How to Survive the Holidays: A Mindful Eating Guide

So the holiday season is in full force, did it sneak up on you too?! When it comes to the holidays, do you feel overwhelmed when it comes to surviving them all? Do you worry about overeating, over spending and in general just over doing it all? If so, you are not alone. This time of year, with the shorter daylight hours and brisk temperatures, it’s natural to want to do less and relax more. However, the nature of this season often gets us out and about, leaving us over tired and over stressed. When this happens, we often over-do-it with sugar, caffeine and possibly the alcohol.

Some of the primary challenges when it comes to over-doing-it during the holidays are, well, the big holiday meals, alcohol, candy dishes and sweet treats everywhere, food as gifts, cocktail parties… That’s a lot of challenges. If you already struggle with emotional and stress eating, the holidays are often too overpowering with that LONG list of challenges to stay in a mindset of health and wellbeing.

Here are some helpful suggestions to help survive each of these scenarios with a mindful eating approach to the holiday-all-the-things-food-season.

BIG HOLIDAY MEALS

Let’s start with the big holiday meals. Here are some suggestions to remain mindful and comfortable throughout each meal:

·      Start with vegetables—fill your plate with at least 50% colorful veggies.

·      Add proteins to your plate—when you eat protein and fiber (from the veggies) together it will create a feeling of satiation more quickly and stay with you longer.

·      Don’t overload your plate—if you want to eat more after your first serving, notice if you are truly hungry (mindful & intuitive eating practice) and if not, ask yourself if you can have the food you’d still like to eat as leftovers another time to receive that satisfaction later.

·      Don’t restrict what you choose to eat—on the other side of overloading is not letting yourself eat something you really want; this will only lead to cravings and resentful feelings of deprivation. Try a little of everything you want and TASTE it, enjoy it, eat it mindfully.

·      Eat dessert if you want it and if you aren’t stuffed but if you are full, don’t. Have a statement prepared for the “food pushers” in your life if you are choosing to not eat dessert (or anything else at the meal!) An example could be, “That looks amazing, can I take some to go so I can eat it when I’m not full and I can actually enjoy it.” If you do want dessert, eat it and do so mindfully.

ALCOHOL

So let’s be clear, alcohol is not a health food and if you struggle with over doing it with alcohol, it’s best to avoid it altogether. If you don’t have a problem with alcohol but tend to over-indulge during the holidays, here are my suggestions to remain more mindful in relation to your alcohol consumption:

·      Set a mental limit for yourself. Do this before you go to a cocktail party or holiday meal, know (and remember!) your set desired limits and stick to it.

·      Be sure you are not using alcohol as a coping skill. If cocktail parties or big get togethers create feelings of anxiety, discomfort or tension, you might end up over doing it to cope with those feelings. Make sure you check in with your emotions and manage them before hitting the alcohol.

·      Start any party or meal with water and be sure to stay hydrated

·      Have a glass of water between drinks

·      Choose a creative “mocktail” like seltzer, pomegranate juice and lime, no one needs to know there’s no booze!

·      Check in with your inner strength monitor to assess your “tipsy level” from time to time! You are way more likely to regret over-doing-it to under doing it!

CANDY DISHES

You know how during the holidays there are candy dishes seemingly everywhere? Here are some suggestions to help manage the dreaded candy dishes:

·      Give yourself a “sugar quota” for the day—maybe it’s 1-3 pieces of candy. Pay attention and be sure to stay in mindful eating-mode when you do enjoy a piece, when you eat it, savor it!

·      Be intentional about your choices. Do you even like those red and green M&M’s? Maybe so, but if they aren’t your fav, leave them in the dish.

·      Avoid the candy dishes. If you struggle with over-doing-it with sugar, it’s best to avoid the candy dishes and make intentional choices about what sweets you will have this season.

·      Avoid the mindless eating trap. With all of the candy around it can become easy to mindlessly have a few pieces here and there and not really enjoy and savor them.

FOOD AS GIFTS

Another big food challenge during the holidays is being given food as a gift. Here are some suggestions for dealing with this one:

·      Mange your feelings of guilt if you choose not to eat the food you are gifted. Guilt is appropriate if you have actually done something wrong, it is our conscience in action. However, if someone gives you a box of candy and you know it will be painful for you to just try one piece and you end up eating the entire box all at once, it’s best not to put yourself in a position you might feel upset about later.

·      Take the food gifts to work and share with others.

·      Take the food gifts to a holiday gathering.

·      Determine if you even like the food, then decide if it’s what you truly want to eat.

·      Save a portion of the food and give the rest away.

·      Create a sugar quota for yourself for the day and stick to it. If you’ve hit your quota, remember, you can always try something the next day.

