How to Manage Your Eating and Enjoy Christmas

Nurturing yourself through the pressures of Christmas. Part of the reason we eat so much at Christmas is that it's so easy to do it. Our whole culture makes it easy for us to do so. However, there are many traditions and habits associated with Christmas that can create pressure and obligations. One way to control your eating during Christmas is to politely decline food that you don't really want.

This is the second of my Christmas podcasts, where I talk about the pressures of Christmas, and guide you through the challenges of festive eating. I also share personal experiences and emphasise the importance of making conscious choices to take care of yourself during this time. 

• 11.24 - To end the episode, I tell a heart-warming Christmas story: 'What Happened Christmas Eve' by Oliver Herfold.

Another related podcast: How do I Stop Self-Criticism?

Get your Christmas Comfort Eating Recovery Checklist here

Citations
The Night Before Christmas

Transcript

  Today I'm going to talk about Christmas eating and I'm going to give you some tips on how to cope with that and I'm also going to read you another Christmas bedtime story. Hi, I'm Shelley Treacher from Underground Confidence. My podcast channel is about drip feeding you with nurturing  so that you can find a way to stop comfort eating  if you already know that emotions and stress trigger your comfort eating, You can get my Comfort Eating Starter Recovery Kit and this will start you off with everything that you need to know to start getting control of your eating.

 Today's podcast is the second in the Christmas series. . Last week I said that I would be doing three Christmas podcasts, but I'm not sure I'm going to have time next week,  so I'm going to talk about how you can start to get control of your eating this Christmas, today. If you want more than this, I have got this in a checklist format, which if you sign up for the Comfort Eating Recovery Starter Kit, you will also get. 

Eating's crazy at Christmas, isn't it? It's so easy for us to do it. 

And actually, that's why we eat so much. It's so easy to do it without thinking about it. But this really is the key to changing it. Thinking about it. You may not overcome comfort eating altogether at Christmas. It is a challenging time.

I doubt even I'll get away with it. But one way that you can drastically reduce your eating is to only eat what you want to eat. There's so many obligations at Christmas, both in family dynamics and traditions, and with eating. There's so many expectations of socializing around food. But you can do this differently by thinking about it in advance, planning certain things, like you might want to save leftovers in the freezer rather than eat them today.

You might want to decide what limits you're going to have, what limits would be ideal for you, realistically. Or you might want to take your own food to certain places. 

But the biggest impact you're going to have is saying no when people force food on you. When people offer you food, and you take it out of politeness or habit.

It is okay to say no thank you. And of course, there will be food pushers. There's probably food pushers in your life already, right? One of the most popular posts I posted in my group recently was not from me, of course. It was from one of the people in the group, asking for help because she'd been given some food that she didn't want to eat, but she knew she would eat if it was lying around her house.

There were lots of practical suggestions about what she could physically do with the food. This time of year, surely giving them to a shelter is probably going to be your best option. But perhaps the most effective thing to do, and possibly the most frightening for you, I understand that, is to practice saying something like this. 

" Thank you for the lovely food, it looks delicious, but I'm not eating sugar at the moment."

Or whatever it is that's real for you. 

The most important part of this is to be making your own choice. Your own thought about, conscious choice. 

Christmas can be challenging in so many different ways. If you've got a food pusher, it's also likely that you might have someone who invades your space a little bit too. Who expects you to do certain things at Christmas that you don't really want to do.

I dunno if you've seen the latest m and s advert where people set light to Christmasy things and throw games out of the window. An elf almost gets put in the chipper  . I really liked this advert. I was introduced to this advert by someone who was horrified by it. A family person who had

kids to entertain at Christmas who was just horrified that Christmas could be anything but family and togetherness. But of course I understand the other side of that. I hear all year long about how difficult Christmas can be for some families. So I loved this advert when it came out. I thought great, yeah, I actually hate playing games. 

