102. 10 tips for intuitive eating at Christmas

'Tis the season for celebrations and delicious food! This time of year can be overwhelming with all the yummy food and drinks. Right?

So today, let me give you some ideas for how you can continue your intuitive eating at Christmas. 

Hint: Did you know you can enjoy the holidays guilt-free? 

Tune in and discover insightful tips that will help you enjoy your food during the holiday season while you listen to your body cues.

However you're spending Christmas, I hope it's absolutely wonderful and that you have a great time. 

Speak to you next week! 

Transcript

 A quick heads up before you start reading..... My transcriptions are automatically generated. I do not type them manually. For this reason there may be errors, incorrect words, bad spelling, bad grammar, and other things that just seem a little 'off'. You'll still be able to understand what is being said though, so please just ignore that and enjoy the episode.

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Intuitive Eating and Body Positivity Podcast. I'm Terri and I'll be talking about all things intuitive eating, body positivity, and health at every size, and shaking off weight stigma, diet culture, and food rules, so that we can all have a better relationship with food and our bodies.

Hello, how are you? Do you know what? I am recording this from a different place for you. We've put the Christmas tree up. I love it. I just love it. We've got a new tree as well. I say new, we had it last year, but um, it is a new tree and it is a bigger tree. It's [00:01:00] very much bigger and it takes up quite a lot of space, but it is lovely.

However, this means that my desk has to come out from its usual position in the front room. And usually it gets dismantled into many pieces, but my working, um, plans, my working systems have changed and I do a lot more work from home. And so to dismantle my desk altogether is really problematic. I need to be working at my desk.

So instead of the usual dismantling of the desk, it is now. In the bedroom, which meant that the other night I had to be really creative when I was doing my group coaching call in the membership. I had to put on this lovely sparkly, twinkly backdrop, fake backdrop, which made it look like I was in [00:02:00] some kind of cozy cabin in the North Pole or something.

It was. Pretty lovely. I mean, I wouldn't be sad if my house looked like that. The tree, the fireplace, all the lights, it was lovely. But that's what I've had to do now. Because I am in my bedroom and you know, I love you guys, but I am not sharing my entire life with you all. I mean, I share quite a lot of it, but I'm not sharing what my bedroom looks like and things like that.

However, what this does mean is that I'm recording this now, sat in my bedroom and the desk is right in front of the window. So. I'm looking out of the window. It's not particularly scenic. I'm not looking at some beautiful rolling hills, snow capped mountains, you know, a deer wandering past, that sort of thing.

It is just a standard City [00:03:00] Street. But still, God, I love being in the light. I love being in the natural light. As gloomy as it is outside, because it is raining, I love being in the light. So it makes a difference, doesn't it, your environment that you're sat in? It really makes a difference as to how you feel, how productive you are, that sort of thing.

Yeah, consider your environment. Consider your environment and how it makes you feel. I mean, that wasn't meant to be a, a teaching moment, but it has made a difference to how I feel sat working here. So maybe I'll make some changes when the tree comes down. Maybe I'll make some changes and make sure that I'm in a better spot.

Um, nothing else really going on. I love that it's nearly Christmas. I love that my house is now Christmassy and cosy and all twinkly lights and you know when you put your tree up and then your evenings change. So, now the lights go on on the tree, the lights go [00:04:00] on on the garland across the fireplace.

I've got other little lights and candles and things. Lighting, actual lamps and things. Not really necessary in our house at the moment. Oh, it's just, I love it. I just really love Christmas. I love the whole vibe of it. I'm lucky enough that Christmas is not stressful for me. I'm not having a particularly bad time in my life.

So I appreciate for Christmas. This is, uh, for some people, this is not a great time of year. Um, but I, I really love it. I'm really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying it this year. I hope you are as well. But as much as you love Christmas, what is the thought of food and drink at Christmas like for you? Does it freak you out a little bit?

Is it a bit overwhelming? There is an awful lot, isn't there, around. Chocolates, sweets, puddings, [00:05:00] fancy dinners, parties to go to, so party food. All the alcohol. That's all around the place now. And even as an experienced intuitive eater, you might still be a little bit unnerved by all of this. And that's because a lot of the stuff that's around is not the norm.