COCKTAIL PARTIES

Cocktail parties are a challenge during the holidays. They tend have a lot of snacks and of course drinks—and they may come with a side of awkwardness. Usually they are not offering a full meal so it can be tough not to over-do-it. Here are some suggestions to manage cocktail parties with ease:

·      Give yourself a drink limit (review alcohol above!) and space them out well throughout the party. This is a mindset you create before even walking in the door.

·      Start with one drink. Then switch to water or a “mocktail” in the same glass.

·      Be aware of sugar content in any fancy mixed drinks.

·      Eat something healthy before you go so you are not hungry when you arrive.

·      Focus on the veggie options first with the available snacks.

·      Stay mindful as you do eat so you don’t graze. Sometimes when nervous we might nibble mindlessly.

A few last tips to help reduce incidents of stress and emotional eating holiday season:

·      Try to stick to meal planning and preparation throughout the season. It’s super tempting and easy to order take out or go out when you are feeling over-run during this season. This can add up in dollars and unhealthy meals.

·      Focus on vegetables and fruits. You may still choose to indulge in other holiday treats, just be sure to be well nourished along the way!

·      Make slow cooker meals that are ready to go and easy to freeze so you can have leftovers available.

·      Practice mindful eating at least one meal per day every day.

·      Use the emotional cravings protocol any time you need it.

I’ll leave you with this last reminder of the process of mindful eating so you can stay empowered, mindful and content with your choices this holiday season!

Mindful Eating is…

·      Eating without distraction.

·      Being in tune with what you are eating and your body, noticing how what you eat makes you feel.

·      Focusing on your senses, especially smelling and tasting.

·      Savoring and enjoying your food.

·      Staying tuned into to your hunger and full cues, eating when you are hungry, stopping when you are full.

·      Eating in a relaxed, calm and neutral emotional state.

·      Deriving pleasure from eating without judgment.

I hope you have a happy and healthy holiday season!

Inner Strength Focus: Growing Hope to Heal Emotional Eating

Over the past several blogs I have been talking about building six specific inner strengths to help you create more contentment and happiness in your life—specifically related to your relationship with food. The final inner strength that I will cover here of the six inner strengths is hope. Hope is linked to faith and it’s an inner belief that all will be well without having to feel as though you need to control every aspect of your circumstances. This is an experience of surrender. Hope allows a surrendering to an inner belief and trust which is deeply personal and a spiritual endeavor.

If you attempt to control every aspect of your life, you will become exhausted. When you find the elements that are controllable and connect that to the hope and belief that all will be well, you can lean into the process of surrendering, the process of letting go. When you lean into surrendering and letting go, you create an experience of happiness, inner peace and contentment. Hope provides optimism and optimism ultimately keeps you moving forward with a positive and determined mindset.

When you apply the inner strength of hope to healing emotional eating, you are able to remain in a more positive mindset when it comes to challenges, emotions and trusting yourself—and trusting the process. Shifting from the dieting trap of restriction (and then the inevitable over eating) into a more mindful and intuitive eating space, you will need to access an inner hope and belief that you can truly free yourself from emotional eating and create a healthy and peaceful relationship with food.

Food is pleasurable and nourishing. The purpose of feeding ourselves is to remain healthy while also providing your life with pleasure that you derive from cooking, tasting, eating and even sharing a meal with others. When food becomes your primary (or only) source of pleasure—or your tool for managing stress—you may not have much hope that your life can be different. The cycle of emotional and stress eating is hard to disrupt. Change is difficult. Not changing is even harder because you remain stuck in that negative cycle. Building the inner strength of hope is a process of surrendering to the awareness that your relationship with food has derailed and needs support to get back on track. Hope keeps you connected to the possibility of change and creates effort.

To begin to build the inner strength of hope, it will be helpful to create a vision for what a peaceful relationship with food means to you. Understanding why you want this change to occur makes it even more powerful. When you have your vision established and connect with it regularly, you create an inner hope, a belief and faith in yourself that why you want what you want will allow you to put the effort into creating your vision as your reality. When you have faith in yourself you are more likely to be kind to yourself, to handle challenges and be more proactive.

To begin to connect with your vision in order to build hope as an inner strength, spend time journaling about the following questions:

·      What is your vision for your relationship with food?

·      Why do you want this vision?

·      What are the challenges you can foresee as you set forth to put your vision into action?

·      How can you stay connected to your vision?

·      What does hope mean to you?

·      What does having hope look like within your life, how might it change your current life?

·      What do you need to do to increase your faith in yourself?

Once you have your vision established, create 3-5 action steps that you can take daily or weekly to move you in the direction of living your vision. Find where you can access hope daily and build faith in yourself to take the action needed to create a peaceful relationship with food. Connect with your vision daily, fine tune your action steps regularly, bring on support like a friend, coach or therapist to help you stay the course.

