Summary 

The holiday season is officially here, and with it comes an avalanche of food-filled gatherings. Whether it's Thanksgiving dinner, holiday parties, or those casual weekend hangouts, we often find ourselves in situations where we eat—not because we're hungry—but to please others. If you've ever felt awkward refusing food from a gracious host or struggled with saying no to those extra holiday treats, this episode is for you.

In today's episode, I'm revisiting one of my favorite holiday-themed discussions, originally shared last year, to help you navigate these situations with confidence. I'll be walking you through a powerful, three-step strategy to say "no" without guilt, so you can enjoy the season and stay on track with your goals.

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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why the holiday season is often where we unintentionally gain weight—and how to break the cycle.
• How to respond confidently when a well-meaning host insists on you trying their special dish.
• The difference between "eat-pleasing" and genuine connection at social gatherings.
• Three practical steps to say no without feeling rude or needing to justify yourself.
• How to embrace the holiday season without waiting for January 1st to reclaim your health goals.

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Download the full transcript here.

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  You know, that moment when a gracious host offers you something that they have spent hours making, and maybe you either have a plan that doesn't involve saying yes to the food, or you simply don't want it. I don't know about you, but I've had many instances over the years where I felt like I just was supposed to, or had to say yes, and that's what we're getting into on today's podcast episode. Today, I'm sharing one of my favorite holiday feast, eating centered episodes that I initially released last year, right before Thanksgiving. And it was one of my favorite episodes, teaching a three step strategy that you can feel more empowered with walking into any holiday event, such as Thanksgiving special feast, any weekend treat that you have coming up for yourself. As we've been talking about on the podcast, it's this time of year between Halloween and new years that women inadvertently gain the most amount of weight. The reason for this is a lot of us may be right off the season of the year. We think that there's just too much going on. There's too many activities, too many events and holiday feasts happening that we might as well just wait for the fresh start on January 1st to start hitting our body goal. Or maybe you feel like you don't know quite how to have fun and connect with your friends or family without food or alcohol. Or the last one, which is what we're talking about on today's episode, which is how to say no to the gracious host who has especially created this video. this food for you and a lot of people think about food as a love language so the idea of saying no to that maybe creates a lot of emotion for you and gives you pause. You might be worried about not wanting to seem rude or as just a simple women's advocate you don't want people to think great she's on another diet. Either way this episode is really designed to to help you claim this season, even before January 1st, I'm going to talk you through how it's possible to have fun and celebrate and connect with your loved ones and also hit your goals on the scale. My goal in this podcast episode is that you walk away with this three step strategy. So you. Feel really empowered in claiming this upcoming season. While I love a fresh start as much as the next person, what I love even more is getting a head start. I hope you love this episode as much as me. And I want you to think about having this episode in your back pocket to listen to any time before any social gathering, weekend activity or holiday event. And if you do love this episode, I would be so grateful if you shared it with One other person that you think also wants to claim this season and get a headstart on hitting their personal stress and weight loss goals. Okay, friends, let's get into it.

