Do you feel like you’re going crazy around food during the holidays? And no matter how many rules you have or how much you tell yourself to just have more willpower, you just can’t help it around trays of cookies and delicious holiday foods. For many, eating around this time of year is not just an annual tradition of holiday food but an annual tradition of holiday food worry, stress and tension. Practicing these 6 tips can help ease some of that tension, so you can find a little more peace this holiday season.
It’s that time of year again. People are cooking up a storm in preparation for celebrations, break room tables are overflowing with platters of festive foods, and bakers are getting hyped in the kitchen and sharing goodies with everyone they know. The holidays can be a fun and joyous time full of memories, traditions and special connections with friends and family. And at the same time, the holidays can make some people feel crazy around food.
It’s typical this time of year to experience a lot of unpleasant, overwhelming and not so joyous feelings around food and eating:
- Stressful family interactions (even if it is much different this year);
- Anxiety about feeling surrounded 24/7 by highly palatable food that only comes around once a year (and what it will do to your body);
- Feeling guilty for feeling uncomfortably full after eating too much pumpkin pie and promising to make it up later;
- Overwhelmed and shamed by all the weight, diet and wellness chatter.
And too often we’re convinced the best strategy to feel less crazy around food and manage our holiday food stress feelings is based on extremes: Restrict food, avoid food, “be good” around food, or just “throw in the towel” and eat all the food.
Here’s the thing – if feeling stress and anxiety about holiday food has turned into an annual tradition and you’re crazy worried about what and how much you’re eating Every. Single. Year., perhaps the problem isn’t the food. In fact, I know it’s not. And I want to help you end this unpleasant holiday tradition for good!
Here are a few tips to keep in mind that will help you to not feel crazy around food during the holidays.
1. Identify Food Rules and Give Yourself Permission
Allowing yourself permission to eat food, no matter what it is, is essential to the process of feeling less crazy around food. Does this sound more like the crazy part to you? If so, I totally get it. Especially because we’re so often told the key to having control around food is to maintain tight control with food – by avoiding sugar, only eating certain times of day, subbing this, swapping that to suppress cravings and hunger and so on. But hear me out.
Food rules are enough to make you feel crazy.
They are a deprivation trap and deprivation is an extremely powerful force, both physically and mentally. Even if you aren’t physically restricting yourself, telling yourself you can’t or shouldn’t have your favorite holiday foods, can lead to intense feelings of deprivation and can cause cravings to increase. And trying to be “good” with what you eat or being careful by watching your portions leading up to the holidays, or fasting/barely eating during the big day in preparation for the big holiday meal is a set up that typically doesn’t end well.
What happens is when your body is not fed adequately it literally thinks it’s starving and a cascade of biological events ignites an intense drive to eat and then overeat. And it’s this drive that makes you feel like you’re going crazy around food and have no control.
Because food is found everywhere during the holidays, the desire to just “throw in the towel” and eat everything you’ve been restricting becomes overwhelming. Until eventually every intention to eat moderately goes out the window and every eating experience ends in you feeling completely and overly stuffed….and then enter the guilt. So, in order to feel less guilty about the foods you ate, you try to compensate with more exercise than usual; or you tell yourself you’ll make it up by being “good” the next day; or you decide to just surrender to the food until the holidays are over and promise to “reset” in the new year.
So what to do?
The key is found internally, not in external food rules (which know nothing about your unique preferences, needs and experiences) that police your actions. Examining your thoughts with non-judgmental awareness allows you to reframe negative food policing thoughts.
Try to notice when you have food policing thoughts, such as telling yourself you shouldn’t have a particular food because it’s “off-limits” or “unhealthy.” This can be REALLY hard. Especially because we often have internalized rules lurking in the sub-conscious from years of actively dieting and/or being exposed to diet culture. When you notice a policing thought that’s about to dictate your food choices or eating actions, take pause and ask yourself, “What belief do I have about food that’s affecting this thought? Where did that belief come from?” Can you reflect on, ask questions about, and reframe that thought based on a past lived experiences or facts?
All of this is hard to do. Dismantling beliefs around food is important because our beliefs affect our thoughts which affect our behaviors and feelings. And the truth is there is room for all foods. When you practice eating with unconditional permission and challenge your food policing thoughts, you can break the cycle of deprivation, guilt, and repeat.
2. Be Careful of All or Nothing, “I’ll Just Reset Tomorrow” Mentality
This mentality can happen if you’ve eaten a “bad” food or had a “bad” eating day, so you end up saying “f**k it – might as well just give in and keep eating because I’ll start over tomorrow or next week.” It can also happen when the mindset is “this food only comes once a year so I’m going to eat whatever and make it up after the holidays.” This all or nothing thinking is common throughout the year but even more so during the holidays.
