Top Three Tips to avoid food anxiety this festive season
With Christmas and New Year’s get togethers being cancelled yet again, and many people’s festive season looking different from what they had hoped, worry, sadness and anxiety will likely be high.
For many people, this season brings with it some extra anxiety because there is a lot of focus on food, which can be challenging for anyone who struggles with food, be it because of wanting to be ‘healthy’, wanting to be ‘slimmer’ or having been a serial dieter.
These tips are meant to give you some perspective and ways to navigate food stress during the festive season, whether you spend it alone, in a small group or with your whole family.
Tip 1: Eat regularly and normally during the day
When we know we have a big meal coming up, we often cut down on what we eat beforehand and then stuff ourselves to uncomfortable fullness come dinnertime. Unfortunately this uncomfortable feeling is not only likely to spoil the rest of your day/evening/party, it is also going to make you feel that you should eat less the following day(s).
By restricting food (even just for a meal or a day) you are breaking the trust your body has in you of being fed regularly. Your metabolism slows down in anticipation of a famine, and preserves energy for vital functions. Now, most of us have enough energy reserves to have a period of fasting without any negative health consequences. However, if we do this restrict-binge cycle regularly, we are confusing our body and metabolism. We also find ourselves craving foods, overeating when we finally get to have some food, and this is messing with our overall relationship with food. (I talked about the binge-restrict cycle on my Facebook group - come and join the community!)
We see food as an enemy that needs to be controlled by restricting it, we see it as something ‘naughty’ and ‘indulgent’ that we shouldn’t have too much of.
If you eat regularly during the day leading up to your festive meal or party, you will not be ravenous and you are unlikely going to binge or eat past comfortable fullness. Regularly can mean different things to different people, but a good rule of thumb is to eat something every 3-4 hours. If you feel hungry sooner than that, that’s perfectly ok. Reflect on whether you had a big enough meal or snack beforehand, or whether you may have been more active? If you have menstrual cycles, these can also play a part in how hungry you are. So take all of that into account when you find out what regular means for you.
This leads neatly onto…
Tip 2: Practice checking in with your body signals.
Would you stop yourself from going to the toilet when your bladder is full? Probably not! But we suppress hunger signals all the time, and by doing so we tell our body that it cannot be trusted, that it must be wrong, that it must be super greedy for wanting all this food. We even come up with some ways of tricking it: by drinking lots or water/diet drinks, by having gallons of coffee or by eating ‘air foods’.
Someone who has been restricting and controlling food for a while might find it hard to hear hunger and fullness signals. It takes practice! Hunger often starts way before the growling tummy and the dizziness. Hunger signals can be as subtle as forgetting what you wanted to do when you went into a room, thinking about food, feeling a bit tired, lacking focus. These things are common in many of us and aren’t always signs of hunger. But by eating regularly during the day, you can work out whether it might be time for a snack or a meal.
It really helps to have a journal or notepad handy to take some notes and track your signals. Check in before, during and after a meal about how you feel physically, emotionally, mentally, and explore what is going on for you right now.
Can you hear some hunger signals and if so, what do they sound like for you?
Can you work out how hunger manifests for you?
Do you know when you are full?
Can you pause and check in during a meal to explore this?
Is the food still tasting good?
Are you keen to eat some more?
Are you feeling neutral or full?
Is the food still enjoyable?
Tip 3: Enjoy your festive food
There are a lot of foods around over the festive season that we don’t usually eat during the rest of the year. It’s lovely to have special dishes, traditional family meals and festive sweets and snacks. They are special exactly because we don’t have them all the time, and that’s fine.
But when we can’t stop ourselves from eating past comfortable fullness, we may want to ask ourselves: Why do we ‘overeat’?
It could be because we give ourselves permission only at this time of year, because the plan is to go on another diet come January.
It could be because we restrict foods we deem ‘unhealthy’, ‘naughty’ or ‘bad’ during the year and we feel like we ‘deserve’ to have some ‘treats’. You will have noticed all the quotation marks around the words in the previous sentence. That is because I find these words problematic in themselves: they moralise food and the way we eat, which is inevitably reflected in the way we look at ourselves (we feel guilt, shame, disgusted, weak). Have a look at my previous post about food neutrality if you want to find out more.
It could be because we enjoy the amazing flavours so much that we want to soak them all up. Maybe you aren’t eating many foods that you really enjoy during the rest of the year? Maybe you eat foods you think you ‘should’ rather than those that you like?
One more thing to share with you:
If you do eat more than feels good
- Don’t beat yourself up for it, acknowledge that you did, that the food tasted amazing and that you enjoyed yourself
- Eat normally the next day – don’t try and make up for it by sticking with lettuce leaves or feel you need to go mad on the treadmill
- Learn from it – every time you eat it is an opportunity to learn more about your cues, your relationship with food and what you really need
Whatever you are doing this festive season, wherever you are and whomever you are with, I hope you can be present and enjoy yourself.
If any of this has made you think that you want to explore your relationship with food, get in touch via email or book a free zoom discovery call with me!
Wishing you love, joy and peace,
Ela x