  Hey, unstoppable friend, you're listening to The Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast. I'm your host Dr. Priyanka Venugopal, a physician turned a stress and weight loss coach for professional working moms. and the founder of the Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable Small Group Coaching Program. This podcast is going to inspire change at the root for you on and off the scale. I've lost a little over 60 pounds while being a busy physician mom with two young kids and an unpredictable schedule. And along my journey, which was full of many, many imperfect moments, I have learned how to skip past the fads and the gimmicks. I am on this mission now to share with you how you can have a real strategy and mindset skills to really have more of the life you want that you have worked so hard for. Let's get into it. A few months ago, I was invited to a family hangout. And for those of you that are new to the unstoppable universe, I'm fairly new to the Washington DC area. So I am really on a mission to meet more people, make new friends. And this is more than just like my kids having friends to play with. It's really for me, for the adults. I want to make more adult friends in the Washington DC area and in the town that I live in. So anytime I have an opportunity to meet more people, I jump at the opportunity of saying yes. It was one of those things that was like three times removed. It was like a friend of a friend of a friend invited us. Me and my whole family to kind of a family hangout and it was a really lovely couple. They threw out there at the very last minute, by the way, we're ordering some pizza. I just want to let you guys know, can't wait to see you all. We'll see you this evening. Now, this is amazing because my kids both love pizza and it just kind of took dinner off of my mind. Like I didn't have to deal with, you know, dinner for the kids. Now, typically I don't eat lunch until at least one or 2 p.m just because I'm not hungry, I have really trained my body to become a fat burner, and I really only eat foods when I'm actually hungry. I talked about this on the podcast in many episodes before the Truth About Intermittent Fasting, The Truth About Flour and Sugar, and The Hunger Tool are three episodes where I really get into how to become a fat burner, so I don't want to spend any time on this episode. But suffice it to say, I really only eat when my body's hungry, and typically I don't get hungry in the morning. So I normally eat lunch around one or two. And this was a day just like any other where I had eaten lunch, probably around 1, 1:30 and we were going to get to this amazing family gathering at around 5 PM. So we get there and all the kids were running around. The kids are just grabbing slices of pizza off the table. And the host, who is being so gracious, is going around making sure that everyone has a plate, has a glass, has something, you know, to entertain themselves with, comes around and says, Hey, Priyanka, how about you? What kind of pizza would you like? Now I'm just going to put, this is like, enter the rude moment, right? This is that moment where So many of us find ourselves in where we are being asked either by the host of a party, or maybe a friend or family member, like, Hey, how about you? What are you going to have? What do you want to drink? What are you going to eat now? Before I used to eat, please my way through these moments. And I'm going to call eat pleasing is basically people pleasing somebody else but in the form of eating food when you're not actually hungry. So what I would have done in the past is I totally would have grabbed one slice and probably two. I would have done it simply to number one, not be different than anyone else because everyone else had a plate in their hands. I didn't want to be other. I didn't want to look different. And also I didn't want to be that weirdo at dinner that just like had nothing, had nothing in my hands. I remember. And again, this is another Like kind of fun fact about me. I generally find myself feeling fairly awkward in social gatherings where I don't know anyone. This is still true to this day. When I go to a social gathering and I don't know anyone, I feel a little awkward. I feel a little self conscious. This has just kind of been a vibe that I've always had. And one of the ways that I used to solve for this when I was younger is to kind of cover up my awkwardness, to cover up my kind of socially very, like, Aware self, I would definitely pile on food onto a plate, pour myself a glass or two of wine simply to fill the space and kind of cover up my personal awkward vibes. How many of you have ever done this? Now, I used to do this for so many reasons. It would be either I didn't know what to say, I didn't know how to sound smart, or maybe be funny. And I would just find myself very easily nibbling on food, being able to talk about the food, being able to talk about the drinks as an easy conversation piece to help myself to not feel awkward. Now because of this, because I didn't want to look different, I didn't want to be other than everyone around me, I didn't want to be rude to the gracious host, or I simply was trying to cover my own awkwardness, I would often find myself eating in many social gatherings when I wasn't hungry. I would be eat pleasing my way through almost every social scenario. Now, it's no surprise that eat pleasing or basically eating when you're not hungry is going to undo your weight loss efforts in the efforts that you put in Monday through Friday will very quickly and very easily get undone. If every social gathering, every holiday event, you start eating food beyond your personal comfort. It is the simplest thing that when you're eating  food, when your body's not hungry, she is very brilliantly going to store that food in the form of fat. So it's no surprise when we find ourselves eating in these social gatherings and we're eating when we're not actually hungry, that we're undoing our Monday through Friday or our regular day weight loss efforts. Okay. So I want to tell you the end of the story, what happens go around. So I told you what I used to do when I used to eat, please. And people please in social settings, he's definitely overeat. But in my personal work. Definitely, since I discovered coaching and ever since I started to really undo some of these learned behaviors and learn habits, I have learned how to stop eat pleasing other people. And when you listen through to this whole entire episode, I think you also are going to feel so empowered when you learn my three step process in how you can also stop eat pleasing. So let me say what happened at the end of the story. My lovely gracious host comes over and says, Priyanka, what kind of pizza would you like? And I'm going to tell you exactly what I said. I said, Actually, I had a really late lunch and I'm not quite hungry yet. Thank you so much for asking. You guys are amazing. What a spread. Done. No more explaining. No more words. I didn't have to go on and on and on and explain why I was saying no to the pizza.

