Nov. 28, 2025
Holiday Survival for Men Over 40: How to Stay in Control Without Missing the Memories
In this episode of Driven For Health, Coach Brian Parana breaks down how men over 40 can survive the holiday season without missing the memories or gaining the usual 5 to 10 pounds.
Coach Brian explains why the holidays are not the real problem. The real problem is the constant availability of extra calories from Halloween through New Year’s: Thanksgiving meals, Christmas cookies, work parties, alcohol, leftovers, family pressure, travel, and back-to-back events.
This episode gives men a realistic way to think about the season without trying to be perfect. Coach Brian explains how to treat health like a dial, use weight maintenance as a win when needed, focus on water, protein, movement, sleep, gratitude, and simple planning, and keep the holidays from becoming a full reset in January.
This is a strong listen for men over 40 who want to enjoy Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, family meals, holiday parties, and traditions while still protecting their weight, energy, health, and confidence.
Most men fall into the holidays with good intentions and end up crashing into January heavier, tired, and frustrated. They only hope that Santa got them larger clothes to fit when they go to work on January 2.
This episode gives you a new way to approach the season so you stay in control without skipping every meal or party.
Grab the Guide Here:
https://thecalltorise.com/holidaysurvivalguide
Coach Brian breaks down why the holidays are not the real problem, how to use the Holiday Survival Checklist to stay steady, and how to build simple minimums that carry you through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year with confidence.
You will hear real stories about late-night kitchen raids, family traditions that pull you off track, and the quiet habits that slowly add weight over the season.
If you want to enjoy the holidays without the usual setback and feel lighter, clearer, and more in control by January, start with Part 1.
Download the Holiday Survival Checklist and Blueprint in the show notes and follow along.
https://thecalltorise.com/holidaysurvivalguide
Want help applying this to your own health, weight, energy, or lab numbers?
Coach Brian Parana offers Health Hot Seat coaching segments for men who want a clear next step with nutrition, fitness, weight loss, blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, or daily consistency.
Learn more about The Call To Rise, a 100-day coaching program for driven men over 40 who want to lose weight, improve their health, and rebuild confidence:
To connect with Coach Brian:
brian@brianparana.com
Disclaimer: This podcast is for education and coaching support only. It is not medical advice. Always work with your physician before changing medication, treatment, or medical care.
- You've probably had seasons where you walked into January heavier. Not by just a couple pounds, but maybe five or even 10 pounds heavier. Feel tired, frustrated with yourself. You do not want to repeat that again in 2026. Not by telling you you have to be the guy who brings Tupperware to Christmas or packing your meals or avoiding the holiday.
- We don't need to skip the parties. Today is about giving you a sample, a realistic game plan that helps you get through the holidays of Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, office parties, family craziness without gaining the extra 5 to 10 lbs that most men carry into January. You're not just going to learn to survive the holidays.
- We want to show up stronger, faster, leaner, and healthier come Jan 2 without a New Year's resolution. It's Driven for Health podcast holiday episode. This is going to be released right around Black Friday. And what a great gift to be able to give all the guys listening into the show. some strategies, tips, and all sorts of things that help you drop fat, build muscle, and gain the strength you need to stay fit, healthy for the rest of your life. I'm Coach Brian Piranha.
- I have been coaching men through this exact season for over 23 years or so. It was way back in 2003, 2004 when I started coaching people and exercise and helping them get healthier in one way or another. I've seen what happens when this time of year gets the best of men. Their real intentions, the distractions, the disruptions, the joy that it brings, and the also challenge of travel or in-laws, eggnog, Christmas cookies, seconds or even thirds showing up.
- Let's walk through a couple things so that you can think about this holiday season differently and stop treating it like a danger zone. I also have linked a holiday survival checklist in the show notes that you'll be able to download. There's going to be a lot of different strategies in there that allow you to stay consistent while still enjoying every single moment.
- And again, if you want the checklist, just check the notes. The link is there. The real problem isn't the holidays. It's the time of year where men just overeat by sheer availability. There's too many parties, travel, stress, food piles up. People are getting food gifts. They're drinking beverages.
