Intuitive Eating: 5 Tips to Overcome Holiday Food Guilt & How to Avoid it
5 Tips to Overcome Holiday Food Guilt & How to Avoid Food Guilt
The holiday season is often a time people gather to spend time with family and friends and reflect on their year.
It can also include food from your childhood and traditions centered on sharing treats with one another. This ritual that comes around once a year is both exciting and can cause anxiety for several reasons.
6 Holiday Food Related Guilt Fears:
“What if I gain weight?”
“All of my trigger foods will be around!”
“I feel so guilty for eating so many of those cookies.”
“Everyone is going to judge me for eating what I want at family dinner.”
“If I don’t get my workout in I will feel like I can’t enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.”
“I don’t want to upset xyz person.”
Intuitive Eating During the Holidays
Intuitive eating during the holidays is possible but if you feel overwhelmed, you are not alone! One of the amazing things about food is the social and celebratory relationship we have with it. Food connects us to one another, and brings us together over the holidays, and this is a good thing!
But when you’re struggling in your relationship with food, it can be just plain overwhelming.
Often the overwhelm comes from having so many eyes on your eating in one way or another combined with being confronted with foods that you may not be eating on a weekly basis. Depending on what you are struggling with specifically in your journey with food/body, the feelings and hard moments might vary.
During the holidays people find themselves mid-eating disorder recovery and faced with sitting down at a table full of family members who are engaging in a lot of diet talk.
People also find themselves faced with trigger foods that typically cause them to feel intense guilt, experience binging, purging, and/or an evening of guilt ridden thoughts.
What is Holiday Food Guilt?
Holiday food guilt is about viewing a food or an amount of food as “bad” or “unhealthy,” and then calling yourself “bad” or “unhealthy” for eating it.
There’s truly no way to feel good about eating a variety of foods, or celebrating with food, if we are constantly placing certain food and satisfying foods in these negative categories. And thus, we must recategorize, challenge diet culture, and work to think differently.
5 Tips to Help You Overcome Holiday Food Guilt
To lighten the mood, I sometimes mention to clients that if they didn’t kill someone with that cupcake, they aren’t bad for eating it. ;)
We put too much pressure on ourselves when it comes to our eating habits and food choices. The truth is simple:
You deserve to enjoy your food, regardless of your body shape/size, or anything else.
You have a right to the basic pleasures of life, and connecting over food with loved ones.
And yes, this includes people living with diabetes, and chronic illness.
1. Reject the Diet Mentality
Diet mentality tells us to ignore our body’s cues and eat “right.” We aren’t going to follow that advice anymore. Instead, when thoughts of restricting food come up for you, check in with yourself:
I deserve to enjoy food.
All food has something to offer me, including connection with my loved ones– and that’s enough.
Eating xyz or being overly full doesn’t make me a bad or unhealthy person.
Diet culture creates a sense of fear that exacerbates our anxiety and causes us to second-guess our internal signals. Instead, try listening to your body with compassion, and allow yourself good food and permission to engage in holiday eating.
2. Trust Your Body
You are the person who knows yourself best, so trust your body, and Forget MyFitnessPal or that group leader from Weight Watchers; only YOU get to decide how much food is appropriate for you. If that is a piece of pie- great! If it’s more, awesome!
If what you need is to take a mindful moment before deciding on your next move then you and only you get to make that call. It can be hard to trust your body when you have frequently been misled on how to feed yourself however, I promise you it is worth it to find food freedom.
3. Show Yourself Some Kindness
Guilt does not belong at the table with you. Kindly but firmly ask the food police within your head to step aside. Guilt comes up when we feel “bad” about our choices, but guilt can be misplaced, so we need to stay aware when this feeling comes up.
There is not a good or bad way of eating regardless of what the diet industry would have you believe. All foods fit and to believe otherwise is harmful to your relationship with food.
Instead of guilt, let’s invite kindness as we practice being self-aware. When we use kindness in the way we talk to ourselves, we can better understand our needs and meet them in a way that is nurturing. Despite what many of us learned, guilt and self- punishment is actually quite ineffective in creating positive change.
4. Think About ‘Why’ - Why Are You Denying Yourself?
All bodies are deserving bodies. By trying to maintain a specific pant size this season you are rejecting your body’s desire to be fueled appropriately.
Often we use external cues such as praise from others, a number on the scale, calories or grams counted, and clothing sizes to validate us as loveable or acceptable beings.
This is understandable given past experiences that may have solidified this very thought process. However, it is not the praise we receive from others but how we feel about ourselves that truly matters.
Before proceeding with a restrictive or compulsive eating and exercise behavior, consider asking yourself: “at what cost to my mental and physical wellbeing am I participating in these behaviors?”
5. It’s Okay to Say “No Thank You”
So your granny made her famous Christmas casserole and you’re worried if you don’t clean your plate you’ll disappoint her, even though you (not your eating disorder!) have determined you’ve had enough.
It is not your responsibility to eat any amount of a dish regardless of the time and preparation that went into making it. This is a good time to practice setting boundaries by saying “no, thank you!”
There does not need to be an apology or any explanation. It is always your decision to make if you want to eat something offered or not. Granny will be ok, even if she has feelings about it. It’s not your job to manage her feelings. You also have the right to have multiple servings of your favorite dessert without guilt or judgment, regardless of others.
Only you know when you’ve respected your hunger and honored your fullness, as well as how you are feeling emotionally in your body.
I’ll leave you with some examples of common holiday moments, and things you can say if/when faced with situations like these:
Your aunt notices something about your weight:
Huh, I’m not focusing on my body in that way.
Mom is mentioning how many calories must be in xyz…
That’s not helpful to hear
I actually don’t find calories useful at all
You’ve determined you are really full and don’t want to eat more, but aunt suzie is insisting.
This restaurant is really insistent! I guess you can put it on my plate but it’s going to go to waste- like I said, I don’t want more.
You want another piece of pie, but no one else is eating seconds or thirds, and everyone is commenting on your choice.
Not helpful!
Wow, me taking another piece of pie is really all over the news tonight! Don’t you guys have anything better to talk about?
For more support around managing diet talk around the holidays, check out Christy Harrison’s podcast episode #264.
Thinking of you this holiday season.
For more resources, check out my monthly memberships & courses including managing binge eating and cravings, and an intro to health at every size.
