I Now Eat Xmas Cookies Guilt-Free. And Stopped Researching Diets.

What’s your relationship like with holiday eating?

Do you love all the holiday fare yet feel overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, guilt or shame for eating in ways you typically don’t? 

At night, do you lie in bed resolving to start a new diet and exercise program in January?

Do you wish you could enjoy the holiday season without being distracted by all the food noise in your head? 

If so, you’re not alone—and it doesn’t have to be this way.

My clients have discovered that after working for a while on divesting from diet culture and eating more intuitively, their experience with holiday eating is much different than years prior. 

Over the years, their comments have sounded like this...

Zero Strings Attached
“I used to give myself a free pass to eat anything I wanted during the holidays. It wasn’t really free, however, as I believed I had to pay the price come January 1 by going on another diet and working out more. It’s so liberating to be able to enjoy all my holiday favorites with zero strings attached.”

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Stopped Stuffing Myself
“Since I’m no longer planning to cut out carbs in January, I no longer feel the need to stuff myself with sweets before they are off-limits.”

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No Looming Threat
“From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, I felt like I was engaging in one long Last Supper before my next diet started. The physical discomfort I felt from eating every meal as if it was going to be my last one convinced me all the more that I needed to get back on track in the new year. 

Thank goodness I now know it was the looming threat of another diet that was causing my scarcity-driven Last Supper eating. Without another diet around the corner, I'm now able to eat in a much more satisfying way.

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More Present and Engaged
“Once I started giving myself unconditional permission to eat whatever I want any day of the year, I stopped feeling obsessed with all the holiday food. I still love making it and eating it but I no longer think about it all the time. I'm now much more present for my loved ones and more engaged in other aspects of the season.” 

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Feel a Sense of Ease
“I used to go into the holiday season feeling deprived from my latest diet. As a result, I felt out of control with all that good food. It was like I had found water after being lost in the desert for months. I couldn’t get enough of it. Once I understood it was the dieting, not a lack of self-control, that caused me to eat in a binge-y way, I stopped restricting and eventually started feeling a sense of ease and peace with food."

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No Longer Feel Bad
“I still sometimes eat until I’m super full because the food is so delicious! The big difference is that I don’t feel bad about it anymore and I don’t feel like I have to make up for it.”

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Relief to Stop Researching
“In years past, I always spent New Year’s Day researching detox and diet plans. It’s a relief to know that this year I won’t be wasting my money on an expensive cleanse package or my time trying to learn the rules of a new diet program.”

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There's No Guilt
“My holiday eating is so much more enjoyable now that I no longer feel guilty for eating a bunch of Christmas cookies.”

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A Priceless Gift
Of course, the shift to more peaceful, pleasurable holiday eating doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to move away from diet culture toward a more intuitive relationship with food and your body.

Most people, including me, have found that with patience, practice and perseverance, the food stuff gets a little easier with each passing year.

To be able to eat with ease and gusto during the holiday season, and all year round, is a priceless gift—but even more so, it’s an inherent human right—that everyone deserves, including you.

You Don't Have to Earn Your Pie. Or Make Up for Eating It.

Along with all the delicious food, the Thanksgiving holiday often comes with an unsavory serving of diet culture.

For a pleasurable, peaceful eating experience, keep in mind these Thanksgiving don’ts:

1. You don’t have to earn it.
Despite what diet culture wants you to believe, you don’t have to do anything to earn your Thanksgiving meal. You don’t have to do an intense workout or not eat all day to deserve a spot at the table. 

2. You don’t have to make up for it.
Just like you don’t have to earn the right to eat, you don’t have to make up for your eating after the holiday by working out extra hard, skipping meals or starting a cleanse or diet.

3. You don’t have to justify.
Whether it’s having seconds or thirds, filling your plate with mostly mashed potatoes, or eating pie for breakfast, you don’t have to justify your choices to anyone. You have the right to eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

(For tips on handling the Food Police in your life, head on over to here.)

4. You don’t have to feel bad.
Diet culture wants you to feel bad, out of control, weak, guilty and ashamed for eating a lot. You don’t.

