How can I reset my eating habits after the holidays without going on a strict diet?

Start by restoring a simple routine rather than trying to undo anything. Eat regular meals, anchor them with protein and fibre-rich foods, and let appetite and energy settle over several days. Most people do better with steady structure than with extreme rules.

How many meals and snacks should I aim for to feel more structured again?

A practical starting point is three regular meals per day, with an optional snack only if it genuinely helps your day. The goal is predictable eating times that prevent you from swinging between not hungry and starving.

Why is it important not to skip meals after overeating or binge eating?

Skipping meals often backfires by increasing hunger, cravings, and the odds of repeating the cycle later. Regular meals help regulate appetite signals and reduce the all-or-nothing pattern of restriction followed by overindulgence.

How can I improve my eating habits without counting calories?

Focus on a few consistent behaviours: eat regular meals, include a clear protein source, add fibre-rich produce, and slow down enough to notice satisfaction. When those anchors are in place, many people naturally moderate portions without tracking.

Why is protein helpful when getting back on track with food?

Protein increases meal satisfaction and supports steadier hunger between meals. It also supports muscle maintenance, especially if you are training, and it makes it easier to avoid constant grazing because meals feel more complete.

How much fibre should I aim for, and what are easy ways to get more?

Many guidelines suggest roughly 25 to 30 grams of fibre per day, but it is often easiest to think in food portions. Build meals around vegetables, fruit, beans or lentils, and whole grains, and increase gradually if your digestion is sensitive.

How can I stop feeling guilty about what I ate over the holidays?

Guilt usually comes from rigid food rules, not from the food itself. A helpful reset is to return to normal meals, keep enjoyment in the picture, and focus on consistent habits for the next few days instead of trying to punish or compensate.

What are practical first steps to feel more in control of my eating again?

Pick one or two actions you can repeat: plan tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch, shop for a few basic protein options, and commit to sitting down for meals. Small wins stack quickly when the goal is rhythm, not perfection.

How can I listen to my hunger and fullness after a season of irregular eating?

Start by eating at roughly consistent times, then slow meals down enough to notice cues. Aim to finish comfortably satisfied rather than stuffed, and expect it to take a week or two for signals to feel clear again after a disruptive month.

What should I avoid doing if I want a sustainable reset instead of a quick fix?

Avoid drastic restriction, detoxes, or rules that make you feel like you are white-knuckling your way through January. Those approaches often increase cravings and lead to rebound eating. Build structure first, then adjust with intention if needed.

A steaming cup of coffee on a side table with a rumpled bed spread in the background

The First Thing to Fix After the Holidays (It’s Not Calories)

There’s a particular feeling that tends to show up in early January.

It’s a mix of physical heaviness and mental restlessness. You might feel a bit bloated, a bit sluggish, maybe not sleeping quite as well as you were a month ago. Your kitchen feels unfamiliar again, even though nothing has actually changed. The fridge is full, but nothing feels obvious. Meals feel reactive instead of intentional. Eating feels… noisy.

I see it every year.

People don’t necessarily come in saying, “I need to lose weight right now.” They come in saying, “I just feel off.”

That feeling usually isn’t about calories. It’s not about macros. It’s not even about what you ate over the holidays.

It’s about the loss of rhythm.

December tends to be full of disrupted routines. Late meals. Skipped meals. Constant grazing. Food that shows up without much thought because it’s there, because it’s festive, because everyone else is eating it. Add travel, alcohol, stress, family dynamics, and end-of-year fatigue, and structure quietly dissolves.

Then January hits, and with it comes the urge to clamp down.

Over the last 15+ years as a coach, there’s one pattern I’ve seen repeat itself every single year:

Little or no structure through December, slamming straight into rigid rules come January.

People go from winging it to white-knuckling it. From chaos to punishment. From “I wasn’t really paying attention” to “I need to be strict.”

That jump feels productive. It feels decisive. It feels like taking control.

But for most people, it’s the beginning of another short cycle that ends the same way the last one did.

What actually needs fixing first after the holidays isn’t your calorie intake, it’s your structure.

Why Going Straight to Restriction Backfires

This is the part where a lot of well-intentioned advice goes off the rails.

The default January message is some variation of “get back on track.” That phrase sounds harmless, but it carries an unspoken assumption. It implies you’ve fallen off something, messed up, or need to undo damage. It frames December as a problem to be corrected, rather than a season that simply looked different.

What I see far more often is not that people ate too much, but that they lost any sense of how they were eating.

When you jump straight from no structure to rigid rules, a few things happen.

At first, it works. For the first couple of weeks, novelty and motivation carry you. The rules feel clean. The boundaries feel reassuring. There’s a sense of relief in having decisions made for you again.

Then the rebellion kicks in.

Your mind pushes back against restriction. Your body pushes back against rigidity. Hunger cues get louder. Cravings intensify. Energy dips. The plan starts to feel brittle instead of supportive.