It feels like a bit of a novelty. It feels a little bit like, if you don't have it now, when will you ever have it? It can really raise some different feelings around food than you would usually have on, you know, any, any normal day of the year. So I wanted to give you some tips on how you can continue your intuitive eating at Christmas, or if you're brand new to intuitive eating and you're only just starting it and you're worried that this is going to throw you off the rails a little bit.

Well, here are some tips. You know, if you've done the hard work of starting the intuitive eating process, let me give you [00:06:00] some tips that'll keep you on there essentially through Christmas. And this is not a diet thing, right? When you go to a diet club, you get all the tactics in all the land to see you through Christmas.

Do this with your food, do that with your food. Cut back here, cut back there. There used to be some crazy thing that our consultant used to say about drinking alcohol. So, it was basically, you would just line the rim of the glass with the alcohol. And then when you drank the soft drink, it would taste like it.

Or, you would put the alcohol in the top of the soft drink. Because then you would It would taste stronger and that would apparently stop you drinking so much. There were all kinds of things about Christmas food. Although all the comparisons of points and sins and calories and things in [00:07:00] Christmas food, scare tactics, basically that say, don't eat this.

Don't eat that. Don't eat the other, just stick to your normal diet food. But where's the joy in that? What does that make Christmas look like for you? Just sucks the joy out of what Christmas is meant to be because you're so all consumed by what you're eating or not eating. And then going back, going back to group after Christmas and standing on the scales for the first time.

I remember a Christmas that I went to group in between Christmas and new year, might I add, who even runs groups at that time of year. And I had lost. A tiny, tiny bit of weight, but I had lost weight and I was the only person in the group to lose weight over the whole Christmas period as well. I was so, so proud of myself, [00:08:00] but you know what I'd done?

I'd skimped on everything. I'd had the most diet friendly Christmas lunch you could ever imagine. There were plenty of things that I hadn't eaten and hadn't drank. There was exercise going on. There was all these different things that I put in place to try and. Make sure I had that lotto for Christmas.

That is not the focus that you should have at Christmas. Your Christmas should not revolve around what your weight will be after Christmas. or during Christmas, you know. So let's talk about this. Let's have some ideas as to how you can continue your intuitive eating at Christmas. Tip number one, see the good in all food.

There is literally just been an episode about this, hasn't there? If you haven't listened to it yet, please go and listen to it because it's very, very important. As an intuitive eater, you'll know that all food has got something in it [00:09:00] that the body can use. I've given loads of examples in that other episode, so go have a listen to that.

If you're new to this though, you might take a little bit of time to think about it. All food has good stuff in it that your body can use. Christmas is no exception to that. So one way to make peace with Christmas eating is to embrace that thought. Embrace all the positive aspects of the foods.

Acknowledge that everything you have, everything you eat has got its own unique goodness to it. And that might be physical. It might be a physical contribution to your body, nutrients and things that your body can take out of it. Or it might be mentally helpful. It might be that emotionally at that time, what you need is a certain type of food.

So whether it's nourishing [00:10:00] you or just delicious and making you happy. There is still something to be appreciated from the food, and this can help you appreciate the variety of the food that you're eating at Christmas without that guilt that you usually get from eating typically Christmassy type foods.

So to maintain that intuitive eating at Christmas, remember, give yourself the unconditional permission to eat all of the foods. Let go of the good. They go with the bad, you know, the labels that we put on foods and know that all your food has something to contribute. You empower yourself then to savour all the festive goodies without worrying about the consequences or the restrictions that you might have to make because of them.

Number two, know that Christmas food actually is available all year round. [00:11:00] I know that the novelty of having lots of food suddenly being available to you that isn't available all year round can create this response in you that makes you want to eat lots of it because it'll be gone soon. In intuitive eating we call it the last supper mentality.

And it's when you think this food is here for a very short space of time. I need to eat it. I need to get my fill of it now because it won't be here much longer so I need to enjoy it. And then what actually happens is you end up eating more than you would like to more than you really need to, and you don't really enjoy it because you're just so focused on just eating it.

