047: Celebrate Without Starting Over on Monday: Your Holiday Wellness Reset

The holidays are meant to be enjoyed...not feared.

Whether you're celebrating the Fourth of July or simply enjoying a summer weekend, it's possible to have fun, make memories, and still support your health.

In this episode of Wellness Reset Thursday, Fredricka Davis shares simple, realistic strategies to help you feel energized, avoid the all-or-nothing mindset, and enjoy holiday celebrations without feeling like you have to "start over" on Monday.

You'll learn why small, intentional choices matter more than perfection and how a few simple habits can help you maintain your energy, support your immune system, and keep your wellness goals moving forward all summer long.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

•  Why "gift your body what it needs first" is one of the simplest wellness strategies you'll ever use 
•  How hydration impacts your energy, cravings, and overall health—especially during hot summer weather 
•  The 80/20 approach to healthy living that makes wellness sustainable 
•  Why eating protein and fiber before sweets can help stabilize blood sugar and reduce overeating 
•  How to enjoy holiday foods without guilt or feeling like you've ruined your progress 
•  The importance of sleep, recovery, and nervous system regulation during busy weekends 
•  Why one indulgent meal doesn't undo your progress, but giving up might 
•  Fredricka's favorite batch-cooking shortcuts to make healthy eating easier all week long 
•  A simple mindset shift to help you reset anytime—not just on Mondays or January 1st 

This Week's Wellness Reset

Before your next meal, ask yourself:

"What does my body need first?"

Maybe it's water.

Maybe it's protein.

Maybe it's vegetables.

Maybe it's rest.

Gift your body what it needs first...then enjoy the celebration without guilt.

Small resets create lasting change.

Mentioned in This Episode

Join the free Limitless Living for Women Who Are Becoming Facebook community for additional wellness tips, meal prep inspiration, recipes, and encouragement.

Reflection Question

What one simple choice could help you enjoy this weekend while still honoring your health?

Remember, wellness isn't about perfection.

It's about creating a life that feels good to live.

For more resources: www.fredrickadavis.com

Grab Your Free Reset Guide and more at www.fredrickadavis.com

Continue the conversation inside the here: Limitless Living community.

If this episode resonated with you, you can also send Fredricka a message through the Fan Mail link in the show notes. Your questions may be featured in a future episode.

And if you know someone who needs to hear this conversation, please share the episode with them.