Most people don’t fail because they lack discipline. They fail because the approach they chose requires constant discipline to maintain.

Research on New Year’s resolutions backs this up. Long-term adherence to highly restrictive, cold-turkey approaches is extremely low. There are always a few outliers who can flip a switch and stick with it. They exist, but they are rare, and designing your strategy around exceptions is a fast way to feel broken when it doesn’t work for you.

The deeper cost here isn’t physical. It’s psychological.

Every time someone jumps from indulgence to restriction and then rebounds, they reinforce an identity they don’t want. “I can’t be trusted around food.” “I always fall off.” “I need extreme rules to behave.”

None of that is true. But it feels true after enough repetitions.

There’s another path, and it starts earlier than most people think.

Structure Comes Before Restriction

When I talk about restoring structure, I’m not talking about meal plans, calorie targets, or macro splits.

Structure is not about control. It’s about predictability. It’s the difference between reacting to food and relating to food.

Structure creates a baseline. It quiets the constant internal debate about whether you should eat, what you should eat, or whether you’ve already messed things up for the day.

Without structure, even good food choices feel chaotic. With structure, even imperfect meals feel contained.

This is why I almost never start clients with fat loss targets in early January. Not because fat loss isn’t a valid goal, but because most people aren’t ready for it yet, mentally or physiologically.

They need their feet under them first, and structure does that.

It gives people a sense of agency again. It replaces vague guilt with clear intention. It creates momentum without pressure, and importantly, it’s something you can build into, rather than flip on overnight.

Minimum Viable Structure: Where I Start With Clients

If someone comes to me in January feeling scattered, this is where we begin. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s effective.

Protein as the First Anchor

The first thing I look at is protein intake.

Not because protein is magic, but because it solves multiple problems at once.

A baseline target of four to six palm-sized portions of protein per day gives most people enough to stabilise appetite, support muscle tissue, and reduce mindless snacking. For people who are strength training regularly, or who are more focused on leaning out their body composition, that often moves closer to six to eight portions per day.

We don’t jump straight to the high end. We work up to it.

Protein has a way of bringing order back to meals. When it’s present, meals feel complete. When it’s absent, people tend to keep eating, searching for satisfaction they never quite reach.

Once protein is in place, everything else gets easier.

Fibre-Rich Vegetables as the Second Anchor

Next comes fibrous vegetables.

Again, not as a restriction, but as a foundation.

Four to six fist-sized portions per day is a realistic baseline for most people. Some do well with more, up to six or eight portions, as long as hunger, digestion, and energy stay in a good place.

Vegetables add volume without chaos. They slow meals down. They support digestion. They help people feel like they’re eating real food again, not just grabbing whatever is closest.

This isn’t about perfection or variety points. It’s about showing up consistently.

Letting Carbs and Fats Settle Naturally

Once protein and vegetables are handled, something interesting usually happens.

People stop overthinking carbs and fats.

When meals are anchored properly, most people naturally self-regulate their intake of starches and fats without counting, tracking, or obsessing. Satisfaction increases. Grazing decreases. Portions settle.

This is why I rarely start January with carb or fat limits unless there’s a specific medical or performance reason to do so. For many people, that level of control simply isn’t necessary yet.

Structure does the heavy lifting.

Meals, Not Grazing

Another quiet but powerful shift is moving back to meals.

December often blurs meal boundaries. People snack constantly, eat erratically, or graze all day without ever sitting down to eat a proper meal.

Grazing disrupts hunger and satiety signalling. It turns eating into a background activity, something done out of habit rather than need.

I generally encourage people to aim for three to four proper meals per day, without snacking in between.

That doesn’t mean ignoring hunger. It means allowing hunger to exist.

Feeling hungry between meals is not a problem to be fixed. It’s a normal biological signal. In fact, learning to sit with mild hunger and trust that a meal is coming is part of restoring a healthy relationship with food.

The goal isn’t constant fullness. It’s rhythm.

If this idea feels uncomfortable, that discomfort is usually a sign of how disrupted eating patterns have become, not a sign that meals are wrong.

The view from the lookout on McKee Peak in autumn — The view from the lookout on McKee Peak over the Sumas flats towards Mount Baker in autumn

Removing Chaos Without Removing Joy

This is where I want to be very clear:

Enjoying food is not a failure of discipline. It is part of being human.

Meals shared with family and friends matter. Cultural foods matter. Traditions matter. Pleasure matters.

I actually take issue with how some health sciences literature refers to eating beyond basic energy needs as “hedonistic feeding.” That language assigns a moral judgement to a normal human behaviour. Hedonism implies excess and devotion to indulgence, not mindful enjoyment. (My youngest, who is a Health Sciences student that is home for and I just had a mini argument ove

There is a world of difference between chaotic indulgence and intentional enjoyment. Removing chaos does not mean removing joy.

