How to protect your relationship with food and body when diet culture turns up the volume
The holiday season can be a wonderful time to make new memories, revisit time-honored traditions, and gather with loved ones. It can feel magical and nostalgic, and it and it can also be complicated. For many of us though, there is a lot of stress and heavy, uncomfortable feelings that come along with the season as well. We can hold space for all the feelings to be valid.
You are by no means alone if you have mixed feelings around the holidays or are working on setting boundaries with loved ones to protect your energy and mental health. For those repairing their relationships with food or in recovery from an eating disorder, the holidays can be particularly difficult. A positive, nurturing relationship to food is important and is worth prioritizing during the holidays. Protect it fiercely! Here we will touch on tips and reminders for navigating the holiday season as an intuitive eater to help everyone have an enjoyable season.
Embrace Flexibility
Intuitive eating is a self-care eating framework. In order to care for yourself well it is important to breathe flexibility into your life. The holiday season may include travel, hosting or visiting loved ones, fussing over gifting, extra time for rest (or for some of us, less time for rest)....phew, it sure is a lot! So, it is important to embrace flexibility in your eating to match your changing environment. We’re out of our typical routines, there’s a lot of holiday hustle and bustle, and there can be a lot of emphasis on food. Add to that the NOISE that diet culture assaults us with on our Instagram feeds, advertisements, and daily mundane conversations.
Intuitive eating is an imperfect practice (like all things); one that must include self-compassion, and a dedication to getting enough food each day to the best of our ability. Sometimes you will miss your initial hunger cues or eat past comfortable fullness. It happens to everyone on occasion and it is a part of normal eating. The schedule changes and excitement of the holiday season is a common time when we experience changes in our eating habits which might lead to accidentally under or over shooting hunger and fullness. Allowing space for imperfect intuitive eating without guilt or shame will help you embrace flexible eating during the holiday season. Give yourself grace, practice eating in the grey area (as opposed to the black and white, good vs bad binary we are used to hearing), and remember that all foods have something to offer us.
Boundaries
If you are working on your relationship with food or new to practicing intuitive eating it can be difficult to hear loved ones using diet talk during the holidays. Setting boundaries around this intrusive diet chatter can help everyone enjoy the holidays with fewer conversations around diets and weight. Which, is a total killjoy, might we add. Setting boundaries early helps you avoid confrontation during holiday gatherings and helps loved ones know your expectations. When boundaries are crossed or diet talk comes up, stick up for yourself and try to reinforce your needs. If you feel comfortable doing so, challenge diet talk and fatphobia as it comes up. Challenging diet mentality and fatphobia will help your loved ones learn where you are coming from as an intuitive eater and might just help them heal their relationship with food. With that said, it also is not your job to educate or convince others. Protect your energy, as some people in your life might just not be in a place to hear it and be open minded to a rather (unfortunately) counter cultural ideology. This can be a tough pill to swallow, but you are not responsible for other peoples actions or attitudes.
Consider having a self care “toolkit” with you, or a strategy for getting yourself some space if you’re needing an exit. We encourage working with a licensed therapist to strategize coping strategies and boundary setting, if able and accessible.
Some phrases to have in your back pocket in case diet talk comes up:
“Our time together is so limited and special to me, so for that reason I really do not want to spend it talking about ________ (fill in the blank....diets/exercise plans/weight etc.)”
“Please don’t comment on my (food choices/body/appetite), it makes it difficult for me to enjoy the moment and be present when we talk about food in a negative way.”
“I no longer subscribe to the idea that food needs to be earned or burned.”
Crack a joke! “Don’t we have more interesting things to talk about these days? Did you watch Squid Games?” or “Isn’t dieting and obsessing over our weight so 2010?!”
“I’m not interested in talking about this now but if you’d like to learn about intuitive eating I can send you some resources at another time”
And one for yourself: “My plate, my business.” Short, sweet, and to the point :)
Continue Practicing Intuitive Eating
This holiday season, stick to your intuitive eating practices to stay true to your healing for a relaxing and enjoyable season. Here is a quick refresher on the principles.
Reject the Diet Mentality- Release the idea that you can control weight or size and approach yourself from a place of care and desire to nourish.
Honor your Hunger- Listen to your body's needs and nourish yourself with adequate amounts of food.
Make Peace with Food- Remember that all foods have a place in intuitive eating and none of them have power over you. Give yourself unconditional permission to eat all foods that you want to eat this season.
Challenge the Food Police- Fight any food rules that may be holding you back from the freedom of enjoying all foods.
Discover Satisfaction- Embrace the satisfaction of food and appreciate that it has an important role in helping us rediscover the joy in eating.
Feel your Fullness- Tune into your body for cues on fullness to know when you are feeling well nourished and ready to finish eating.
Cope with Emotions- Care for your emotional well being so that food can be a source of nourishment rather than a distraction.
Respect your Body- Respect yourself and your body. Take care of it well no matter how you feel about it now, while you work towards neutrality or love.
Choose Mindful Movement- Use joyful movement to add to your life and never as a punishment.
Honor your Health with Gentle Nutrition- Choose your foods and movement with health and enjoyment in mind while taking a birds-eye view to avoid pressure on each individual bite of food.
Unconditional Permission
We touched on practicing intuitive eating already but unconditional permission is worth mentioning again. It is central to a positive relationship with food. All foods fit in intuitive eating. Give yourself, and those around you, unconditional permission to eat all the kinds of foods that sound enjoyable and pleasurable. Also give yourself permission to decline foods that you don’t or no longer have a preference for. Allow yourself time to rest when you need it and time to engage in movement when you want it and if it sounds good. You have unconditional permission to care for and nourish yourself however is best for you this season and always. As an added bonus, loved ones who witness you nourishing yourself with unrestrained respect and care may be inspired to treat themselves and others similarly.
Gratitude
Practice gratitude this season. Find large and small things to be grateful for like your favorite holiday foods, new memories you are making, time spent with loved ones, joyful traditions, and working towards a healthy relationship with food! The list of things to feel grateful for can be short and simple, or detailed and long and is unique to each person. Tune into what you are grateful for and hold onto your joy through the holiday season and beyond.
We know the holiday season can be a hard time of year for folks Be gentle with yourself. Give yourself and others a bit of grace when dealing with overwhelming or difficult emotions. Keep your support system informed of what you may need this season to make it joyful and sweet for you and your loved ones. Take good care of yourselves and have a nourishing holiday season!
And if you feel vulnerable to the diets, restriction, or exercise plans being advertised by people in your life or media, remember who profits off of these fears and insecurities. The dieting/”wellness” industry profiteers off of the holiday eating and weight fear mongering so they sell more products and programs in January. You can opt our of this and work with your body, rather than micromanaging and fighting against it. Every cell in your body is programmed to take care of you and keep you alive, its just our job to take care of it back.
Happy holidays, friends. We wish you happiness and health, whatever that looks like for you. And if you’re having a hard time with food or have concerns about your relationship with food, we are here to support you! Humans need other humans, and we would be honored to be along side you in developing a relationship with food that enhances your life.
Last year, we wrote a post on navigating diet talk during the holiday season, so be sure to head to that for more tips and encouragement!
Resources
https://nourishrx.com/how-to-normalize-fullness-this-thanksgiving/
https://centerfordiscovery.com/blog/intuitive-eating-practices-during-the-holidays/
https://alissarumsey.com/intuitive-eating-during-the-holidays/
https://nourishrx.com/how-to-survive-the-holidays-using-an-intuitive-eating-mindset/
https://www.liberatednutrition.com/blog/lets-talk-about-intuitive-eating