And, and it upholds this, um, this status where it's on a pedestal. This food becomes special and then you can't eat it intuitively. So what if I could show you a different way to think about that? What if you knew that you actually could have [00:12:00] your Christmas food all year round? I'll give you a couple of classic examples.

Boxes of chocolates. What are we thinking Christmas time? Quality street. Roses. Heroes. Lint. Oh, I love lint chocolate. Um, Ferrero Rocher. All of these things that come out at Christmas. They seem to be everywhere at Christmas. They are in your offices. They are being given to you by friends and family. They are in shops on the counters.

They're everywhere. We only tend to see them at Christmas. And then we tend to eat loads of them. Because, as I've said, the novelty of them being there. The novelty of having free reign and all this access to them. So we tend to eat lots of them, but those chocolates are actually in the shops all year round.

Did you know that? It's [00:13:00] just, we tend to only eat them at Christmas. We tend to only buy them at Christmas. Maybe we'll buy some for somebody through the year for whatever reason. Not very often though, I think, but they are there. So knowing that, can you allow yourself to have them all year round? What if you could allow yourself to buy them every now and again and put them in the house?

That is habituating to it. That is being used to it. That's taking away the novelty factor. It's taking away the Christmas novelty factor. And even if the particular type of chocolate that you have got access to at Christmas isn't available outside of Christmas, you can guarantee that there will be something similar.

So if you can't find your favourite green triangle, what about finding a different bar of chocolate that has got a similar nugget centre? A good example of [00:14:00] this is Kinder Bueno. I hope you have by now where you are because my God, is it lovely? They taste like Ferrero Rocher. Have you ever thought about that?

They do, they taste like Ferrero Rocher. So, if you can't find Ferrero Rocher, and you only tend to have them at Christmas, or maybe you don't want to buy them because aren't they expensive? Most of the time Ferrero Rocher is quite pricey, so maybe you don't want to spend that money very often, or maybe you can't find them.

A Kinder Bueno tastes just like it. Do you think you could get the same sort of satisfaction from having something that tastes the same? Does that make sense? What if you can't find a box of Heroes and you always have a box of Heroes at Christmas? Well, what are Heroes? They are tiny little, tiny [00:15:00] little, bars of chocolates.

And those chocolates are in the shops all day, every day, throughout the year. So what if you just went and bought the full size bars of chocolates? There are options, just because they're in a fancy tub, dressed up with Christmas colours, at a certain time of the year. Doesn't mean you can't have them the rest of the year.

What about mince pies? Those, now those are not available all year round, are they? They are a typically Christmas food. You know what is available though? Pastry. You can make that yourself, if you feel like it. If you've got the time and the will to do it. Or, you can buy it ready made from the supermarket.

You can get it ready rolled, it's easy, you just buy it. And then you roll it out or you unravel it and do what you like with it. You [00:16:00] can buy the mincemeat. Again, you can buy it ready made, but if you can't find it, there are loads of lovely recipes. For mincemeat to go in mince pies. If you go to the blog post for this podcast episode, I've linked there to a Mary Berry recipe for it.

That's quite good fun, isn't it? And there's always sugar available for that little sprinkling, that little sparkly topping. On your mince pie, all those ingredients are always available. Imagine being the person who turns up to a friend's house or your office with mince pies in the middle of June. How brilliant would that be?

I've brought you some bakes. I've made them myself. What have you brought? Mince pies. But Terri, it's summer. Yeah, that would be brilliant. So that's just a couple of examples, but with a bit of [00:17:00] creativity, you can absolutely have all of those Christmas foods In some way, shape or form, all year round. So now, the novelty's gone.

The novelty's gone for those foods. Because they're always available. Back to intuitive eating! Tip number three. Do not restrict food now so that you can eat at Christmas. Totally unnecessary. Planning ahead for Christmas by skipping meals beforehand and skipping food and restricting and cutting back and all of that might sound really tempting, but it could really actually lead to overeating the foods that you're actually trying to make a little bit of room for.

So remember the binge restrict pendulum? Remember that? You think by restricting you'll eat less calories and then the Christmas food won't matter. [00:18:00] But, that binge restrict pendulum means that the more you restrict, the more you cut out, the more you shave off and don't eat. It's more likely to have the opposite effect and the resulting binge response will create a larger intake of all the stuff.

