Finding food peace during the holidays

Christmas and New Year are just around the corner. And while I’m sure there are things you enjoy about this time of year, the festive season can be challenging. Even more so if you feel like you can’t allow yourself to fully enjoy all the delicious food that the holiday season brings. If you struggle with chronic dieting or emotional eating. Or if you feel like you have to go on some sort of diet when January rolls around. But there IS a different way to approach the festive season. You can fully enjoy the holiday foods you love, without food guilt and feeling like you need to diet once January arrives!

Practising Intuitive Eating during the holidays and having a plan or a strategy can help take the stress out of eating and help you feel calmer and more confident around food. Eating intuitively means listening to and tuning into your body’s physiological cues, choosing the foods you want to eat when you are hungry and in amounts that feel comfortable to you. This way you can fully enjoy food during the holiday season, without feeling like you need to diet at the start of January.

The key to starting is to develop a food freedom mindset versus a diet mentality mindset so this is where I’m starting with my tips on embracing food freedom and letting go of food guilt this holiday season. If you want to find out how to start ditching the diet mentality, check out my blog from earlier this year.

1. Look beyond diet culture and food rules

At this time of the year, we tend to get bombarded with mixed messages. If you open any women’s or health magazine you will find a range of headlines from those celebrating food like “Delicious sweet treats to bake” to diet culture– inspired messages like “How to beat the Christmas bulge and look fabulous in the little black dress”, “How to be ‘good’ this festive season” or “How not to put on weight over Christmas and New Year”. Diet culture messages like these imply that eating and enjoying festive foods is somehow naughty and something you have to feel “bad” about. That our value is conditional on our appearance, that being in a bigger body is bad, and that what we look like is the most important thing in life.

You’ll also find diet culture– inspired messages in more specific advice like “fill up on vegetables”, “eat before the party so you aren’t hungry when you get there”, “try to eat less at other times”, and “cut back on Christmas nibbles”. All of which are likely to backfire.

So when you see advice like this, try to look beyond it. Remember following external rules to eat less, prevents us from tuning in to and trusting our own body’s hunger and satiety signals, and from eating foods we actually enjoy. Sure, it’s not easy ignoring these messages and letting go of all the food rules we have created for ourselves (that make us feel safe), especially when everybody else around us is dieting, but they don’t support rebuilding a peaceful relationship with food and our bodies

2. Plan how you want to respond to diet talk

Have you noticed how often a conversation with a friend, family member or colleague turns to diet talk? Diet talk is especially common among women who often use it as a way to bond. And this season, many of us are likely to find ourselves dodging it at the office Christmas party and celebrations with friends and family.

What to do? You can’t stop someone from making a comment about food or dieting, but you CAN control how you respond. You can either remove yourself from the conversation or respond verbally. Both choices are equally valid. You do not have to stay in a conversation like this if it makes you feel bad or is triggering for you. Excusing yourself from diet talk to grab something to drink, use the restroom, or to go speak with someone else are all reasonable ways to exit a conversation like this.

If you feel safe and comfortable about replying, it can be helpful to have a few phrases ready so you don’t have to think about your answer on the spot. Take some time to think about what friends/family might say so you can rehearse ahead of time how you’d like to respond in the moment. If you’ve already thought about how you might respond before a holiday event, you’ll be better prepared if and when diet talk creeps into the conversation. Spending some time reflecting on your ‘whys’ for Intuitive Eating and weight neutral approach to your health can also help you to get clear on what you’re happy to let pass without comment and what you feel you need to address.

3. Set boundaries around diet talk

If you are spending time with people who have different opinions on food and bodies than you do, consider communicating boundaries regarding food, diet and body talk before you meet with them. This can feel hard, especially if we don’t like confrontation or struggle to speak up for ourselves. But setting boundaries is a super helpful way to navigate the festive season as it lets people know what is and isn’t up for conversation. Start by working out what’s most important to you (e.g. no diet talk); letting them know how this makes you feel; and asking what you’d like them to avoid saying or asking.

4. Choose foods you enjoy eating

Eating is supposed to be pleasurable and satisfying, but many people are afraid that if they let themselves eat foods that bring them pleasure, they will eat in a way that feels “out-of-control”. But the opposite is actually true. When we give ourselves unconditional permission to eat foods we enjoy, we feel more satisfied after a meal and more content. When we allow ourselves to eat the foods we enjoy, we are more likely to eat the amount that feels comfortable for us. Conversely, feeling mentally and physically deprived of food leaves us more vulnerable to eating past comfortable fullness and binge eating.

Maximising satisfaction and food enjoyment includes knowing and choosing foods that taste good and feel good in your body. If you’ve been dieting for a while, you may not be clear on the foods you like to eat. So, it can be helpful to take some time to reflect on your favourite foods during the festive season, and consciously make room i.e. give yourself unconditional permission to savour and enjoy eating those foods. Consider different textures, flavours and dishes that hold sentimental value as well. All of these contribute to a more positive eating experience.

It can also help to mentally prepare yourself for eating foods that you previously considered “off-limits”. Try asking yourself “how would I like to enjoy this meal/this party/the holidays?” Then picture a food-related event. Imagine yourself enjoying food and stepping away from the meal or party feeling comfortably full. Then, imagine how it would feel to be feeling uncomfortably full. What is going to feel better?

5. Honour your hunger

Have you ever tried to compensate for special holiday meals by skipping breakfast or lunch, only to arrive at a dinner party really hungry? If you have, you probably found that the combination of being ravenously hungry and delicious holiday food led to eating past comfortable fullness and not feeling like you could enjoy the food.

This is because when we get overly hungry, we tend to eat really fast, which can lead to feeling uncomfortably full. And when we’re extremely hungry, our bodies want foods that give us quick energy. This often leads us to reach for foods like sweets or biscuits which provide the quick energy our bodies need and then feeling really guilty about it.

Try to stay nourished throughout the day, so as to arrive at a party or other holiday event hungry but not so hungry you’re likely to eat past comfortable fullness and so quickly you don’t fully enjoy the food! Being hungry (but not VERY hungry) contributes to feeling satisfied after eating because food tastes better when we’re hungry!

If you’re over-scheduled and stressed, which is common at this time of the year, you may find it harder to notice subtle hunger and fullness cues. This can lead to eating that feels more chaotic or to skipped meals and possibly eating past comfortable fullness. So, even though it may not feel “intuitive”, scheduling regular meals and snacks to avoid long gaps without eating would be important.

6. Prioritise your self-care

The holiday season is supposed to be joyful, but we all know it can also be stressful and emotional. Sometimes, this can affect the way we eat. For example, sleep deprivation can interfere with our hunger and fullness cues. We may eat for emotional reasons – which is not wrong – but when it’s the only way we know how to manage our emotions, it can mean that other needs we have are not being met.

So thinking about some ways you like to take care of yourself and taking some time to practise self-care during the holidays can help you feel calmer and more confident around food.

If fitting selfcare into your packed schedule sounds like another thing on your already long to-do list, just try listing your top self-care priorities. Regular meals and getting enough quality sleep might be two. Consider including some type of quiet time activity like journaling, spending some time in nature, meditation or just sitting and reading a book while listening to favourite music.

Ready to take the next step? Contact me and request a complimentary call to find out more about Intuitive Eating and how it can help you truly nourish yourself – body, mind and soul!