- They're really enjoying this time of season. Say Christmas sales are flowing. Who doesn't like a tasty Christmas sale, right? But a Christmas sale can pack upwards of 300 calories in a typical glass. and you go with the tall boy, you're asking for a lot more. Now, what is going to put these 5 to 10 pounds on you isn't necessarily just alcohol or extra snacks.
- It's just literally sheer calories coming in that are quick, tasty, palatable that you want more. And then people are going to be giving to them you to them and [clears throat] want you to eat them in front of their face and they'll still give you some more after that. This is just going to leave you by January really tired, fatigued, and your belt buckle not fitting.
- Should have asked Santa for a size up in your pant or another larger belt. I want you to look at how many holidays we have. If you wanted to count Halloween in there, too. Yeah, definitely. It's from Halloween through January 2. There's a large number of holiday or special events and activities that show up. We've got Halloween, Thanksgiving, maybe Thanksgiving Eve, Friendsgiving, we've got Black Friday parties, possibly the day after with family.
- We've got h we've got work parties, office parties, friend parties, white elephant parties, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. Maybe you have multiple families to go to on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Then there's New Year's Eve, a New Year's Eve party, New Year's Day, and oh, you go to two New Year's Days. I just counted those up.
- That is five, 10, 15. That's 17 days events that I just shared. One thing I'd love to say and share. I share this with guys and everyone that I've ever trained. This really simple rule of thumb is this. However day however many days you're off is about however many days it takes to get back on. What that means is if 17 days were thrown off for just even one meal in that day that would then multiply that by two 17 days that's 34 out of November and December which we can grossly say 6065 days do some quick math 50% of the time you are not making any
- progress at all potentially slowly going backwards. And this is where the weight gain comes. If you're not even paying attention, if you are paying attention, then you still have, say, 30 days worth of time in there to manage it and do reasonably better. That's a a huge percentage. Ask your kindergarten math teacher what 50% is in terms of a grade. It's not passing.
- Instead, I want you to treat your health like a dial. And as seasons are where we turn the dial up and push hard, then there are seasons where we can pull back and focus on minimums. But never really, we don't want to turn the dial off. And say January is a great season where most people will turn that dial full go because nothing else is happening.
- It's cold, it's dark, it's snowing. In most places in Akran, Ohio, it's snowing. And that's a good time to crank the dial and work hard. Most guys that I have ever worked with have gained weight through the holiday season. If we step back and think about that, weight maintenance through the holiday season might be a really good successful experience.
- I'll say that again. If your goal is to just maintain your weight through, say, Halloween or Thanksgiving, through the New Year's, that's a great goal to have and not to be undercut with, oh, I could have lost more weight. Sure, you could have, but you also want to enjoy the experience at hand. And three undertones that I always coach off of is moderation, balance, and flexibility have to be brought into the play of the weight game for you.
- This will allow us to manage that dial, so to speak, and then being able to ramp it up in January. Say weight maintenance, say it's a out of 10, 10 being full go, maybe it's a five effort in the holiday season. But if you do want to lose weight, you still can. And you just control however much food goes in your mouth regardless of what food choices you do pick.
- You only eat Christmas cookies in the day. Calories pile up quickly and you don't eat a lot of food. A lot of food volume that is. Okay. We just keep adjusting. There's lots of strategies we'll go over to keep your clothes from getting tight and not having to avoid every single tasty treat that is in the holiday season.
- I in particular enjoy the holiday season a little bit more. Say Christmas cookies. I really enjoy them. I want to experience that in a fun way. Of course, I don't need five Christmas cookies. And I have four kids and my wife Amber, Levi Everett, Maxwell, and Mline will clear that platter of cookies real quick.
- I'll sneak in a couple before they disappear. Now, here's some other moments that you might experience with the hottie season that make it really challenging to manage. Number one, story one is Aunt Sally's roles. I want you to imagine that Thanksgiving afternoon, the house smells incredible. Aunt Sally or whoever your aunt is comes out of the kitchen holding her famous fresh baked rolls.
- They got that golden brown on the top. You can see the steam rising off of them, filling the house with that fresh bread ta smell and that fluffy taste that you are going to take that really nice first bite with and even shmear some butter on it to make it even better. Now, these same rolls she's made year after year since you can remember and they're just so wonderful.