You can still enjoy meals out. You can still cook foods you love. You can still sit down and savour a dish without turning it into a nutritional audit.

What changes is the container those experiences sit in.

When structure is present, enjoyment becomes part of life, not a rebellion against it. Healthy eating and weight loss goals fit into your life, instead of forcing your life to fit around them.

This is where most diets fail. They ask people to live unnaturally for weeks or months, then somehow transition back to normal without having practised what “normal” looks like.

Structure lets you practise living well while moving forward.

Why This Approach Actually Sticks

One of the most underappreciated benefits of restoring structure first is how quickly people feel better, even before the scale changes.

Anxiety around food decreases. Decision fatigue drops. Confidence creeps back in. People stop saying, “I don’t know what to eat,” and start saying, “I’ve got this.”

Small wins compound. Hitting protein targets a few days in a row builds trust. Sitting down to meals builds rhythm. Choosing vegetables without forcing them builds momentum.

Over time, something deeper shifts.

People stop seeing themselves as someone “trying to be good” and start seeing themselves as someone who eats with intention.

That identity change is what supports long-term fat loss, not willpower.

This same mentality applies to training, as I wrote about in Consistency Over Chaos: What Actually Builds Fitness That Lasts.

The same principles apply in the kitchen.

A Different Kind of January

Once structure is in place, then it makes sense to talk about fat loss phases, calorie awareness, or more intentional adjustments.

The difference is timing.

When people try to restrict without structure, they rely on motivation. When people layer restriction onto structure, they rely on habits. Those are very different outcomes.

January doesn’t need to be a punishment month. It can be a stabilisation month.

Get your feet under you first, and everything else builds more easily from there.

If you’re reading this and feeling a sense of relief, that’s not accidental.

Nothing needs to be erased. Nothing needs to be undone. December didn’t break you.

What most people need in early January isn’t another set of rules.

They need rhythm. Structure. A return to meals that feel grounded instead of reactive.

Start there.

How Weight Loss Really Works

If you want to understand how structure, habits, and timing actually drive fat loss long term, I put together a short, free mini-course called How Weight Loss Really Works.

It breaks down the same principles I use with clients, without calorie counting, extreme rules, or diet cycles.

You can read more about it here:
https://www.btgfitness.com/how-weight-loss-really-works

Or enrol directly here if you want to start right away:
https://btgfitness.thinkific.com/enroll/3625224?price_id=4564322

Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some of the most common questions that come up when people start restoring structure after the holidays.

After the holidays, it can help to focus on rebuilding a loose routine instead of trying to make up for what you ate. Eating regular meals that include protein and high-fibre foods supports steadier energy and appetite, allowing your body to settle naturally without extreme rules or compensation.
Many nutrition resources suggest aiming for three balanced meals per day, with optional snacks depending on hunger, activity level, and schedule. Spacing meals roughly every three to four hours helps prevent extreme hunger, supports more stable energy, and can reduce the urge to overeat later in the day.
Skipping meals or trying to save calories often leads to stronger hunger signals and increased cravings later on. Eating regularly, even after a large meal or episode of overeating, helps calm appetite regulation and reduces the cycle of swinging between restriction and overindulgence.
Instead of focusing on numbers, you can prioritise simple habits such as including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean protein in most meals, and limiting highly sugary drinks. Eating slowly and paying attention to hunger and fullness cues can help you eat an amount that feels comfortable without tracking every bite.
Protein supports fullness and helps keep hunger more stable between meals, which can reduce frequent snacking and intense cravings. Including a source of protein at each meal, such as eggs, yogurt, beans, fish, poultry, tofu, or nuts, can support steadier energy and make food choices feel more manageable.
General public health guidelines often suggest adults aim for roughly 25 to 30 grams of fibre per day from food. Fibre supports digestion, heart health, and feelings of fullness. You can increase fibre intake by choosing whole grains, beans, lentils, fruits with the skin on, vegetables, nuts, and seeds regularly.
Food guilt often comes from rigid ideas about good and bad foods rather than from the food itself. Shifting toward a more neutral view of eating can help reduce shame and all-or-nothing thinking. Allowing holiday foods in moderation while returning to regular meals supports a healthier relationship with food over time.
Starting with one or two small actions can be effective, such as planning your next day’s breakfast and lunch, drinking water regularly, and sitting down for meals without distractions. These steps improve awareness and often lead naturally to more balanced food choices without feeling overwhelming.
It can help to notice early hunger cues and aim to eat until you feel comfortably satisfied rather than overly full. Eating more slowly, pausing during meals, and checking in with how your body feels can help retrain awareness of hunger and fullness signals that may have been dulled during irregular eating.
Avoid extreme restriction, detoxes, or cutting out entire food groups solely to undo holiday eating. These approaches often increase cravings and reinforce cycles of restriction and overeating. Focusing on steady routines, flexible structure, and self-compassion tends to support more lasting and less stressful change.