  How many of us have done this before? I'm going to go off on a little tangent. How many of us have done this where you find yourself saying no to something, and then you feel the need to explain yourself, give all of the justifications and all of the reasons, simply because you want the person that you're talking to, to agree with your decision. Right. But if you're really paying attention to how that feels for you, when you find yourself justifying and over explaining yourself, you're going to find that it doesn't feel so good. And at some point along the way, it's going to feel kind of silly to you too. Now, here's what I'm going to tell you. Most hosts at this point, we'll just get the message like, Oh yeah, it makes sense. You had late lunch. No problem. Pizza's there whenever you want it. And they will move on. They get it and they will move on. A lot of people will understand this. But, there are going to be some people, some of those very extra gracious hosts who will persist. Some people, some gracious hosts will have thoughts of their own. They'll have thoughts about you saying no to the food that they specially prepared, the food that they bought for this event, and they will have a lot of opinions about you not eating. They might think that they're only gracious and a good host if you actually eat their food. Can you really hear that? Like, first of all, let's flip this. Have you ever done that? Have you ever thought that like your event is only a success if everybody else is eating and drinking and seemingly having a good time? Think about how much pressure you're putting on your guests if you're doing that, right? But so often, and this is again, so well intentioned, hosts want their events to be fun for all the people that they've invited and they inadvertently will put a lot of pressure on their, on their guests by being like, no, eat something seriously, eat something. So you might find someone thinking, Oh, my event is only a success if everyone has eaten or drank something, and this person is saying, no, how annoying. They also might internally judge you for not eating their food, the food that they've specially prepared, taking time out for, or bought for the event. They might think you're rude. Third, The gracious host might think and even say something about the fact and make a comment about the fact that you're not eating. They might say something like, Oh, are you on another diet again? Right? There are two broad categories of hosts that you will encounter. The very first one, which is they get it and they move on. You get to go back to having fun and laughing and mingling and connecting with your friends and family. And it's just a non issue. But there will be times that people will persist. They're going to have thoughts about you. They're going to have opinions about you, and they might even say something to you. They might say something like, what's one slice? Like why not just have one? What's one drink? Come on. Seriously. Are you on a diet or something? Now, what I have found in my experience, and I've encountered both kinds of gracious host is that. I can't ever actually control what the other people at the event, the host, the people around me are ever actually going to think about the way that I eat. The biggest thing I've learned and the biggest nugget is you cannot control what someone is going to think of you. You're never going to be able to control what they think of your food choices, how you eat, and how you drink. And really, it is incredibly liberating to remember that. I thought that this episode was going to be particularly timely as we're in the holiday season, because if you want to stop, Eat pleasing.

  If you want to stop undoing your weight loss efforts, and most importantly, if you want to feel calm and confident and in control in any social scenario, there are a few things that you need to know and to be aware of, let's just start with really unraveling what is eat pleasing. What is people pleasing and where does it even come from people pleasing is just an action. It's a behavior often habitual that might be at a point where you're not even aware of all the little and big ways that it is manifesting in your life. It has likely started years and years ago, decades ago, probably when you were a kid. And I want to talk to you first, before we get to how to overcome it, why it even became a habit. How is it possible? And why is it the case that high achieving, smart, brilliant women ever became people pleasers to begin with? The reason is, and I'm going to speak about this in a really broad and basic sense, is that as a kid, you were likely rewarded for being agreeable. When you were agreeable as a child, when you said yes to things, even if you didn't want to, when you didn't ruffle any feathers, you got a nod of approval from a big person in your life. You might've gotten a smile from a parent or a guardian, a pat on the head from your teacher or coach. And at that time, your child brain learned It's really good to be agreeable to please the big people in my life so that I can feel safe and loved and accepted and protected. Now I'm spelling it out like this in a really simple way, but what I want you to know is as a child, you didn't know that you were doing this. You didn't know that you were learning and creating a people pleasing pattern in your mind. But just being aware of where this habit even came from is, I think, so important to understand because so many of us learned these behaviors when we were really young. So, as a child, you learned being agreeable, got you nods of approval, you felt accepted, loved, safe, protected, and validated. And very naturally, your brilliant child brain was like, let's turn this into a thing. Let's make this into a habit. And as you grew up, as you got older and older, these people pleasing tendencies grew into your adult life. The way that I see people pleasing, showing up for most of us as high achievers, broadly speaking, is we are saying yes to things that we don't want to be saying yes to that is what I define people pleasing as, or even eat pleasing as, as the high achieving working mom is very simply, you're saying yes to things. You don't want to be saying yes to, you'll know that you're doing this. If you're yes. doesn't feel right. If it feels inauthentic to you, if it downright creates resentment or frustration for you for having said yes to something that you didn't want to do, or you'll find yourself saying yes to something simply to get somebody else's approval because you want to be validated.