- And then she says, "I made extra because I know how much you love these." Right? That's the that's the challenge. Right? In that moment, most guys or anyone would forget what their nutrition target is or what their goals were for the day. It just kind of goes out the window. Right? We're immersed in a large number of senses.
- Of course, smell, we have sight, we have taste, we have our memories in a sense to play upon of nostalgia. Oh, I always have two or three roles when an Sally makes them because you're not going to reject that and just ignore it. The suitable solution here is just have one and enjoy it in its decadence and maybe have a little less starchy carbs or less calories at other times of the day.
- That works pretty well. The Christmas cookie trap at work. Situation number two. Then [laughter] we have cookies. Piles trays full of cookies. One cookie feels harmless, especially early in December. But then someone brings in fudge and someone brings in peanut brittle. And then we have the the fruit cake. Yeah.
- No one actually touches the fruit cake, but the tin of butter cookies comes in next. Oh, cannot put those down. And by December 15th, the table looks like a dessert buffet. Everything keeps stacking. You walk past that table 10 times a day, saying you're only going to grab one for the whole day and that's it.
- And then later, you grab another and another and you lose track. And it it doesn't feel like much cuz it you eat it in a couple bites and it just goes on. But when we think about not only that's one single time or across the time frame of multiple weeks, if one cookie at the very least costs 50 calories, which is not true, it's more like 100 or 150 that multiplies.
- Let's say you had 10 cookies at 150 calories. That's 1500 extra calories across the week, across two weeks, 3,000. across three 4,500 calories of cookies that you wouldn't have eaten if it wasn't the season. Things you have to just be aware of and manage a cookie table or the fruit cake. Always bring fruitc cake and it'll always be sitting there.
- Now, occasionally someone actually does like the fruit cake, but yeah, you know what I mean. Just being silly. Another example, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, double meals. Who doesn't just eat Christmas Eve or Christmas Day meals one time, right? Picture this. Christmas Eve comes, dinner atlaws. We have ham, we have sweet potato pie, we've got bread, there's the that green bean casserole thing, right, with the crunchy onions on it.
- But then desserts and you're going to go in keep things reasonable knowing that you're going to enjoy this meal twice, right? You have the first meal and then you have the after meal. Well, we end up spending more time than you thought you were going to and everyone goes up for seconds and then al on the second dinner out comes eggnog and out comes cinnamon rolls. That becomes a challenge.
- And then pair that being Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, that is a quadruple whammy. That is four times, say even a,000 calories at each of those meals. It'd be 4,000 calories on top of breakfast. If you ate breakfast, too. But for a lot of people, that might be too many calories, especially of high carb, highfat foods, because that's what they serve.
- And but it's usually even worse. You could down 1,500 to 2,000 calories at any one of those meals and go back for another thousand or more. Guys will routinely eat over 3,3500 calories on each of those days, no problem. But the real problem is they're not moving their bodies to burn that. And one more example, you got the moment the house is quiet, everyone's asleep.
- You open the fridge after Thanksgiving, see the cold turkey, the stuffing, the pie, and you just tell yourself just one little bite. Then 20 minutes later, you realize you've built a full plate. And this is at midnight or something, 11 p.m. You're not hungry. You're kind of still full feeling from the day, but because it's a special day, you allow yourself the little extra.
- So, here's the checklist that we want to manage these situations or even work parties. We uh we're going to go to the work party and have a good time and next thing you know, you're there for an extra two hours, an extra couple drinks. Whamo, there's tons more calories that will derail your progress. So, let's go into the checklist.
- Here's some simple non-negotiables. Certainly download the guide, the survival guide, and check this off. All right, we've gone over these a couple times, but if you can drink 100 plus ounces of water, maybe even a gallon, that's going to keep you pretty full. Drink plenty of water right before you eat.
- 20 30 ounces chugged in a sense, right before you eat, will fill you up intentionally on water, thereby buffering the amount of calories that you can eat. Of course, we want to sleep. We want to be able to get outside. Maybe instead this year of just endlessly watching football, which I understand football's fun, but we can go in between games or something. Go for a walk with people.
