you even want to eat? Because one of the things that we know from literature is there actually isn't one diet that works for everybody. The only thing that really works is something that people can stick with. So the real question is, how do you want to eat for the rest of your life? Because if we're making changes just so you can get to a number, or you can get to an event, that's not really going to be sustainable, right? I always like to think like, if you're eating this way until you're eighty, like, does that seem fine for you? Does that seem freeing? Does that seem liberating? Or if you think I'm going to be eating this way for decades, do you, you know, do you have a visceral response to that? Because that's always a good clue that maybe we should make some changes. What a good overall picture. Doctor Megan, for you to be able to say is this long term? Because a lot of us probably think, okay, I gotta make it to this number or I gotta make it to this date. But then that doesn't really constitute a long term adjustment or change. And I'm also the first one to be like, okay. I know I could be eating better. Did I really enjoy a crumble cookie last night? Absolutely. That's the. That's a time where I ate for my heart. Now, the rest of this week, am I going to consider that in the morning when I was really tired and I didn't want to go work out well, is it because of what I ate last night? And yet then there's this whole dynamic of sleep, stress, and hormones that have an impact on maintaining a healthy weight. You, because of your expertise, are able to look at the big picture. But what does that look like for women who don't know what their hormones are like? Or where do you even take the next step in healthy living, knowing that that's a large part of that? That is such a great question. So, you know, sleep is one of those things that is so, I think underrated because when people are sleeping enough, sleeping well, it just makes every it's like just greasing the wheels of life. Everything just goes so much better. And if people are not sleeping well, it's really hard to ask them to make changes or even to think as clearly as they would if they were sleeping correctly. So sleep is really one of the top priorities. Um, when I'm working with somebody, because, you know, there's no health without mental health, and sleep is such a big part of your mental health. Um, and then hormones are so interesting because there are so many different hormones. And I think it is really important when people are thinking about, you know, if they want to get to a lower weight, you know, are there things that could be getting in the way? Is there a thyroid issue? You know, do they have pre-diabetes? Do they have PCOS? Like these are all things that can really contribute kind of work against somebody in terms of getting to a healthier weight. And then I also think there's such a narrative, especially for women in midlife, of, oh, well, that's menopause. Like, you're definitely going to gain weight. And I've just found that I don't think that's I don't think that's a narrative that serves women. And I also don't think it's true. Um, I think what does happen that we never talk about is that when women, you know, are in, in a midlife journey is that they also get started a lot of the time on an SSRI or an Snri to help combat symptoms, or something like gabapentin to help them sleep. And those are medications that can cause weight. So it's not necessarily that menopause happens. And here's twenty pounds right. But and there's certainly a weight distribution. There's you know weight fluctuations I'm not saying that that you know nothing changes during menopause. But but I think there is this pervasive narrative of you can't do anything about it and you're going to gain a lot of weight and be miserable. And I think we don't necessarily look at the other things that we're doing for people when they're having that journey that really can cause weight. So things like Prozac or Paxil or all these other things that people use, which actually could be very helpful. Um, we just want to be aware of the, the other side effects and make sure that we're knowing exactly what's happening for people, what the root cause is. And it's so funny because I treat a lot of men too. And men also gain weight in their forties and 50s, you know? So, um, but we just we don't have that narrative for them. But, you know, a lot of men are gaining weight in their forties and fifties, so you are not alone. I love that thought process, Doctor Megan, to think about. Okay. Yes, this is the holiday season. Yes. There's a lot of food noise for some of us. There's going to be choices that have to be made. The choice for you might be to shut your brain off and let yourself and your heart enjoy things. Or you might really want to make some educated decisions. Which is exactly why we're talking with Doctor Garcia-webb. And yet the new year is going to be here before long. More oftentimes than not, people think that that's a great time to start a diet, or detoxing, or trying to get rid of that holiday weight gain. What myths do you wish that people would let go of as they head into the twenty twenty six year? Um, I wish people would get rid of, like the calorie counting or the macro counting. I just I always want people to really shift from these external measurements to more internal measurements. So I would love if people would