  Now, I want to really highlight as smart, brilliant, high achieving women, the Why are we keeping people pleasing behaviors? Why are we ever saying yes to something that we might want to say no to? The reason that we're doing this is simply because you want to feel a certain way in that social setting, or you want to avoid feeling a certain way in that social setting. For example, you might say yes to something that you actually want to say no to simply because in that social setting, you want to feel connection. Belonging and acceptance in a group of people, or you might say yes to something that you actually want to say no to simply to avoid feeling awkward or different or judged or even embarrassed. Let me just say that again. The reason that you will ever keep your people pleasing behaviors or eat pleasing behaviors is simply because of a feeling. Just this wanting to feel a certain way will drive you the brilliant, smart, high achiever to eat food that you don't want to eat to say yes to things. You don't want to say yes to you'll find yourself people pleasing your partner, your kids, friends, family, colleagues, and worse at the core of it is you might find yourself experiencing a lot of rumination. You'll be thinking a lot about what Other people think of you and that will be driving so much of how you show up. And before we get into overcoming this and the three steps that I like to suggest that you incorporate, if you want to overcome this, I really first want to validate any people pleasing tendencies that you have. I want to really remind you that this came from a really young age. It came as a super skill. As a child, it was your way of feeling accepted and loved and protected and safe. And so it makes a lot of sense if you find yourself reflexively going to some people, pleasing or eat, pleasing tendencies. Can we just recognize that for a second? I mean, how brilliant were we as children to come up with this, to come up with and pick up on these little cues that we got from the big people in our life, but the beauty that we get to do together and we do together on this podcast is we're We get to look at and challenge some of these tendencies, these belief structures, these paradigms that we picked up as children. And what we're getting to do is ask, how is it serving me now as a grown adult? Now, if you get the sense that people pleasing and eat pleasing is holding you back from being your true and authentic self, if you find yourself feeling like you just can't be you without worrying about what somebody else might think, or from a food and weight loss angle, if you find yourself Eat-pleasing at social gatherings just to fit in or not be rude. Then this is your work. Here is the truth. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but it's just real. People are going to judge you. They're going to have thoughts and opinions about you that you have absolutely no control over. I would say more often than not at social gatherings, people aren't really paying any attention to how you're eating and drinking. Maybe they make a offhanded comment, but then they move on. But let's just say for argument's sake, that the people at a social event or social gathering are having a lot of thoughts about you. Let's just say that they are judging you. I want you to feel liberated with remembering that you can actually control what they're thinking. Instead of trying to predict, manipulate, and control what other people think of you, I want to walk you through three steps that might make you feel more empowered in any social setting so that you can overcome your e pleasing tendencies. Step one is to create safety. Step two is to have ownership. And step three is to feel any emotion. Let me walk you through each of these steps in detail so you can see how it works and then try practicing it for your own life. Step one is to create safety. This means you purposely remind yourself that you are safe. And okay, even if you don't say yes to something, you're not a kid anymore and you don't need nods of approval, pats on the head or validation from a friend, family member or colleague to define you having safety saying no to the food at the party or no to a glass of wine is not going to get you kicked out of the party. Step two is about having ownership. This is a really important step and where you can have the most power. Focusing on the one thing that you actually have 100 percent control over your own thoughts, reminding yourself that you can't actually control what other people are thinking, no matter how agreeable you are, is such a gift to remember. And here's the kicker and something that I think is so important to remember. Just because someone. think something of you or has an opinion of you doesn't make it true. Just because someone thinks you're rude for not eating their cookies that they spent hours making doesn't make you actually rude. Their thoughts are their opinions, and I think the biggest mistake that women make is we borrow somebody else's opinions as our personal truths. Step two is about giving yourself permission to free yourself from that paradigm. Some people will not like you. I know. How dare they? And it's okay. Instead of focusing on those people, focus on the ones that like you and accept you for who you are, when you're your most authentic self.

