Christmas is coming, or some version of it. There are so many things to think about, not least how to stick to your diet. If that’s tying you up in knots, you’re not alone.
Will there be something there you can actually eat? How are you going to distract from the fact that you haven’t touched half the stuff on your plate? Will people notice? What if Auntie Mavis makes trifle and insists you eat it? Can you say you’ve had a stomach bug? An allergy? Would it be worth volunteering to work that day instead, just so you don’t have to face it all?
It starts to feel like the whole holiday season is a minefield and every one of those explosives has your name on it.
So how did it come to this?
Now, Christmas may or may not be about Santa, religion, family, giving presents, eating, Hallmark, debt, tinsel, loneliness, carols, time off work, cooking, Festivus, fighting with your siblings, Xmas movies, school holidays…
But here’s what it’s not really meant to be about – food obsession. Unfortunately, anxiety about food doesn’t magically disappear when the tinsel emerges. And it does a great job of sucking the joy out of any occasion, or heaping further anguish on an already angst-filled situation (depending on what your personal Xmas looks like).
You know something’s not right with your relationship with food when you find yourself making up excuses for not eating, or skipping events because navigating your way around food just feels too difficult. Or you make inflexible demands and people stop inviting you because frankly it’s just too hard. And that can be particularly alienating during the holidays. It prevents you from fully participating in so many traditions that are centred around a table. What began with restricting food ends up restricting your social connections and your emotional and mental wellbeing too.
Denial is not just a river
So, how do you get to a place where food anxiety doesn’t wreck Christmas?
Constant denial and obsessive, rigid adherence to rules kills your ability to listen to your body’s cues, to decouple pleasure from guilt, to clearly see the threshold that lies between enjoying what you’re eating and eating till you’re sick.
You stop making decisions for yourself when you start slavishly following rules. And when you break those rules, that can lead to catastrophising.
Let’s say that while you were lighting a candle you accidentally set the kitchen curtain on fire. A normal response would be to put the fire out, get some new curtains (or, you know, trim the burnt bits off). Or you can grab your pet and run for the hills because all is lost. It’s just a matter of time before everything else goes wrong. Logically, you might as well set the whole house on fire because the damage is done now, right?
That’s what happens when you catastrophise and get into an all-or-nothing mindset. Did you make one less than “perfect” choice? There’s nothing left to lose. You may as well go the whole hog. Eat till you drop! BURN EVERYTHING!!!!! Or you can even dress it up as being kind to yourself – Dear Santa, I’ve been good all year, I deserve to eat the whole cake. It’s my right, damn it!
Guess what happens if you eat that piece of cake? Nothing bad. Chances are you’ll realise it wasn’t the amazing experiencing your conjured up in your head leading to eating that slice of cake. Your taste buds have changed; you realise processed food doesn’t taste good after all. It’s just cake. Eat it (if you want to). If not, don’t force it. Just move on.
If you’ve set yourself on a rigid path though, stepping off it is going to feel like something important has happened, that you’ve been derailed, and that you might as well, at this point, eat the whole cake. You’ll probably feel sick. It just won’t be a nice experience, the way a reasonable amount would’ve been, which is kind of the whole point of cake.
Putting food in its place: practise makes perfect
Christmas comes once a year, but opportunities to practise having a healthy relationship with food come around often. Just as it took years to get here, it’s going to take practise to get back to a place where you can trust yourself around food. And the more often you’re in those situations, the better you’ll get at not overeating, and not overshadowing every experience with relentless worry that you will.
Here are some practical tips:
- Keep it simple. If someone offers you something you don’t eat, or don’t want to eat, reply with, “No thanks.” If they keep pushing you to eat it, that’s not your problem. You could, if you choose to, say, “I don’t eat bread,” or “I don’t eat meat,” or “I don’t eat dairy”. If you want to, explain that it’s a dietary requirement, or allergies, or you’re a vegetarian or a vegan. It’s up to you. How others respond is not your problem.