Your reviews mean the world to Fredricka and help other women discover the show.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Hello, and welcome back to the Limitless Living podcast. I'm Frederica Davis. I'm your host, wellness expert, entrepreneur, coach, and hopefully someone who can inspire you to live your best life ever. So today is Wellness Reset Thursday. And today we get to talk about all the things that help keep you your happiest, your healthiest, and living a truly joyful, vibrant life like we are all meant to live. Whether you're listening while you're out for a walk or driving to work, maybe sitting on your porch with your morning coffee, or maybe you're packing up for this holiday weekend that we have coming here, I want you to know I'm really glad you're here. Now, for those of you that live here in the United States, this weekend, of course, is Independence Day. And this year, it just feels especially big and significant because of we're celebrating 250 years as our anniversary. And there's going to be fireworks and cookouts and family gatherings, neighborhood parties, parades, maybe late nights, you know, ice cream, hot dogs, chips, funnel cakes, all the things that go with that, and all the things that make summer summer boardwalk, pizza, saltwater taffy. I mean, we could go on and on, right? Honestly, I don't want you to have to feel like you need to skip any of it. That's not what today's show is about. Now, I don't believe wellness should steal joy from your life. I believe wellness should help you enjoy your life more. So today's episode, 100%, I want you to know, is not about perfection. It's about feeling good because nothing ruins a holiday weekend faster than feeling exhausted or bloated or sluggish or dehydrated and God forbid getting sick afterwards, right? That just ruins everything. So I've had clients recently come down with full-blown summer colds, not because winter suddenly came back or anything, but because they've been running themselves just a little too hard, you know, kind of running themselves into the ground with too little sleep or too much stress or too much sugar, too little water. And if you're here in Pennsylvania with us right now, you know you need some hydration because it's it's hot. It's 101 degrees outside. And when you give your body too little of what it needs and too little of the recovery time it needs, eventually it waves the white flag, and then we get sick or we get uncomfortable or inflammation flares or all that good stuff. So our bodies eventually, as they wave this white flag, are at a point where they've probably already been whispering to you, tapping on your shoulder a little bit, saying, Hey, I'm a little bloated, what you just ate didn't agree with me so much, or hey, I'm a little tired. I feel like I need a nap, but maybe you just pushed through and you didn't take a pause, even a five-minute pause. And instead of focusing on what you're trying to avoid, what you can, can't have, should, or shouldn't have, all those ways that we are so accustomed to thinking. What we focus on first is giving your body what it is asking for. Now that's a completely different mindset. So we can go with hydration to start, especially if you're somewhere experiencing this incredible heat like we have right here. I mean, it is ungodly out there right now. We've hit over a hundred. The humidity, as I said, is unbelievable. And really, it does feel like you're breathing soup, pea soup, to be specific. It's just so thick. You get that picture, right? What a thought, huh? When we're outside and we start to perspire and we are just releasing all of this excess fluid, whether we're walking, drinking alcohol, or eating salty foods on top of it, or we're just running errands, our bodies are needing more water than we realize. And especially this time of year. So one of the strategies that I encourage everyone to do is to start early. I call it front loading, your hydration. I say the same thing about protein too. We'll talk about that a little bit. But when you start your day in the beginning by drinking plenty of water before you ever leave the house, before you hit the coffee, before you do anything else, your body will function better the rest of the day. Your energy will stay more stable and your brain will work better. Even your cravings will often decrease because you're well hydrated. Sometimes our cravings are actually our bodies trying to tell us that we're dehydrated or that we need something else, and it's not even what we're really craving. So when I say front load, I will give you an example of how I do this. I take a 30 or 40 ounce glass or reusable insulated mug or whatever up to my bedroom every night when I go to bed. Now, I don't drink this before bed because of course you don't want to be up all night going to the bathroom. But what I do is if I do wake up once in the middle of the night, I'll have a swig of it. The moment I wake up in the morning, I start drinking. And I drink it to either completely done or almost done before I ever hit the kitchen. I'm drinking it as I'm washing my face, as I'm going to the bathroom, as I'm getting dressed. And now I'm hydrated. Now you might not need 30 ounces to start. Maybe you know what you need is 10 ounces or 20 ounces to get you going because here's what your body really needs. Generally speaking, most people need 50% of their actual weight in ounces. So half of your weight in ounces. If you weigh 150 pounds, that means you need 75 ounces of water a day. So if you front load your 20 ounces, your 30 ounces before you have breakfast and coffee, then you refill and do that again. You're pretty close to where you want to go. And then you can stop early enough in the evening. So if you are like most women often get over 40 and 50, or if you've had kids, it helps you not have to be up all night going to the bathroom. So this is my little trick. So first feed your body, gift it what it needs in the morning. Now, food before you treat yourself. Feed your body before you treat yourself. So I'll make a little mention. You know, we need a lot more protein as women to maintain our muscle mass over 40, over 50, because we just