stop counting calories and just get off their phone when they're eating. Um, and also this myth of like, I don't have time to eat lunch, right? I have to be doing all these other things I think is so interesting because, you know, by definition, if you're doing something while you're eating, it can't be that important, right? Like if you are, if you have a big meeting, you're not eating while you're in the meeting, right? If you have an important call, you're not eating while you're on the call. So I think people have a lot more wiggle room than they want. But there's this, you know, we we all have this pervasive narrative of this productivity culture. I think of, like, I gotta be doing something. I gotta be doing something. And I think it really is so damaging to people's health and their healthy habits. Man, I needed to hear that one, because I usually don't set time aside to not be working on my computer, at least returning emails while I'm stuffing stuffing my face. And to be able to give ourselves permission to not feel like you have to count calories or macros, because that's a lot of times what you see in the fitness industry is that type of awareness, whereas you're saying, you know, look at your own shoes, build trust within yourself to be able to do that. And that in and of itself is hard, right? Mental health around the holidays or even in general, when you think about mental health around food, can be really hard and you look at that full picture. Sure. What might you encourage listeners who are having trouble enjoying the holidays because of the stress load around family that they're not used to? Yeah, I mean, I always this this happens for a lot of people, especially if they've lost weight. And then the holidays are coming up and they're going to see people or there's just a lot of, uh, social gatherings that, you know, they're seeing people they maybe haven't seen in a year. And I just like to remind people that, like other people just say, like bizarre and stupid things. So we just have to be prepared for that. It doesn't mean they're mean. I mean, maybe they are, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they're trying to hurt us. But people just say random, weird things. And so I think just like going into the holidays prepared for people, relatives to say inappropriate things can be helpful, I think, in just sort of bracing ourselves. And not that you don't want to have personal boundaries, right. But we just can't expect everybody to be polite at all times. We also think about comparison, and I know that all of us wish that we could say that we have less of a comparison gap when we're either looking at our friends body image or their parenting styles, or even their career success. The holidays bring up even more comparison because you're probably seeing more people. How do you help women catch themselves in those comparison thoughts before we start to spiral? Right. So I, I always like to go and get pretty granular about what the comparison is, because that really tells you a lot about what's going on with somebody. So, um, I think, you know, that is one place where we have a lot of autonomy in terms of, you know, maybe we maybe we have a relative. And they lost a lot of weight. Right. We get to make that mean whatever we want it to mean. So maybe the default is, you know, you think bad thoughts about yourself. But I always like to take the, you know, it's good to recognize that. And then you really want to think about okay, well that's the default I probably don't want to keep that. What are some other ways I could think about that. And a lot of times it's just bringing up things that you're not happy with yourself. So I think it's a really good opportunity to just notice, number one, what our, you know, our default thoughts are. And number two, to realize that these are scripts that we don't necessarily need to continue thinking. And I think a lot of it is just about becoming more of an objective observer of your brain, which is what I love about coaching is that we recognize these default thoughts, but also we don't necessarily need to keep living by them. Those default thoughts often stem from guilt and shame. It can be around food. It can be around family, whatever that looks like for you. It plays into your holiday mindset. What would you say, doctor Megan is a better way to think about indulgence in and of itself. Yeah, I mean, the holidays really, they're different by default. And so I think when we're looking at a sustainable way of eating, um, you know, you probably want the holidays to be a little different. And so when we're talking about, you know, eating in a different way on the holidays, like what? What does that mean for you? How do you want to indulge? And also going back to this point of you, you know, you get to decide you don't necessarily need to buy into this idea of good foods or bad foods or cheat days or non cheat days. You can just think of the holidays as a celebratory time. And I think a lot of it is about really being intentional. So we we tend to get more upset when we're doing things impulsively. Like, I went to this party and I wasn't gonna have that brownie. But then I saw the brownie and I ate it versus thinking ahead of time like, I think I want to have a brownie at this party. Then you have the brownie and it's fine, right? There's so much less mental drama about that. So I think when we can really visualize