My Top 3 Tips to Avoid Overindulgence this Holiday Season

I used to look forward to the holiday season with a mix of both excitement and dread. I love everything about the holidays: the decorations, the family times, the music, the generosity of spirit that makes this time of year the most special, and of course, the "reason for the season," which marks this time of year one of the most important on the Christian calendar. I also love the festivities, but with all the holiday parties to attend and host, I would often find myself operating with a low/grade of anxiety from mid-November through the New Year. All this improved dramatically, however, when I made a conscious choice to remain mindful whenever an opportunity to indulge presented itself. I developed strategies to navigate the mine field that is the holiday party circuit and holiday eating in general, and I'm going to share them with you here:

NYC holiday decorations are second-to-none! I love this City's holiday
spirit! [Source]

1) In this day-and-age, you can find anything that you want to eat, anytime you want to eat it: Because anything is available anytime, it sort of takes the wind out of the sails of the argument "But it's a special occasion, so I have to eat xyz!" For me, this has been and remains a tough trap to avoid because the holidays are one of the very, very few times a year that I am back in my childhood home, under my parents' roof, for an extended period of time. As a result, there are often lots of goodies around that my mom only makes for the holidays that aren't only delicious, but for which I am nostalgic. This is a potentially catastrophic combination, as I believe nostalgia and mindfulness are mutually exclusive. 

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Last year, I turned a corner in my mindful holiday eating practice. I had this realization, which I played on loop in my head, that just because I only eat these treats when I'm in my childhood home doesn't mean that they are off limits at other times during the year. Of course they're not! All the ingredients are readily available, and I can get the recipes from my mom anytime I have a hankering for a few haystack candies or Russian wedding cookies. In other words, when I was able to put some emotional distance between myself and the feelings around the holiday foods I love, I realized that they're not really that powerful anymore. Nostalgia is a powerful force from which it takes effort to extricate ourselves; however, it rarely serves us because it keeps us rooted to the past, a bygone time to which we cannot and should not return, especially if we're trying to sustain healthy habits. 

2) Be particular, picky, selective, etc. about your indulgences: I find that many people, and women in particular, have a very hard time expressing their needs and wants. Society labels women who speak up and give their opinion as "bitchy", and sanctifies women who "just go with the flow." But when we women "go with the flow," it's generally to our own detriment. We're stifling ourselves, and it's hurting our capacity to achieve our goals and live our lives from a place of authenticity. One way in which we can begin to speak for ourselves is by making food choices that respect our goals and our boundaries. This doesn't just mean eating "healthy" all the time, because that's not really the point. The point is to eat in a way that's pleasing to our palettes and our physiques, but from which we can derive supreme pleasure. Many holiday treats scratch that itch, and we should enjoy these tasty indulgences without feeling guilty. And the best way I've found to avoid food-related guilt is to be selective about my indulgences. In other words, if it's not something that looks absolutely delicious or that I know is one of my absolute favorite things to eat, I won't eat it. Period. Even if it's there, and even if everyone else is eating it too. And yes, even if that means fending off some unwelcome remarks from others or uncomfortable inquiries about my "diet." Honestly, it's not my role to accommodate others' feelings when I make a choice about what to eat. And although these remarks may seem unfair and we may be persuaded to indulge simply to avoid such discomfort, I can almost guarantee that the feeling that comes from reneging is much worse than withstanding the temporary awkwardness of having to give a simple, polite explanation for why I choose not to eat a particular thing. 

3) If your host asks you to take some leftovers home with you, politely decline: It's not rude to decline leftovers. As in the previous example, the slight discomfort you may feel in refusing to take a doggy bag is vastly preferable to the disappointment you'll feel by not honoring your boundaries. Think about it this way: the setting and circumstances under which you enjoy those treats enhances your enjoyment of them, so why bring something home with you when you can't replicate that scenario? I like leftovers as much as the next person, but IMO, eating food someone else prepared for an event after the fact is depressing! It relates back to this idea about how nostalgia and carrying a torch for a time that has since passed is keeping us struggling and unable to focus on what's next. 

If it's impossible to talk the host out of giving you a doggy bag, then accept and move on to Plan B: Don't unpack the leftovers; rather, stick them in the fridge and grab them to bring to share with co-workers the next day. I like this alternative because it honors my belief that it's anathema to waste food, and it helps me to stay the course to achieve my goals. 

We all want to enjoy ourselves this holiday season, and avoiding engagements, refusing invitations, and walking around with carrot and celery sticks in a Tupperware is not enjoyment: it's a special brand of torture. However, the opposite extreme is equally miserable because we end up sacrificing our greater desires for the temporary pleasure of a fleeting indulgence; attempting to mitigate others' disapproval by making decisions about food that disregard our goals; and allow ourselves to get wrapped up in the feelings we have around food, therefore impeding us from listening to our true hunger and satiety clues. I'm not about to try and tell you that the holidays are a good time to focus on your fat loss goals with laser precision: let's just guess how miserable that would be. However, would it be possible to simply maintain? Remain consistent and let go of any crazy expectations of physique transformation and just enjoy straddling that middle ground? I am a firm believer that a lot of magic can happen in the gray, as opposed to when we cling too rigidly to either the black or the white. #embracethegrayarea