start losing it really quickly. If you're on GLP1s, it's exponentially faster that you're losing it. And if you're not doing any kind of weight-bearing exercise, it's even faster. And protein helps to preserve the muscle, complete protein. So eggs, meats, things like that that are complete proteins. If you're vegetarian, you've got to make sure that the protein you're getting is complete protein. Now, I love collagen protein. It's not 100% of a complete protein. So that can't be the only protein you get throughout the day. Not to get too deep into a giant lesson today on this, but when you hydrate first in the morning, then you come down, the first thing you put in your mouth is protein. Whether it's one or two hard-boiled eggs and then you're having your coffee and you're running out the door, whatever it is, if you do that first, it gives you more sustainable energy. It turns your body on, it helps preserve your muscle mass and so on. Okay. The next principle I want to give you, you know, you want to hydrate, you want to give yourself, start your day with some protein. The next principle I want to give you is that you want to feed your body before you treat your body with the fun stuff. Now I know everyone heads straight for dessert. Every, you know, when we're on the boardwalk, we head for the good stuff. We indulge. And when we are at picnics, we often do this. Whether it's chips or the snack table or desserts or fudge or whatever it is, right? It's summer and we're more likely to do these things, even though we have more fresh fruits and vegetables available to us that we might also be doing. We tend to overindulge in these types of foods. So when you are somewhere, whether it's a picnic or the boardwalk or on vacation, eat your protein and your vegetables first. One or the other first. I like to do protein first, slows the digestion. Then your vegetables, which gives you fiber, which further slows your digestion. Then have your fruit. And then if you want to have a brownie or you want to have other things that are going to spike your insulin response in your body, it will not have as large of an impact. The other thing is you won't want it as much either. If you're gifting your body what it needs before you indulge, then chances are your indulgences will be less. And that will have a positive impact on your life. So if you want the brownie, have the brownie. If you want the ice cream, have the ice cream. But eating your protein and your fiber first, it slows down the negative effects of that and the blood sugar spikes, keeps your energy steadier. And honestly, you'll end up just simply eating less of what you don't need because you've already given your body what it did. So now the next principle I'm gonna share is I just call it the 80-20 rule. I also live by this because people think wellness means saying no to everything all the time that's bad for you and only doing what's right and being really perfect. It's not. We just live in a real world. That's not a real world approach for almost anything, because we are tempted every single day 24-7. And I simply don't believe that anybody is absolutely 100% perfect all the time. If 80% of what you're doing supports your health, no matter what that is, whether it's mindset, physical movement, diet, whatever, if 80% is supporting your health and the other 20% isn't, then you can enjoy that without as much guilt. Really. Go enjoy your family's famous potato salad or have the hot dog or have that scoop of ice cream. Just don't let one meal or one indulgence or one day become three days of you giving up. Because one decision never ruins your entire uh progress. It never ruins the entire program, it never ruins all of your efforts. One simply doesn't. It's when we start to repeat those choices. That's when it has a bigger negative long-term effect. So there is an important distinction here. And we're meant to enjoy life. I mean, honestly, who doesn't love a good ice cream cone in the summer? So freedom, this is a thought, you know, of course, hits us the most when we come into independence weekend here in the United States, you know, the 4th of July. But it it really hits me in a bunch of different ways. We're celebrating freedom as a country, but so many of us don't actually feel free in ourselves. We feel like we're trapped inside these habits that we have, and these habits leave us exhausted. So if you feel like you have some habits or a life, or maybe you feel like you're trapped in this all or nothing thinking and you haven't been able to find your balance without the guilt. Maybe you feel like you're trapped inside a level of guilt all the time. That one day, you know, you're being good, and then the next day you've already messed up, and now you feel guilty about that and you messed up. So you might as well keep eating, or you might as well keep doing whatever it is that you messed up. That is not freedom. So, real freedom is making intentional choices. And you know, if you've listened to me for any point, any length of time, I'm all about making choices and figuring out how you make the better choices more often than not. And making those intentional choices, then enjoying them and moving on without shame, without punishment, and without deciding that Monday has to be another starting line or next week is going to be my next starting line. How about if you just enjoy it and then two hours from now, you're you're back on track? Wow, what kind of freedom would that be? So, recovery is another area that's also going to matter here. Don't underestimate sleep. Holiday weekends often mean later nights. So does summer travel. We've got longer days and everything. You're traveling, maybe, and maybe you've got company and you're doing extra activities, and that's all okay. It's great. Enjoy all of that. But remember that your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, all of it needs recovery. And that's part of your wellness too. So that means make sure you can get enough sleep. Make sure you find moments for quiet so that you can recover and regain your equilibrium. How about downtime? Just downtime, five minutes of deep breathing or a trip to Barnes and Noble with a