That you're trying to make space for. It'll create a larger intake of calories with a side helping of guilt. Because once you've had that bit of a binge, how'd you feel? You feel terrible. Intuitive eating at Christmas means eating what you want and eating what you need according to what your body's asking for.

So if you start restricting ready for Christmas, you're going against those intuitive eating cues. Keep up with your regular eating routine and it'll set you up for enjoying the holiday goodies without feeling [00:19:00] overly hungry and you can just, you know, continue to eat what you really need to eat and want to eat

before you can still be intuitive in your eating. Tuning into your body's cues during the holidays is like giving yourself this superpower. It'll help you navigate Christmas meals without feeling uncomfortably stuffed, right? Intuitive eating at Christmas still looks like listening to when you're hungry, listening to when you're comfortably full, making decisions on how much you want to eat based on those things.

And when we apply that to Christmas, it's things like how much Christmas dinner do you want? There is a lot of lovely food you can put on your plate for Christmas lunch. How much do you want and what types of foods do you want? [00:20:00] Are you ready to eat pudding straight away after your lunch or Would you like to wait a little while until you're less full and when you know you'll enjoy it more?

It can also look like deciding what type of pudding you want. Do you want the hot, gooey, sticky toffee pudding with the custard? Or would you prefer the cold sweet pavlova with a bit of crunch in it? See, you can still be really intuitive about your eating, even at Christmas. It's about maintaining the awareness of the types of food you want to eat.

It's about maintaining how it, the awareness of how it feels to eat, how your body is feeling hunger and fullness and satisfaction wise.

Number five, eat consistently. Our eating habits do change at Christmas. There's no doubt about that. Chocolate for [00:21:00] breakfast? Yes, please. Cheese and biscuits every day for a week? Yes. Leftovers in the middle of the day? Absolutely, why not? Just opening the fridge, seeing what's in there. What is all this stuff that we don't usually have?

But, by having your usual frequency of meals and snacks, by having a good variety of foods in your day, it will at least help you to maintain some balance. It will help keep your body happy. It will help you make sure that you're not missing out. Cause that FOMO is real with food. You think you're missing out, you feel deprived, and then it sends you on this kind of chase for food to satisfy it, to feel like you're not missing out anymore.

So keep it coming regularly. You'll stay satisfied that way. [00:22:00] Number six, this is not specifically food, but it does relate. So choose clothes that make you feel good. Big part of intuitive eating is body respect. It's being kind to your body. And this includes dressing in clothes that are comfortable.

When your clothes are comfortable, you think about your body far less often. If Christmas is a dressed down affair for you, you know, if people rock up to Christmas in your house in their pyjamas, or just jeans and a Christmas jumper, you know, whatever it is you wear, be sure to wear something that you'll feel comfortable in all day long.

Or, give yourself access to Different clothes that you feel comfortable in. So if you're going to family later in the day, for example, and you feel like later you'll have eaten so much that you'll be uncomfortable, then maybe you can turn up in, [00:23:00] in your lovely skinny jeans and a Christmas jumper with lights on it, but then maybe you take a change of clothes so that later in the day you can put on your trackies.

Your loungewear your pajama bottoms if you feel comfortable doing that wherever you go in that sort of thing Wear clothes that make you feel comfortable. You know, I love in Friends Joey and his Thanksgiving pants they're actually Phoebe's old maternity trousers, but they're giving all the stretch and that means that he can spend the day Eating turkey and he doesn't have to sit there with his jeans undone because, you know, too much turkey.

But, this could equally mean wearing a dress that makes you feel incredible. So a good tip here is to have a couple of [00:24:00] different options for Christmas party outfits before the day. If you know you've got an event coming up, give yourself a couple of options for outfits so that on the day You can be guided by what your body feels like and what you feel suits you and your mood that day.

Cause you know what it's like, you shop for clothes to go out, you shop for party clothes, party clothes. It makes me sound like I'm about five years old, doesn't it? You shop for party clothes. Uh, you choose a dress, for example, that you feel awesome in at the time of purchase. And then on the day you put it on and you think, what the heck is this?