I would happily throw those out the window. Far from what my friend's friend was thinking, I don't think it's about throwing all the nice traditions out the window. I think it's about allowing yourself to do what nurtures you. 

There's a vast difference between being narcissistically selfish and self compassion.

And family dynamics can be challenging at the best of times. 

And this can include other people's family dynamics. You might be spending Christmas with your husband's family. Oh, so hard sometimes. One of the worst Christmases I ever had was spending it with a boyfriend and his family.

It was so awkward.   The day started with the host offering me a cup of coffee. I don't drink caffeine, so I said no thank you.  And the day went on like this. She offered me mince pies. I said, I'm sorry. I don't eat mince pies. She offered me meat I'm sorry. I don't eat meat. 

I Was an awkward customer that day  but of course I tried to be gracious about it and I ate everything else that she offered and was very grateful to her for hosting me for Christmas. But gradually as the day went on, this wore her down.

So much so that by the end of the day she was being quite snippy with me.  Trying to understand now, looking back, of course I can see that she was probably hurt and felt that she was doing everything wrong. But I was mortified that someone in my boyfriend's family took such great objection to me. And it made me think after that about whether I really want to spend Christmas with other people's families ever again.

Of course it can hurt people when you say no to them, but it's gonna hurt you if you say yes. This is probably the backbone of Comfort Eating Recovery, actually. Finding a way and permission and the language to do what actually suits you better. So that's my one offering this year.

If you can pay a little more attention to what it is that suits you more You might just cut down some of your eating. Beyond this, make a list of your resources and watch out for brainwashing. Things in your head like, 

"It's Christmas. I can eat whatever I want. And then I'll go on a diet in January". 

It doesn't make any difference what time of year you do this. It's still going to make you feel terrible about it. 

Here's another phrase that you might identify with. "I'll have one if you're having some".

And of course people also have thoughts about wasting food. 

"I can't waste this. I must finish it."

You can freeze it. And it's probably okay to compost it too.  

One of the things that's been happening with my food recently, I've discovered that I am on the edge of having high blood pressure.

So I've started to change my eating and my diet accordingly. This is a hell of a motivator for me. My mother and my grandmother both died of heart attacks and strokes. I don't want that to happen to me. So as well as doing meditation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, exercise,  and trying to slow down, I've also stopped grazing.

I used to take pride in the fact that I eat tiny bits all throughout the day. I'd say things like, "oh yeah, I just eat little and often"

,. But actually I think I eat quite a lot.  And so what I've been doing is every time I look in the fridge and I think, Oh, I'll just have one of those cherries or whatever's in the fridge, I'm realizing that I'm grazing.

And I'm like, no, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm just having the meals that I have so that I can keep some kind of idea of what I'm actually eating.  

I know I usually advocate against calorie counting, but I've been nutrient counting and I've been observing how much salt is in everything that I eat, salt being the major thing that I need to cut down on for high blood pressure.

As an example, one day, I had what I thought was a healthy diet all day, and then I was a little bit hungry, and there was a carrot in front of me.  So I had a carrot. That took me over my salt quota for the day. I was really shocked by that. I'm sure there isn't a lot of salt in carrots, it probably just took me over the edge.

But that's so interesting, isn't it?  

So I'm not advocating calorie counting. I think that's too akin to dieting and deprivation and therefore rebellion and piling on the weight, which you don't want to do, right? But I am advocating looking at the nutrition you're receiving, perhaps on the back of this thought. Do I want this food? Will I actually enjoy this food? Or am I just having it because somebody's offered it to me and it's in front of me?

Perhaps on the back of that you can add a curiosity about what nutrients might be in that food, and what it will do for you, both emotionally and physically.

I also had another good experience with alcohol recently.

So, because of this anti grazing and looking at my high blood pressure, I was going out with a friend who I usually drink half a bottle of wine with once a month, and this time I was nervous of doing that. So, I was more conscious of how I felt while I was drinking, and I reached a point after two glasses where I don't think I really wanted any more, but there's always that thought of, shall I, shan't I?