  Step two is really about bringing your attention to having your own back, and In what you think of you, what you think of the way you're eating and drinking, what you think about saying no powerfully to anything that you want. This second piece is basically an exercise of you validating yourself, creating self confidence in being your most authentic self. But to do this, it requires that you accept yourself. First, let me say that again. Step two is about you accepting you first, you taking control of what you think of you, you owning how you want to make your decisions. Instead of borrowing the thoughts and beliefs of the people around you, stretch yourself to deciding on purpose. What do you want to think of you? What do you want to choose? To think about saying no to something step three, and this is a step you cannot bypass that is to let yourself feel an uncomfortable emotion. I'll be honest, as you practice this, as you practice breaking out of your people, pleasing norms, you might feel a little afraid. You might feel a little awkward, maybe embarrassed, and that's okay. I want to remind you that when you feel that feeling awkward, embarrassed, judged, different, other, nothing is actually going wrong. Let yourself feel it. Take a breath and have your own back. Nothing is wrong. When you experience that emotion, it is just a vibration passing through your body. And I promise you it will pass. When you go to that social gathering and you don't fill your plate up, I want you to remember these three steps. Number one, creating safety. Saying no is okay. Step two, to really validate yourself and remember that you only control your thoughts about you and step three, to let yourself feel an emotion. When you love your decisions and you practice these steps, you will know and learn how to say no powerfully without over explaining yourself. No thanks is a complete sentence. No thanks, I'm not hungry right now, is a complete sentence. No, I'm not on a diet, I just don't eat when I'm not hungry, is a complete and rather comprehensive sentence. You're so amazing, I love your spread, but I'm good, is a complete sentence. When you feel confident in this and you stop needing other people to agree or approve of your decisions and rather you accept that they may or may not have thoughts about you, you will find yourself delivering these sentences with so much more authenticity and confidence. You won't need to explain yourself and you don't ever have to feel inauthentic at any social gathering ever again. And be willing to practice. Don't let perfectionism hold you back from applying this tool at any social gathering coming up for you. It is true that people are going to judge you where you are right now, but I want to paint this picture. People that do judge you, people that have opinions about how you're living your life and how you're making decisions have a really myopic lens. They're looking at you in this moment in time, this social gathering your plate right now, but what most people forget that are judging you in this moment is they're not seeing your tomorrow. They're not seeing your growth next week, next month, or next year. That's your job. No one is thinking about your Thanksgiving plate the following week, but when you find yourself. Eat pleasing and people pleasing through social gatherings. I promise you, you will be thinking about it later. Your body will feel like, Oh, why did we do that? You're going to regret your decisions. And you're going to wish that you had made decisions differently at those social gatherings. This episode is all about giving yourself permission to change your narrative.

  I know you feel that buzzing desire to let courage and boldness break through and remembering that other people will have opinions. They totally get to, it's totally okay. You get to focus on your opinions because they matter too. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable. If you did share it with one friend today and go on the quest together to break out of your eat pleasing and people pleasing together. And if you do this, I want to hear from you. Drop me a DM over on Instagram. My Instagram handle is @burnstressloseweight, it's really me responding. So come over and share with me whether you're going to be applying these three steps in breaking out of your people pleasing and eat pleasing tendencies during the holiday season. I would love to hear from you have an amazing week, my unstoppable friends, and let's break out of eat pleasing this season. I hope you enjoyed today's episode, gearing you up for a season of special holiday gatherings and special events and lots of food-centered celebration. This is really a concept, this three step episode. I'm just going to say this last sentence again. This concept that we talked about on today's Episode is a three step strategy that really can apply to any cultural festivity, any holiday event that is focused on food. And if you love this episode and what we were doing together on the burn stress lose weight podcast, I would absolutely love it. If you could take just a few moments to leave a rating and review on your podcast platform of choice, it makes this podcast more findable, more searchable by other women who. Also want to claim this season so that we can all get a head start on hitting our body goals. I hope you guys have an amazing week and I will see you at the next one.

  Bye. Thanks for spending this time with me on the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast today. I hope that you are leaving today's podcast episode, feeling a little lighter and more inspired than when we started. It turns out. that you don't need to have a stress free life to hit your goals on and off the scale. But when you feel more empowered to respond to your real life stresses with true strategy, we will game change how we show up and how we hit our goals. If you want to take what you're learning here on the podcast and put it into real life implementation, it might be time for us to work together in the Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable group coaching program. Head over to burnstressloseweight.com and you can learn all of the details, the nuts, the bolts, when the next group is starting and exactly how you can join. Okay friend, I'll see you next time.