It doesn't feel right. It doesn't look right. You're not comfortable in it. Then you go out and all you can think about is the dress. So if you've got a couple of options on the day for what you might wear, you can choose whatever suits you best. [00:25:00] Wearing clothes that make you feel confident. Make you feel relaxed, can help you to focus on having fun, enjoying the experience, having a good time without worrying about how you look.

Number 7. Do not worry about what other people are eating. Intuitive eating at Christmas means eating what you want to eat. Doesn't matter what others are eating. If they are having a starter and you don't want to, because you know you'll feel uncomfortably full later in the day, don't have one. You know, if you want to save yourself for your actual main course and pudding, because you don't think you can manage all three, then fine.

If everyone else is ready for pudding and you're not because you're still full from your dinner. Then ask for yours to be set aside and you'll have it later. You don't have to miss out just because you're not having it now. You could say, Oh, [00:26:00] please will you put me some ready? And then I'll have it in a little bit because I'm a bit uncomfortable right now.

And if this is a now or never situation with the food that you're being offered and you really don't want it now, then you can still feel free to say no to it. And you can feel empowered in doing that. There will be other lovely food you can enjoy later. And yes, you might really like the food that's being offered, but if that's going to put you into a state where you feel pain, real discomfort, you're not going to enjoy whatever's next to come in the day, activities.

If you feel like you'll fall, you'll fall asleep on the sofa at your sister's house, when you should be watching the kids opening their presents, because you've had too much food. Then don't do it, you know, look after yourself, look after your preferences [00:27:00] and It's okay to not have that food even if you really love it because there will be other things you can eat later.

8. Focus on the memories. There is so much more to Christmas than just the delicious food. Food plays a massive part in Christmas memories. It plays a massive part in all events, but there's also lots of other things you can remember from that time. Things that are, in my opinion, much more important to remember.

Savour the beautiful moments spent with your loved ones. Your friends, your family. Enjoy sharing gifts. Um, watch the excited kids and also watch how it catches up with them later and they get a little bit overtired and tearful and everybody's kind of, right, time to go home now. Feel the warm and fuzzy feeling of the Christmas period.

Heck, even [00:28:00] enjoy the argument when your husband is caught cheating at the new board game that you are playing. No, I'm not bitter. Enjoy! Making memories. It will help shift the focus away from the food. And it will help you to appreciate the experience of Christmas as a whole. Number nine, set boundaries and take time out.

These steps for intuitive eating will help, but the overwhelm can be very real. So remember, take time out for yourself during the day if you need to. Whether that's a short breather in the bathroom, you know, just, just going to the loo, and then you sit there on the side of the bath with your head in your hands like, Oh God, all the food.

Just take a moment. Take a moment. It might be a walk outside. It might be moving to a different space to do something you enjoy. These breaks are [00:29:00] vital for maintaining your peaceful relationship with food and protecting your mental health. If things are getting overwhelming, take yourself away. You don't have to justify it to anyone.

If you need to take the time out, take it. Sometimes a moment to yourself or even doing something else with others, you know, going, going out for a walk with others, you know, should we just go for a walk? I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable. Should we go for a walk? Can really provide the break in the day that you need.

And then you come back and you're feeling much better about things and give yourself some kindness. This is number 10. Give yourself some kindness. Whatever happens, however you eat. Whether you maintain your intuitive eating at Christmas or not, please give yourself some kindness. Intuitive eating is not a diet plan.

It's not something you have to stick to. It's not a wagon that you fall off. It's not something that you will start again on Monday. [00:30:00] Intuitive eating is just being in touch with your body, being in touch with your emotions. And if at this time of year you don't eat as intuitively as you'd like to, it's fine.

It's not something to feel bad or guilty about. For a lot of people, Christmas is a really stressful time. There's a lot going on. Maybe there's bad memories attached to it. Maybe you're Unfortunate enough to be in a situation that is not particularly good at the moment. Food is the last thing you want to be worried about.

So follow the tips as much as you can. And if you don't, don't worry about it. Your body will guide you back when the madness of all the festivities are done, right? So whatever you're doing, I hope that it's going to be your version of wonderful. I hope you can really, really enjoy it. And just enjoy the food, you know, it's there to be enjoyed.

I really, really hope you have such a lovely Christmas.[00:31:00]