- Engage. Do something that's enjoyable. And certainly move in the other times of the day with a lot more intentionality of burning calories. You have to burn a lot of calories in the morning if you're going to eat big. That's the obvious one. Make sure that you have a solid game plan of action of what is important for you. Write it down.
- Tell someone close to you. Tell your coach for e easily a 10 years. I've had clients write down what their goals are and how they would like to go through Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, work parties, Friendsgiving, friend Christmas. This writes it down and sets it a little bit more in stone, allowing it to actually maintain the course.
- Now, managing our meals, it's going to be a high calorie meal or possibly two. You may only want to eat once or twice in a day. This is obviously a bit more of a an extreme example or strategy, but it's a real one. Eating one time in a day will help you manage your calories a lot better.
- Even if you were to go overboard in that one meal, you still have a reasonable amount of calories eaten in the day. Very important there. If you do two meals, maybe you just have a protein shake with 30, 40 grams of protein and a piece of fruit that could hold you over or a chicken and vegetable dish as well. Something super simple.
- An egg white omelette, super simple that's under 500 calories, but it's filling enough to keep off cravings or keep that edge off with managing your blood sugar levels a little bit more. By having that high protein earlier in day, it'll help you manage the cravings, manage your blood sugar, and help keep you from just jumping in soon as you show up at the house at grandma's house or the in-laws house or whoever's house to go straight to the cookie table.
- Now, when we're building our meals, we want to start with a protein focus first and lots and lots of vegetables. I can't tell you how many times. Go to the vegetable tray and put as much of that in your mouth to eat a bunch of volume of food, but not the calories. Super simple strategy to use. Not necessarily the most exciting, but it's a means to an end.
- A means to you keeping you from eating exponentially more calories, which is what we do not want. Of course, we want to focus on gratitude. Remember why you were there celebrating with people in the first place. Thanksgiving literally by the way it's defined is be thankful about the time you're spending with people. So important. Christmas it's family time.
- It's a time to focus on joy, on love, on happiness, on creating wonderful memories for those closest to you. Focus on those experiences, not just the food. The season is more than just the food. Sure, that's part of it and the memories that we create as we go through life, but it's not the whole reason. I always just remind people this isn't the first holiday season that they've been through.
- They've been there, they've done that. It is really important to be able to manage your success through the holidays to enjoy that experience, okay? In multiple different ways. First, of course, the obvious one is food. Enjoy the food. Secondly is the relationships that you are around. You want to benefit from those. Third is going to be the entertainment value of the experience as well.
- You don't have to sit on the couch and watch football all day to feel fulfilled that day. In fact, often times engaging with people and playing games and all sorts of things around interaction, engagement will build better memories that you can have in your future. And of course, joy. Let's bring joy to not only who you are, but what you're about and the people around you.
- Let's focus on how to manage that joy because joy isn't filled with food so much so that your belt is burst at the seams. It's not about overindulgence. enjoys a lot of different things that focus on the holidays and being ultimately successful in creating a life where people love you and you love them back. Couple things. We got four strategies.
- We want to embrace the basics. Move your body a lot. I would suggest doing cardio, lots of movement in the morning. Go run, get a long walk in, get your steps, get your protein first, drink your water, sleep. Those are the basics. We don't want to rely on motivation to help keep you out of the candy jar or the cookie tray.
- We need to set down a a specific system or a process at which works best for you to enjoy that meal. We want to focus on that gratitude and really stay focused on the long-term play of what January second looks like. I do have to say if you do want to just go all into the holidays and you don't mind gaining 5 to 8 pounds, it's important that your expectations align with the outcome.
- If you get to June 2 and you're up 10 pounds, I would hope that it was a choice that you made that works toward what you're working towards. Say just enjoying and ideally trying not to go too far off the rails. But if you have a process and a plan and a strategy that you'll be implementing in January, great. Then that's okay. Okay.
- We have to think about success in the eye of the beholder of who they are, what they want, and having a season full of love and joy and shown in food could be okay. But if you do that cycle and then you get to Jan 2 and you're upset and disappointed, you did it wrong. You had the wrong actions that don't meet the experience and the expectation that you want to have in January.
