Intuitive Eating For the Holidays

Well, here it comes, folks. All the talk about holiday indulgence, holiday weight gain, “sinful” foods, and the subsequent rush to start a New Year’s diet.

You’d think we’d have learned from this pattern by now, but as a society we continue to be stuck in diet culture, moralizing of food and body size, and compensatory behaviors.

As Certified Intuitive Eating Counselors, we at Venture Therapy are passionate about helping people break free from these diet culture mindsets and behaviors. Because guess what? You don’t HAVE to feel guilty about celebrating the holidays with food! You don’t have to monitor yourself, don’t have to steer clear of the dessert table, don’t have to count one damn calorie or carb or point. You don’t have to Google the latest diet and vow to start on January 1, don’t have to exercise before Thanksgiving dinner to “earn” your meal, or the day after Christmas to “work off” the cookies.

Friends, you can just be. You can enjoy the cookies, the pies, the mashed potatoes and gravy, the warm rolls with butter, the creamy green beans topped with crunchy onions. No guilt, no compensation, no worry about holiday weight gain.

If this sounds too good to be true, you might be asking, “HOW??”

Well, this is a big question that requires the undoing of a lifetime of diet culture and fatphobia, so I won’t promise you “10 easy steps to a peaceful relationship with food and your body.” This work is deep, it’s often painful, and it is so, so rewarding.

Keeping that in mind, I’ll instead share some practices, and even challenges, to take on during the holiday season. These are not meant to be an easy fix or quick solution, but rather a pathway into deeper processing and a more honest relationship with yourself and your body.

1) Pay attention to pleasure and satisfaction in food. Be present with the experience of eating whatever it is you’re eating. Ask yourself if there’s something that would make this more enjoyable? Perhaps a pat of butter on top, a scoop of ice cream, or take the nuts off? Pay attention to the way the pleasure centers in your brain light up for certain foods (this is a good thing, contrary to what diet culture will have you believe). Pay attention to your hunger, your satisfaction, your enjoyment. Notice (without judgment!) when you’re numbing out with food. Ask yourself if there’s something you’re trying to numb - perhaps guilt, fear of weight gain, anxiety about what Aunt Susie said about her diet or how she “couldn’t possibly let herself eat like that, it would go straight to my hips!”

2) Notice the way your body wants to move (or not). Perhaps a walk would feel good, or maybe today it’s a long stretch-out on the couch that offers your body the most loving kindness. Read this article to help you further explore the concept of listening to your body.

3) Challenge your internalized fatphobia. We’ve all got it. How could we not, given that we live in a perpetually fatphobic world? Where weight gain is seen as a moral failing, and the pursuit of weight loss is peddled as a healthy, worthy pursuit? But we can’t let that fear of weight gain go unchallenged; it keeps you from truly listening to and trusting your body.

4) Surround yourself with anti-diet messages. Pay attention to your social media feeds - are you following people who consistently perpetuate diet culture? Do you find yourself comparing your eating habits and body to that of the people you’re following? Listen to anti-diet podcasts, read anti-diet books, follow anti-diet, fat-positive, weight-neutral influencers on Instagram and Facebook.

And if you find yourself needing more support around Intuitive Eating, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. When we’re surrounded by diet culture, it’s so challenging to learn to listen to your body, and trust your body.