cup of tea, whatever works for you, some downtime, walking, stretching, reading, sitting on your porch, just taking 20 minutes to breathe. All of those things will count. So sometimes the healthiest thing you can do all weekend is not going to be another workout. We push and push and push all the time, so much. And often what we really need to get to the next level and to feel our best is not to push anymore. It's simply to allow our nervous systems to start to relax again so that everything can function better. Now, I can't believe it. Can you believe it's July? And this is like that mid-year reset. And while we're talking about all of these things for the holiday, every year, once the fourth of July hits, it just feels like the rest of summer flies. I mean, I know we're not exactly halfway through the summer, but you know what I mean, especially if you're listening to this and you're here in the States. It just feels like the summer goes by like a blink once we have Fourth of July. And maybe you're not exactly where you hoped you would be at this point. Maybe your health goals that you started out the year with have stalled a little bit, or maybe business has been slower than you expected, or maybe you've been taking care of everyone else but yourself. Here's your reminder: you don't have to wait until September or January or Monday. You can just reset today. You can reset by one shift in a meal, you can reset by one bottle of water or an or adding a walk-in, even just one better decision or a decision that maybe you've been putting off. These are all tiny resets. But when you do them consistently, they change your life. They literally change your life. So, meal prep is another area I'm gonna give you a little suggestion on. And meal prep is one of the biggest ways that it can be easier for you to stay on track with your wellness goals. And by meal prep, what I mean is batch cooking. So I don't do it perfectly every week. I shoot for most weeks to do this. And I will tell you, it saves me a tremendous amount of time. And this week I made some seasoned ground turkey. I made some chicken breast. Now that means I have two proteins ready for my lunches and dinners. And uh, when I work in my office and I see clients at my wellness center, I prefer long days. I would prefer three long, long days in a row versus spreading out shorter days. That's just how I like to work. So if I don't prepare ahead of time, that's an easy way for me to get off track. So I batch cook and I'll give myself two or three different protein choices and I'll have things that are ready for salads, things that might be ready for a wrap, or things I can throw right over the veggies and I have the veggies ready to go. I also keep some Greek yogurt in the refrigerator. So if you can do dairy, you can do some Greek yogurt. Now I don't do that all the time because it can be a little inflammatory. If that works for you, Greek yogurt's one of my favorite high protein options that sometimes I'll mix in fresh marinated berries. And if you're curious about all these things, I'm gonna throw it into the Limitless Living um group. If you haven't joined, hop on over, I'll put it in the show notes, and you'll get some more ideas on this with more details. But then I'll mix that Greek yogurt with some of my marinated berries, maybe some um dark chocolate chips that are semi-sweet or unsweetened dark chocolate chips and a little bit of stevia, and it's like a dessert. It's delicious. Lots of texture, lots of flavor, and it gives you that sweet treat. I also don't spend time chopping vegetables and prepping a ton of stuff like I used to. Life is just too busy, and I can do that, but I choose not to. I choose to spend my time in other ways. So years ago, I realized my time really matters to me. So I now spend the couple extra pennies and I buy the pre-washed vegetables, the pre-cut broccoli, the snap peas and carrots, whatever I can that makes my eating healthier easier. And of course, I always recommend buying organic. But sometimes people think these shortcuts are cheating. I totally disagree. You do these to get you to your end goal. And my end goal is to make healthier choices all the time, or at least 80% of the time. So doing all of these things helps me do that. So little ideas for you, you know, and they're smart, they're not lazy, go for it. Have your groceries delivered, get the pre-packaged, pre-washed, organic, chopped veggies. It'll save hours of time in the kitchen. Wouldn't you rather be living and laughing and enjoying life? So if you would like to see a snapshot, I did take a few pictures this week of what I made and brought into my office, what I made for my batch cooking and give you some inspiration for coming out of this holiday weekend if you'd like to do something like this next week. I put the pictures up in the Limitless Living group that is for women who are becoming. So join that. And as I said, I'll put that in the show notes. I'll show you what I made and all of my protein ideas and all that fun stuff. So, in closing, as you head into this weekend, my hope isn't that you are eating perfectly. My hope is that you are feeling amazing and that you're laughing and resting and connecting with people that you love and drinking water and moving your body and feeling great, celebrating and remembering that when you gift your body what it needs first, then you enjoy everything else and you feel better. And wellness isn't about punishment, it's about creating a life that feels good to live. So that's gonna be one healthy choice at a time, one joyful memory, one reset at a time. So thank you so much for spending part of your day with me today. And if today's episode encouraged you, I'd love for you to share it with a friend or a family member who's trying to find a healthier, more balanced way to live. Give us your positive review. We'd love to hear and see and read the reviews. Be sure to subscribe. Never miss another podcast episode. And if you'd like more practical wellness tips, encouragement, or behind the scenes resources, again in the show notes, join the Limitless Living Free community. And until next time, be rooted, be resilient, and be limitless.