Well, hey everybody, it's Melanie Mitro, the host of the Melanie Mitro show. Welcome back and happy

New Year. It is 2026. Here we are. We are ready to kick off the new year and we're doing it

together and I am so grateful that you're here listening to this podcast. Actually, at the time that I'm

recording this podcast, the house is quiet. My kids are back in school and I have never been more ready to dive back

into my own fitness routine, my own nutrition, my own habits, and not that I went completely

sideways over the holiday season. It's just I crave

that structure and consistency, especially after having some time off. And I enjoyed all of the

things, whether it was spending quality time with my family, letting myself sleep in, having a

couple extra mocktails, and eating some gluten-free

cookies. And I know some of you that maybe don't struggle with gluten and dairy allergies are

like, I don't consider that a treat, right? But it really was to me. It really was. But I'm feeling

the need to kind of rain it in, to get back on track. And I'm really excited about the start of a new year.

And one of the things that, you know, for me over the course of the past 14 years is I've

always, always just sort of like, you know, I've pushed myself to the very, very end of the

year. And I've always found myself, you know, especially the first 10 years of

business, I would find myself feeling really burnt out and exhausted and just lacking energy.

As I went into the new year and I would really have to give myself a pep talk and say,

you can do this, you can do this, like, keep going.

And it was like those first, you know, that first decade of business, the first half of it was figuring it out. It was making a lot of mistakes, doing a lot of the wrong things, you know,

hustling when I should have been resting and blurring boundaries when I should have been

fully present.

And I shushed a lot of the inside voices that said, if you don't rest, you are going to

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