The Holiday Season is coming! Do you love this time of year? It’s a great time to connect with family and friends. It’s also a time that we may need a little bit more supportive self-care to get through the holidays HONOURING ourselves.
You may be someone who struggles with the holidays, due to a family loss or a recent relationship break-up. Or perhaps you feel like you need to have a perfectionist mindset with food. That you can’t allow yourself to indulge or you FEAR being in a room full of indulgent treats because you always lose control.
If you do struggle with emotional eating I know how vulnerable of a time this can be. Before I was deep into my food addiction I loved Christmas and ate as much as I wanted and didn’t care. I probably gained weight but wasn’t paying attention. When my food addiction started and I created an ALL or NOTHING perfectionist mindset with food, that’s when I started to have food fears, food rules and felt a complete loss of control around the holidays because there was temptation everywhere. Sugar was my nemesis but I couldn’t say no to it. So maybe I had lost some weight prior to the holidays, but as soon as I got into parties and the season I was headed to the store to buy boxes of chocolates to binge on at home. My love for the holiday season quickly turned into a complete hate and dread of it because I hated losing control, I hated that I couldn’t eat perfectly and I also hated that I then had to fix it all in the New Year to try to get back on track. It was frustrating, exhausting, debilitating, and expensive and it made my physical health really suffer.
The holidays should be a time of enjoyment and because of my want to have control and my food fears I had lost my joy. Then came starting to always be on cleanses and diets during the holidays because then I wouldn’t have to try to explain to anyone that I had a food addiction and if I ate one thing I feared losing control. So sticking with my diet and cleanse excuses seemed to make me think I was getting somewhere. Little did I realize that this only masked what was beneath which was food fears, fear of losing control and gaining weight, none of which equated to a healthy relationship with food.
And then what would end up happening is because I would deprive myself of everything over the holidays, once New Year’s came I got the feeling I had missed out and I would go and buy all the on sale leftover holiday chocolates and binge anyways. I literally remember one year, eating chocolates in my car driving home and crying. I just felt so defeated and hated what my food obsession had turned into, i was not just ruining my body I was ruining my most favorite time of year and enjoyment of a beautiful season. One shouldn’t have to stress like this or put on high amounts of pressure, or diet or restrict or fear certain foods.
We must be willing and open to addressing an unhealthy relationship with food to build a more kind and gentle one so you can better navigate and enjoy your holiday season. Now I don’t have any worries.
My Christmas spirit is back. I get so excited for every part of the holidays including the food and respect mindful indulgence, treat my body well and focus on the present moment of enjoying my family, and festivities, this is life, in the present, and I want to look back and remember these wonderful times. You deserve the same.
Another thing I see people struggle with is high holiday stress, overbooked schedules, low immune systems with people getting sick over the holidays. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series of Holiday Health Blogs coming to you soon.
Is what I’m sharing resonating with you? If you are ready to navigate the holidays with confidence and ease as well as practice mindful indulgence with food versus fearing losing control click here to book your 30 minute complimentary Body Freedom consultation to talk more about your health goals, struggles and where you are seeking support to build food and body freedom.