- All right, we're going to move into we're going to break this into two parts. So, the next episode is going to be going over some of the strategies. We'll talk about how to enjoy holiday meals without overeating, how to handle Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, double meals, approach office cookie table without losing control, managing alcohol at work parties, the bounceback after overeating without guilt.
- how to handle late night cravings and leftover temptations from the tasty food and building your own holiday blueprint so that you get through December in a much better situation than where you're at. Jumping today into the fast five questions. Wanted to make it a little bit more of some of my memory lane. Question number one, what is one holiday food you grew up loving and how do you handle it now that you coach health and fitness? One food I absolutely remember my grandma made me duck.
- Specifically me, she'd go buy a duck, roast it, and we'd have that for dinner. It was fantastic. I felt so loved, so special because she would always make it for me. And I love my grandma Pat. And I'm so thankful for that memory. Currently, I do not make duck because we had ducks. We used to have a dozen ducks at a time. Love those feathery fools running around the yard.
- We had about two acres of property and they would just waddle around and you just see the ladies and they would lay eggs for us. The ladies would just waddle here, there, and eat all day long. I was actually jealous of their eating behavior because they just ate all day long. Bugs here and there throughout the yard.
- But we don't eat duck because of those memories. My kids would probably rise up and revolt on me. Question two. What does a typical Thanksgiving morning look like in your house with Hammer and the kids? It's a wonderful question. It's sleeping in as long as possible or at least as long as the kids will allow.
- After that, then we make a special breakfast. Usually cinnamon rolls, homemade, not just the store brand. And then we go into preparation of the turkey. I've usually brined a turkey the last two to three years. And then I I have gone through all the fixings, the mashed potatoes, the green beans, the we get pie from gardener's pie.
- That's a typical Thanksgiving. and we spend time playing games, watching a holiday movie, and just being there for each other. With my oldest son, Levi, being 16, we're curious how this year is going to go because he has a girlfriend and he might spend time with her on those days too. This will be the first year of dividing the family possibly like that.
- Now with each family year after year, we have to evolve our experiences and how things go. Number three, what is one holiday tradition your family does every year that always resets you? Setting up the Christmas decorations. I absolutely love this. This year we have a stairwell that we decorated with a bunch of cutout paper snowflakes with cotton ball snowballs on fish wire and strung those up on the wall and just makes and then what we do tinsel on the handrail just makes it more magical.
- We have yet to set up the Christmas tree. It is upright but it hasn't been decorated. We're waiting on our oldest, Levi, to be around to do that with us, and that'll happen this next weekend. My third son, Maxwell, he says, "No, we can't be decorating a Christmas tree this early." I think we should have had it up at the beginning of the year.
- Even back in the co days, we set up our Christmas tree November 1st and usually had it up all the way through January, that that one year, just to try and bring more joy into our life. When you think back to your own health journey, what was the moment that holidays became even more special for you? I I'm going to say that holidays always were special.
- They just have shifted over the years from being in a family to being with my wife Amber to growing our family. It's evolved into what the holiday season actually means. Now at 42, spending time with my family is incredibly important, especially as they continue to grow because sooner rather than later, we're going to be empty nesters and that's going to shift our holiday season.
- I remember one year, Amber took us down to Universal Studios, and we had our Thanksgiving dinner in the Three Broomsticks at Universal Studios in Hogsme. What a cool experience we had there doing that. It's just we do so much fun things like that to create fun memories. This year we almost talked about doing a pilgrimage to the east coast to Boston area to have a traditional pil pilgrimstyled Thanksgiving.
- We haven't done that, but it is in the making at some point. Question five. What is one simple habit you use every holiday season to stay in shape while my schedule is cl packed? Well, I purposely make sure that I schedule workouts with my buddy. That allows me to stay on track because I have time set aside to do that. And then also maximizing running. I like to run.
- It's an enjoyable thing for me. I will run to burn some more calories and walk the dog with my wife to also burn more calories and spend time together. Well, wrapping up holiday episode part one. I hope you enjoyed it. Hope you learned some things and taking away some practical application here for you in part two coming up.
- Then we'll talk about more of the practical and tactical ways to enjoy the holiday season and staying on track. Here's to happy holidays.