When you connect with hope, you create more inner happiness, peace and contentment. Always remember that you deserve to live the life of your dreams.

Inner Strength Focus: Gratitude to Heal Emotional Eating

Gratitude is an inner strength that is often present in those who feel happy and content within their lives. While gratitude is a strength, it is also a practice, a way of being, and an attitude that can be cultivated over time. The act of being and feeling grateful is powerful. Right now, take a moment to think of one thing you are grateful for and notice how it makes you feel to bring this to your mind. Did you smile? Did you feel any warmth in your heart and body expand? Gratitude gets a lot of press these days and while taking a moment just to be grateful is wonderful, it is the practice and cultivation of it as a deeper strength and inner resource that allows it to enhance your life through your attitude and outlook every single day.

As you engage in the practice of being grateful daily, you begin to harness the power of gratitude as an inner strength. While that may sound like a nice skill, it is not necessarily easy. We are hardwired to remember danger, to notice possible problems and remember them for future security and survival. The problems and unpleasant experiences can conjure up discomfort and fear in a heartbeat but we tend to forget the positive experiences more easily. The part of the brain that is always on alert for danger does this on purpose as a survival mechanism. The part of the brain that stores the good stuff does not let it all sink in quite so easily which means that we have to work at it to make the good stuff stick!

Practicing is an act of creation. We get better at what we practice, so if you have been practicing fear and lacking thoughts, you might be really good at that. The good news is that if you begin practicing gratitude, you can get good at that too. Gratitude is one of the best anecdotes for anxiety. Anxiety is loaded with fear of the unknown and tends to create catastrophes based on all of the possible dangers that the brain has stored and this causes a lot of internal distress. One of the most commonly soothed emotions with food is anxiety. Food can be calming and grounding, and when you are feeling anxious it can do the trick. Sugary foods can trigger the pleasure center in the brain making you temporarily feel less anxious. However, this is not a very effective coping mechanism as the anxiety will not just go away, it is just temporarily numbed out by the food.

Gratitude can calm and release anxiety because it brings you back to being grateful for what is true right now, what you do have, and what is going well. This is mindfulness in action with a specific attitude. Anxiety lives in future catastrophe while gratitude lives in the present moment. When you bring the energy of gratitude to the present moment it can transform the moment and create an amazing shift in perception causing your inner experience to transform.

When you apply the inner strength of gratitude to the process of making peace with food it is incredibly powerful. When we are along any personal healing journey there will be trials, there will be ups and downs and of course there will always be the inevitable backsliding. When you apply gratitude to your journey it allows you to focus on what is going well, where you are being successful and an ability to tap into the inner knowing that all will be well.

When you focus on what has gone wrong or on where you weren’t perfect, you create a dampening of energy and may even think to yourself, “why do I even bother trying?” or you may think thoughts such as, “I always fail, I’m weak…” These are defeating, self-limiting beliefs that have absolutely no use or purpose along the path to healing and wellbeing. When you focus on what has gone well you reinforce the belief that what you want is indeed possible and on the way. Most importantly, when you reflect on what went well and what you are grateful for, you are able to build energy to keep going, to keep moving forward. You know that it feels good to feel good, it feels good to make progress, it feels good to heal and grow into the healthiest and most whole version of yourself over and over again.

Gratitude is a practice, you have to do it over and over again for it to be effective and to truly sink in as an inner strength. Gratitude is also an attitude. It is a mindset of looking for what is good, what you do have, what feels positive and to continue to search for it even when it may be difficult to find. When you engage in the practice of gratitude and work to intentionally create a mindset of recognizing what you are grateful for and shift away from longing and wanting you grow the inner strength of gratitude as an integrated part of who you are, a resource you can draw from over and over again.

This week, begin to integrate these practices in order to grow the inner strength of gratitude within you each day.

1.    Keep a gratitude journal. Focus at the end of the day on two things you did that moved you in the direction of your own personal healing and wellbeing journey and write it like this: Today I am grateful that I…__________________ (took a long walk, drank a ton of water, took a yoga class, ate a leafy green, meditated…) just be sure to focus on what you did do. Then write, I am grateful that I created the opportunity to feel __________________ by doing ______________ (strong, relaxed, empowered, healthy, vibrant…. By doing yoga, meditating, eating a leafy green….)

2.    Tell someone you care about something you appreciate about them every day.

3.    Be grateful for the food you eat, don’t judge it, just practice gratitude.

4. Begin each day by saying Thank You.

If you try these four action steps, let me know the impact they create in your life—especially in relation to your relationship with food.