Intuitive eats | 5 reminders to help you keep a healthy mindset around holiday eating
Holiday food guilt (or any day of the year) is a big ol waste of your time
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It’s officially “the holidays”. Bring on the Mariah! the mistletoe! the unfortunate sweaters! the stretchy pants! Legally, no one is allowed to judge you for playing Nsync’s “Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays” on repeat from now until NYE!
Whatever and however you celebrate, gatherings with friends and family around the holidays are meant to be joyful experiences. Of course, there are a ton of reasons why that isn’t always the case, and the ease in which our triggers are activated by foods our society deems bad and extended time with the people who (intentionally or unintentionally) bring out our inner 14 year old are high ranking on the list
While unfollowing toxic diet culture BS on IG definitely goes a long way towards helping you work towards a new mindset around food, enjoyment, and self talk, we can’t unfollow everyone IRL…so we have to learn to be able to live with triggering food and fitness talk without spiraling down. So, here are a few reminders to keep in your back pocket this weekend.
Fact #1 : Food is not bad. You are not bad for eating food.
A lot of wellness jargon explicitly reinforces the notion that food has an attached moral value. It doesn’t.
Eating food purely for the pleasure it gives you isn’t “being SO bad” and it doesn’t mean you have to compensate with a torturous workout to make up for it. Duh, eating a diet with a variety of nutrients and minerals will support your physical health, but restricting yourself from eating things you enjoy and bring you satisfaction can give you a complex that is arguably worse for you, if you factor in your mental wellbeing to your health (which you should).
You do not have to justify or earn your holiday meals. I am, obviously, a fitness instructor so, of course, I’m pro Thanksgiving day workouts! Holiday themed workouts are are a great way to connect with your community and even destress more the big event, especially if you’re hosting and losing your mind. They are NOT good for you if they’re laden with rhetoric about earning your meal or doing penance for previous treats. That’s a fast track to tarnishing your relationship with exercise and tanking your body image in general. If you’re in your feelings about overdoing it remember Fact #2.
Fact #2: You can’t sabotage your health with one meal.
(Life threatening food allergies are an obvious exception, but let’s roll with the idea that nuance exists and I only have so much time to get into this, okay?)
If you are driving and you run a red light, you probably wouldn’t think don’t “F it” and start intentionally crashing into things because you already “cheated” right? Why then, do we distrust our bodies so much that we think if we let ourselves enjoy some foods that aren’t part of our every day routine, we’ll lose all self discipline forever? The good/ bad clean/dirty messaging around food has made us feel good/bad clean/dirty by extension of the food we consume. Stop it! Stop it right now!
While the ideal situation would be being so attuned to your body that you know exactly when to stop eating at that perfect point of satiety—but loud music, conversation and food that just tastes too damn delectable to stop early can all get in the way of that. As they should! Those are all positive things that make meal sharing so special!!
Even if you indulge to the point of discomfort (that’s what flowy dresses are for, my guy), there’s another meal coming up in just a few hours for you to practice eating intuitively again. No biggie! If you overdid it, acknowledge that it doesn’t feel the best, but it’s not forever. Move on without perseverating. You have basically infinite chances to start again, so why waste any time beating yourself up about one meal, or one weekend even? Try to keep the perspective that eating purely for fun for a few days is not going to cost you your health, but missing out on memory making and holiday joy might be something that could.
Fact #3: Food is not just fuel.
That’s definitely a part of what food is, but that’s not ALL food gives us. The multi-sensory experience of a meal, particularly the foods we associate with the holidays, makes us feel nostalgic, safe, loved, joy, pleasure, and even gratitude. Nutrition experts that talk about humans and food like cars and gasoline (don’t know where I’m pulling all these automotive references) are missing a HUGE chunk of why we feel so emotionally connected to sharing meals with our loved ones. Something humans have always, always done to celebrate.
Give yourself permission to enjoy food for enjoyment’s sake only. I certainly enjoy experimenting with recipes and seeing where I can add protein, ease up on sugar, or sneak in extra veggies, but not everything we consume can or should be healthified.
Bonus: If you’re looking for nutritional guidance from an actual registered dietitian sans the intense food rules, my friend Colleen made this free intuitive eating e-book to help you maintain healthy eating around the holidays without discounting joy and pleasure.
Fact #4: Your body’s physiological cues are probably at odds with dieting.
You know, the cues we need to survive?
Food has the ability to make us feel connected to each other, and that experience is tenfold when we eat to our full satisfaction, don’t deprive ourselves of cravings, and listen to our physiological cues surrounding hunger and fullness. Contrary to the latest trendy diet du jour, paying attention to what your body wants, even if it’s spiked eggnog and an extra serving of stuffing, helps reinforce your bodily intuition. By reminding your body that you’re listening and caring for it via nourishment, your body won’t go into fight or flight…plus staying consistent in this practice will just make it easier to master the elusive “listening to your body”.
On the contrary, when we ignore our hunger (and fullness) signals, you’re basically telling your body it’s cues don’t matter because you won’t respond to them anyway. Over time, ignoring hunger cues makes it harder to clock them in the first place and much harder to not feel dissociated from your cute ‘lil meat suit.
Fact #5: You don’t have to put up with comments about your plate/body.
No one has the right to comment on your body or your food choices.
If only that meant it never happened! Our culture is so obsessed with monitoring food, we’ll probably never be able to fully escape this, but if the topic of food/body critique comes up, you have a few options.
You can ignore it. If you gauge the situation and it’s more emotional labor to get into a whole thing, just change the subject, excuse yourself to the bathroom, or check on the pie.
You can gently remind them that you didn’t ask for feedback and that your body will tell you when you’re making a less than ideal decision, not them and smoothly transition to a new topic. Something along the lines of “Wow, I couldn’t be less interested in talking about what’s on my plate when I haven’t seen you in months, what’s actually going on in your life?!”
You can lose your ever loving mind and unleash a lifetime’s worth of repressed pain and trauma stemming from unworthiness and unrealistic, unreachable beauty standards in a cathartic fit of righteous female rage…buuuuut that’ll likely end the party early.
Note: sometimes the harder thing is actually dealing with a loved saying negative things about their own body and/or their own habits. If that’s your situation, graciously mention that you understand where they’re coming from because you’ve had similar experiences but recently you’ve been working on your relationship with food, and even though that comment wasn’t aimed at you, it still feels harmful.
Conclusion
TLDR; Whatever your holiday celebration entails, I hope you are able to focus on the joy involved in food, and do your best to let stress around health and size roll off your back.