I used to treat holidays as one big cheat day. A day where I could finally eat everything I wanted to because it was a special occasion.
And the day always ended with me feeling so uncomfortably full and bloated that my pants were uncomfortable to keep buttoned.
But looking back that wasn’t the worst part. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I lost time with my family due to my terrible relationship with food because I couldn’t be present the whole time. I would spend part of the day just looking at the food tables, planning when I could get more, and thinking about what I wanted most. I missed conversations and connections because of my relationship with food when I was dieting.
Thankfully, that all changed once I healed my relationship with food and practice intuitive eating during the holidays.
Why intuitive eating during the holiday’s works
Intuitive eating teaches you to trust yourself around food plus when you can eat anything whenever you want to you lose the urgency to eat food. When dieting and some foods are off limits, when you do get to have those foods it creates a sense of urgency to quickly have the food while you can.
Permission to eat anything doesn’t mean you’ll always want to eat everything. In the beginning, you may see an increase in how much you eat as you’re rebuilding trust in yourself and the availability of foods. But over time you’ll end up with an easy, peaceful, and nourishing relationship with food.
At the time I’m writing this, I just had a family Thanksgiving dinner and in a couple of days will be going to another. Here’s what happened. I spent time connecting with my family. When dinner started, I ate a wide range of the many foods we had. I stopped eating when I felt comfortably full and actually left a little food on my plate because I grabbed too much.
At this point, I wanted dessert, but I knew it would make me overly full. I felt no need to rush to the dessert table and instead just had fun with the people around me. Eventually, I went and grabbed the desserts that looked the best to me, and actually didn’t grab one of my favorites because I just didn’t have room.
It was an easy, peaceful, and comfortable day. No stress, no guilt, no shame. None of what I experienced when I was trying to diet and be healthy.
Tips for intuitive eating around the holidays
When I was working on my relationship with food, here’s the main keys I was working on to create the relationship with food I have now.
Be open to overeating
This tip could be a little controversial because so often we don’t want to overeat. But giving yourself permission to overeat releases pressure. Even after practicing intuitive eating for over 5 years I still overeat sometimes, but I don’t judge myself for it anymore.
Giving yourself permission to overeat is especially important for people who may have a tendency to emotionally eat, like stress eating or eating when upset. The stress and pressure to not overeat can actually make it more difficult to not overeat.
If you have a little too much to eat, feeling bad about yourself won’t do anything to help.
Plus most people have special Holiday dishes they only get one time a year, so it makes sense that you may have a little more that day to try different foods you don’t always have.
Don’t skip meals to save room
If you skip meals either that day or eat less leading up to Holiday meals, you may just be setting yourself up for overeating (which yes isn’t a problem but can be uncomfortable). When you’re extremely hungry, it’s so much easier to eat quickly and end up eating past where you’d feel comfortably full.
It’s ok to eat lighter if you’d like to, but if you’re hungry hours before Holiday dinner honor that hunger.
Remind yourself you can always have more
If you’re new in your intuitive eating journey, you may still be feeling some of that urgency from when you were dieting. I found it helpful in the beginning to remind myself I can always have more. And if it was a special holiday dish, I’d promise myself I could make it later if I wanted to have it again.
Repeated permission can set your mind at ease. It provides reassurance that the food isn’t scarce and limited.
Honor your hunger and fullness cues after the holiday meal
When you’re chronically dieting, feeling guilty after holiday meals is common. You may feel like you need to eat less or skip some meals to make up for the extra calories you ate.
But all you need to do after a holiday meal is follow your hunger and fullness cues. You could feel your normal levels of hunger or you may feel less hungry. You may hear phrases like “it doesn’t matter how much you ate yesterday you still need to eat today.” But stuff like that oversimplifies things.
When working as a dietitian in clinical settings, we used to tell parents to look at what their kids were eating over the course of days. There might be days where their child would barely eat and some days where their kids were bottomless pits.
As adults, we can start to think of ourselves in 24-hour cycles, instead of an average. If you only get 2 hours of sleep one night, you’ll want a nap or sleep extra hours when you can. Our bodies maintain the balance, so if you eat more one day you may be less hungry the next. The important thing is to trust your body’s hunger and fullness cues.