and it's different for everybody what a successful holiday looks like and we can plan it, then we can really enjoy it. Um, and I think the other thing that I tell people about holidays is there's, there's so much more than food. Right? Um, the holidays, I like to think of the holidays as, you know, there's like food is part of the celebration, but it's also decor and lighting and activities and seeing people you haven't seen in a long time. So I think looking at the food as not the be all, end all of the holiday, but that the food is one way to To celebrate this occasion can be helpful for people as well. Such great advice and tips that we can start implementing tomorrow. And that's the really neat thing, is that it is a mindset shift, but also it doesn't have to be zero to one hundred in one day. It can be something that's over time. And referring back to what Doctor Megan said about it doesn't have to be counting calories or macros. It can be finding your own cues, whether that's a breath, whether that's you realizing you need to take a step back from the meal or put down technology when you are actually eating, it's the best way to go. It's the best way to go. Okay, doctor Megan Garcia Webb if people want to reach out to you and work with you, see what their next steps are with you. What is the best way to go about doing that? Yes, absolutely. The best way is to go to my website. There's a link. You can click on it to have a discovery call, and I'll give you more details about what I do and how I help people. Um, and your success stories are plentiful. And so let's look at the whole picture. Change the way that you're speaking to yourself in powerful ways to better understand your relationship with health, wellness, and overall food. My favorite part, Doctor Megan, is our lightning round style of questions at the very end. So we'll go quick just for us to get to know a little bit about you and what you do in your own day to day. So what is your favorite holiday? My favorite holiday is Christmas. Absolutely. What about your favorite holiday indulgence? Oh, my dad makes, uh, the Swedish glurg, which is like this mulled wine. And we only have it for the holidays, and it's not a holiday without it. Um. So fun, so fun. Okay, what about a holiday tradition that really brings you joy? I always give my mom, my sisters and my sister in law like some beauty thing that I've found over the, like, over the whole year. I'll, like, find one thing that I really love, and then I give them a sample of it and they're stockings. Oh, fun. Okay, so let's not give away this year's. But what did you give them last year? Do you remember last year? I think I gave them all the, um, Victoria Beckham Kajal eyeliner. So cool. Okay. Uh, do you do New Year's resolutions? And if so, what do you have? One that you've completed or almost completed from this past year? I do New Year's resolutions in a way. I really take the I look at the whole year that I've had, and I look at all the things that I've accomplished and that I really am happy with. And then I think about the things that I want to get done for the next year. So it's not necessarily one resolution, but I like to start with, you know, looking at all the things that have already happened that I'm so happy with. So and I think as women like, we don't do that enough, you know, we don't give ourselves like gold stars or a pat on the back. So I like to start the year out that way. Absolutely. And then final question, what is the one thing that you would tell busy moms or women today that you wish that they would just keep in their back pocket, pocket, or turn to in their mind to make them feel better or up leveled or cared for. Okay. I would say whenever you have these thoughts of I have to or I should remember that you get to do whatever you want. Right. So it's not that there won't be consequences, right? But you really have one hundred percent autonomy over your life. And so I think of those thoughts to begin with. I have to, as I should, as little red flags to really refocus on, you know, what, I get to do whatever I want. And it's a good starting point to think of how you want things to go. How do you want the holidays to go is a great question to end on for all of you listeners to see. Okay, I get to decide how I feel. What's that expectation or goal? Much like Doctor Megan said at the very beginning, is we have to identify what we want to be able to achieve and that is what we should do each and every day, whether it's with our health, our wellness or our eating habits. Doctor Megan, thank you so much for taking time all of her links to connect with her, whether it's on her website. Like she mentioned, we're on Instagram and LinkedIn will be available in the show notes as well. Megan, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you so much for having me. We can't wait for you to continue showing us how you show up each and every day and do hard things. Thank you for listening to the Working Moms Redefined podcast. It is not lost on me that you chose to spend time together. Thank you. Let's connect outside of the space on socials. We'd love for you to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest. We've got it all to connect with you! If you feel as if someone in your life could be impacted by this message, feel free to share it. That is the biggest compliment as we part ways together. Remember, you can do hard things.