It’s normal to sometimes eat simply for pleasure and to sometimes eat until you're stuffed, especially when enjoying foods that are novel and only around for a brief period.

5. You don’t have to participate.
Just like people who avoid discussing religion, politics and money, you don’t have to participate in diet and weight talk.

One approach for navigating it, especially when dining with a wide range of people, is to nonchalantly change the subject.

For example, if your cousin starts raving about his latest diet or your mom comments on someone's weight, steer the conversation toward a different topic, such as “I’d love to know what shows everyone is into right now” or “What’s your favorite holiday memory?”

Of course, these five don’ts are helpful to practice not just on Thanksgiving, but every day of the year. 

I Eat When I'm Not Hungry. This Used to be a Bad Thing.

The other day, I ate my lunch much earlier than usual even though I wasn’t hungry. 

I had an appointment downtown during my regular lunchtime and knew if I didn’t eat beforehand, I wouldn’t be able to eat until much later. Experience has taught me this would turn me into one cranky lady with a headache and brain fog.

During my dieting days, I likely wouldn’t have eaten before my appointment. Thanks to diet culture, I believed it was wrong to eat when I wasn’t hungry.

Perhaps you have believed this, too.

You might also feel this way with Intuitive Eating as there is a misconception that eating intuitively means only eating when you’re hungry.

While it’s important to honor your hunger when it surfaces to the best of your ability, it’s also important to give yourself unconditional permission to eat when you’re not hungry.

Many Valid Reasons
There are many valid reasons why you may need or want to eat in the absence of hunger. Here are some scenarios you might relate to:

• Your partner or friend is fixing a snack and even though you aren’t hungry, you accept their invitation to share it because it’s a yummy activity you enjoy doing together, especially while watching a favorite show.

• You find nibbling on food throughout the day, regardless of your hunger level, helps you stay focused on your work, so you have a dedicated snack drawer in your desk.

• Years of dieting have disconnected you from your hunger cues. To ensure you’re nourishing your mind and body on a regular basis, you eat a meal or snack at least every 3-4 hours even if you don’t feel hungry.

• You’re not usually hungry during your scheduled breaktimes but you eat anyway as it’s the only chance you’ll get for a while.

• You have an afternoon of back-to-back meetings so you eat lunch early to ensure you will have the focus and energy needed to be present and productive.

• When you’re sad, eating your favorite comfort foods is one way you self-soothe. It’s not about taking care of your physical hunger but rather your very human need for emotional comfort.

• You are going to a show, and although you aren’t hungry for dinner yet, you eat anyway to avoid becoming ravenous and distracted by your growling stomach during the event.

• You’re not hungry before your workout but eat a snack as you know your body will benefit from the extra fuel.

• It’s rare for you to be hungry when it’s time to feed your kids dinner but you eat with them anyway as you love the ritual of sharing a meal together and talking about your day.

• A health condition or medication you’re taking makes it challenging to sense your hunger cues, so you eat according to a schedule to ensure you’re consistently giving your body what it needs.

• At the last minute, your friends decide to go to dinner. Although you don’t have much of an appetite yet, you decide to join them as you don’t want to miss out on a night of fun and bonding.

• You’re not hungry but know the snacks offered on your flight won’t be enough to satiate you later so you eat a meal before you board.

• You turn to food when you’re anxious as the act of eating, whether you’re hungry or not, helps you calm your nervous system and feel grounded.

• You’re walking down the street and are enticed by the delicious aroma wafting from a nearby food truck. You stop and buy something not because you’re hungry but because you want to experience the pure pleasure of their food.

Form of Self-Care
Whether your reason (quite frankly, you don’t even need one) is practical, logistical, emotional, values-based, pleasure-driven, etc., non-hunger eating is often a form of self-care.

It’s a way of taking care of yourself, a way of ensuring your needs are met.

If eating when you’re not hungry makes you feel bad or guilty, I encourage you to reflect on the beliefs behind these feelings. Where did they come from? Are they serving you? How would you feel if you let them go? 

It’s understandable if it feels scary to defy diet culture and trust yourself to make eating decisions that work best for you. With each small step you take back to yourself, you’re one step closer to a more empowering relationship with food, one that’s full of ease, peace and freedom.