Relying on food and exercise rules in the future can set you up for a tailspin of Last Supper Eating. This type of eating is triggered when there’s a belief that foods will soon be forbidden and when your body senses a threat of food deprivation. Even the mere perception that certain foods might become off limits can lead to you eating every soon to be forbidden food in sight. This is why you might feel you can’t pass up a second helping of pie or walk past the tray of cookies without having a few – even when you’re overly full or don’t even really want it.
When you work on dismantling all or nothing mentality, which you can read more about here, you let go of what causes you to label your eating as either “good” or “bad.” So regardless of what you eat, you can tune into your body in the present and check in to find what it really needs, whether that be having grandma’s fudge to satisfy an emotional hunger or a big salad to satisfy a physical hunger.
3. Decide on giving yourself grace.
Do not shame yourself for overeating or feeling like you ate past fullness. Shame does not serve you. It does not result in healthier eating or a healthy mindset around food. It’s okay to feel a little full. And it happens from time to time. It does not mean you will instantly gain weight, and you won’t suddenly become unhealthy from one meal or one day of eating. It’s a temporary sensation that your body equipped to deal with. Use the experience as an opportunity to learn for next time.
4. Tune into Your Body and Practice Eating with Mindful Intention
Redirect your thoughts on external cues towards focusing inward. We’ve been conditioned throughout our lives to ignore our bodies and that we should rely on what we’re told we should be eating, how much and when we should eat. Bringing awareness to your interoceptive cues, such as hunger, fullness, satisfaction and generally how your body is feeling will help you to be mindful in the present. Before you eat, during your eating experience and after you eat, do a check-in with your body and see where are you on the hunger scale? How does the food taste? How is the food feeling in my body? Is it more or less satisfying than what my body is telling me it needs? Listen to your body and trust yourself.
5. Be Mindful of Diet Related Messages
All year long we’re repeatedly told we need to listen to external cues when it comes to what, when and how much we should eat. And it’s during this time of year that these diet related external cues are an at ALL TIME HIGH. From crazy Karens talking about their pre-holiday life altering detoxifying cleanse, aunt Sallys telling us how “unhealthy” holiday food is, influencers talking about how to “healthify” holiday recipes, to endless articles on “Eat this, not that to avoid holiday weight gain” to the MANY weight loss ads, tips, tricks, and gimmicks to get your body back on track in the new year….whew, it honestly feels endless!
It’s easy for our subconscious to pick up on these messages and negatively impact our relationship with food. Be mindful when you see messages that are perceived as health benefiting. How does it affect the way you think about food and your body (see tip1)? Can you observe how you internalize the message before automatically believing any thoughts to be true?
Another question you could ask yourself might be: “How does this message serve me?” Example: How does this article about swapping mashed cauliflower for potatoes positively serve me? Does it add something to my plate? Or am I swapping out of fear of the food and is it taking something away from my plate?
Another important note – even though the holidays look different this year, you may still have some family members or friends pressuring you to eat more or less, commenting on your weight, or asking invasive questions about your health.
Just remember you have the right to set boundaries for yourself.
- You have the right to say “no thanks” to food that’s being pressured on you if you don’t feel like eating or don’t care for it.
- You have the right to excuse yourself if crazy aunt Karen comments on what’s on your plate.
- The right to change the topic from a diet related conversation that makes you uncomfortable.
- The right to speak up when some comments on your body. Easier said than done, I know.
The point is – for the sake of protecting your mental health and your overall well-being, you have the right to set boundaries around what you choose to engage with and how you choose engage or disengage with it. Repeat, repeat, repeat: “I have the right to set boundaries around what does not serve me.”
No Matter Who You Are & No Matter What You End Up Eating This Holiday Season It’s Possible To Not Feel Crazy Around Food!!!
Since you’ve made it this far reading, you’re probably interested in a new approach to food around the holidays. But if you’ve maybe had the thought, “nope not for me, there’s no telling what might happen if I loosen the control grip,” I can tell you from personal and professional experience, approaching the holidays with a pocket full of rules, restrictions, and regulations, with the idea the New Year is the beginning of a new food over-haul “lifestyle” will not only lead to frustration and defeat, but also a long-term messy relationship with food.
And because we are all on our own journeys in this world and have our own personal experiences and relationships with food and our bodies, I’ll just say arriving to a peaceful utopia with food and your body will not happen in an instant. And that’s okay. Expecting immediate change is understandable considering we live in a constant comparison culture where quick changes are routinely promised. Just remember there are no expectations. Persistence over perfection.
Take back the joy of the season with a plan for how to go into the holidays and not feel crazy around food. Life is too short to not fully enjoy friends, family and the magic of the holidays!!
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***This website is for educational purposes only and should not be considered medical therapy, medical care, diagnosis or treatment. You should not take any action before consulting with a healthcare professional.