A More Empowering Plan Around Holiday Food

You might potentially be seeing a lot of articles right now on how to eat less during the holiday season, what to put on your plate to keep the weight off, and how to stay away from certain foods this Thanksgiving. I'm here to offer a very different piece of advice. Eat! Eat with pleasure! Eat everything and anything you want. Eat that pie. Eat the cake. Eat all the foods you have maybe been waiting to eat for an entire year.

When we restrict our food or tell ourselves that we can't have a certain food we can trigger a stress response in our body. Eating in a stressed state shuts down our digestion and makes it more difficult for our body to assimilate and digest the food we are trying to eat. So you could be eating the healthiest foods on the planet this holiday season but if you’re eating it in a stress response because what you really want is the gravy or the mashed potatoes or that piece of pumpkin pie then you actually won't be nourishing your body in the most optimal way which is probably your intention to begin with.

Now you might be thinking, "But if I eat that food I'm never ever going to stop eating!" Geneen Roth tells a story about a mother who comes to her worried about her daughter that she won’t stop eating sweets. Geneen suggests that she fills a big bowl of whatever candy the daughter chooses. The mother is confused but willing to give anything a try. The daughter chooses M&Ms and the mother goes and fills the entire bowl with M&Ms. The first day, the daughter eats almost the entire bowl finally getting to eat what it is that she desired without judgment or repercussion. The next day, she eats slightly less, the next even less, and by the last day of the week she walks by the bowl of candy with no desire for any at all. When we put the power back in us and less in the food, food ultimately becomes less desirable as we take away the labels from certain foods that they are bad or wrong or not healthy enough. So there might be a lot of foods around the holiday season that some part of you has labeled as bad or that it will make you gain weight or that it is not healthy to eat. Let’s take away the labels so that you can actually collect real data and information on how these foods process, digest, and assimilate in your body. 

Whatever food you notice at any festivity you really really want, I want you to choose it with full empowerment in the choice you’re making. If you take one bite and it actually doesn’t taste as good as you thought it would be, you don’t have to eat the whole thing! You can congratulate yourself that you gave yourself what you wanted and put that food away. And if you eat your craved food and it is everything you imagined it would be and then you notice an inner thought arise that you want another one, that is a great opportunity to get curious and you can ask yourself what would eating another piece of that food give you? Would eating more actually give you the pleasure you might be looking for? What perhaps feels uncomfortable around feeling satisfied and satiated? Explore the voice that wants more and more and see what it has to say, what does it have to teach you, if it had an age how old would that voice be? The more we deeply listen in, the more those intense internal voices can soften because we are allowing them the space to be heard and acknowledged and seen. When we embrace what is we release any internal battle of fighting what is where we can feel more connected to our body wisdom and what is going to be the most supportive actions in any moment.  

Every eating experience we have is just an opportunity to learn more about ourselves. So instead of bringing in even more control over this holiday season, allow yourself to relax into the moment, and put whatever foods you want to eat on your plate. Fully enjoy them. Notice the tastes, the textures, notice what you love about that food, be fed by your surroundings and being around people you love or even just appreciate your own presence. When we eat with full acceptance and embodiment we bring our body into a relaxation response where the body can function optimally and digest any kind of food with more ease. 

I'm wishing you a Thanksgiving day filled with self compassion, self acceptance, and self empowerment. I hope your plate is filled with pleasure, joy, and love!