- Eat when you’re hungry and stop when you feel full or satiated.
- Eat with intention and attention. Whatever it is that’s in front of you, pay attention to it. If your favourite aunt has made something special that you actually want to eat, sit and enjoy it with her. Chew your food, notice the flavours and the cues your body gives when you are actually full. Some people call this mindfulness.
- Speaking of mindfulness: Stop thinking about the food. Yeah, that seems contradictory. What I mean is, stop giving food centre-stage all the time. Yes, food is a way of bringing people together, but it’s not the reason you’re there. You’re there to connect with people. So if you were lucky enough to be invited to a wedding, don’t worry about the exact ingredients on your plate that day. Catch the bouquet, or get up and have a dance. Your social connections are massively important to your health.
- Slow down. There are good physiological reasons to do this. When you take a bite of something, saliva tells your body to start the digestive mechanisms. But those processes take a bit of time. It’s like doing an Aldi shop – if you unload everything onto the conveyor belt too quickly, you’ll have a heck of a time getting it into the trolley in any kind of order. Slowing down turns on your parasympathetic nervous system (also known as “rest and digest”), you digestion works better, you digest more nutrients from your food, and you will eat less. It also helps prevent heartburn and indigestion.
- Write it down. You’re trying to forge new pathways in your brain, change your thinking about food. That’s no easy task, and it helps to be explicit about the message. Write down some personal, positive thoughts around food. Keep a copy in your wallet, or on the fridge, or on the bathroom mirror. Read it often, in your head or out loud. Write something like: Food is not the centre of attention at social events, my friends are. Junk food doesn’t taste good. Food that makes me feel good tastes great.
- Think about counselling. Whether it’s well-meaning family and friends or cruel strangers, judgement from others isn’t something you can control, and it can have a huge effect on mental health. For many of us, our relationship with food is complex, traumatic, historical and emotional and no amount of reading about nutrition is going to entirely address that. The holiday period makes all of this much harder. Think about getting external support and always, always reach out if you’re feeling overwhelmed.
The ghost of Christmas future
When you have a good relationship with food, you won’t pay too much attention to it. Christmas Day won’t start with starving yourself beforehand so you’ll be allowed to eat something at the family lunch, or filling yourself up earlier so you don’t have to touch anything that doesn’t conform to your rules.
That McDonald’s burger you usually grab on your way home (because you’re setting everything on fire now) really isn’t going to taste that great. Why would it when your everyday eating involves genuinely good food, and denial isn’t putting that stuff up on a pedestal?
You’ll notice when something stops feeling good, so you might get full long before you’ve finished something that you would have inhaled in double the quantity last year. And because this isn’t your only chance to enjoy something ever, you’ll put the spoon down when you’ve had enough. You don’t have to finish it. There will be a next time.
Plenty of other things about the day might still stress you out, but what you eat won’t be one of them. Food will be fuel, part of the cultural experience, an expression of love and giving, and, if you’re lucky, something you will never have to go without.
That doesn’t mean you can’t make decisions around it – people do it all the time for all kinds of reasons. Maybe you’re a vegetarian or have religious reasons for not eating certain things. Perhaps you can’t digest some specific foods, or Brussel sprouts make you want to die of disgust. Maybe you have a health condition that means some food rules are not negotiable.
Those decisions are entirely your business. And there’s no shame associated with any of it, no hiding, no covering up. Eventually people will move on to something else, like why Roger’s cousin has no dress sense, and did you see the look he gave Beryl when she asked him how the cream she’d recommended was working out?
Of course, relegating food to the background is so much easier said than done. But it’s important to remember:
The food choices you make on this day won’t make you a better or a worse person.
It’s one day.
Your relationship with food is over a lifetime.
If you’d like some support or guidance on that continuing relationship, please get in touch.
Meanwhile, I hope everyone who has a break gets some joy out of it, and those who have to work through manage to have a bit of fun too! See you in 2020.