So many things involved in that, the chemical craving, the emotional associations, the It's so easy. Why don't I? The, I'll go on a diet next week.  You know, there's so much that goes into it and much more than that. Nevermind the emotional side where I might've had a bad day and be thinking I need this.

But because I'd had a recent experience where I did overdo it with alcohol. And then felt awful and regretted it. I was mindful of all of this. And so I realised that I didn't want any more. And it just takes that moment to be conscious, you know. And then once you've made that decision, as I felt that day, I felt good about it because I was still a bit tipsy.

I was still getting the effects that I wanted. It was fun, but I didn't go overboard. It didn't make me tired the next day. Or the next week. As is what happens at my age now. 

And you know this experience, don't you? Where you've stopped yourself and then felt better later. 

If you don't have that experience with food or with alcohol, maybe you have it with something else. If you don't have that experience with anything, it might be time to start working on your boundaries.

I would like to help you with that. You can start by getting my Comfort Eating Recovery Starter Kit. The link is in the show notes, but you can also get in touch with me and I'll send it to you.

And don't forget that I also have a Christmas comfort eating survival checklist out. So please get hold of that. 

Now I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas, and I will see you in the new year if I don't see you by surprise beforehand. I want to thank you so, so much for listening to me this year.  I came back to doing podcasting this year after not being very well for a while.

 I lost a few of my audience in that time, which I'm  sad about, but I am so grateful for the few who stuck with me.  I hope that this has nurtured you through the process of your own comfort eating recovery journey. And if you need more than that, you know where to find me .

 And now I'm going to read you a very short Christmas story. This is: 'What Happened Christmas Eve'

by Oliver Herfold.  
It was Christmas Eve and the frost fairies were busy getting ready for Christmas Day. First of all they spread the loveliest white snow carpet over the rough, bare ground; then they hung the bushes and trees with icicles that flashed like diamonds in the moonlight. Later on, they planned to draw beautiful frost pictures on the window panes, to surprise the little children in the morning.

The stars shone brightly and the moon sent floods of light in every nook and corner. How could any one think of sleeping when there was such a glory outside!

Jessie and Fred had gone to bed very early so they might be the first to shout "Merry Christmas!" but their eyes would not stay shut.

"Oh dear! it must be 'most morning," said Fred; "let us creep softly down stairs and maybe we'll catch Santa Claus before he rides off."

Hand in hand they tiptoed to the dining-room and peeped out the big window;—surely, surely, that was something climbing up the roof of cousin Nellie's house; it must be old Santa. Fred gave a chuckle of delight; to be sure the reindeer were very queer looking objects, and the sleigh such a funny shape, but the children were satisfied.

The old fir tree, whose high branches almost touched the roof, knew all about those shadows, but it was so old no one could ever understand a word of the many tales it told.

"There's something scratching on the door," whispered Jessie; but it was only a mouse, who had sniffed the delightful odors of the Christmas goodies and was trying his best to find a way into the pantry and test them with his sharp teeth.

"Come," said Jessie, "we'll turn to icicles if we stay here much, longer"; so up-stairs they quickly scampered.

Papa had been to town on an errand, so it was quite late when he came home. As he was hunting in his pockets for his key, he heard a pitiful cry, and looking down he saw a big, white cat carrying a tiny kitten in her mouth.

"Poor thing," said papa, "you shall come inside till morning."

Santa Claus had been there with the nicest wagon for Fred and a warm, seal-skin cap that lay right in the middle of it. When papa left the room, puss and her kitty were curled up comfortably on the rug singing their sleepy song.

The sun was shining brightly in the dining-room window when Jessie and Fred made their appearance; then Fred just laughed with delight, for right in the crown of his new cap lay the cutest white kitten, with big, blue eyes and wee pink nose, while standins close by as if to guard her darling from danger, was good old mother puss.

"I never had a live Christmas present before," said Fred, "now I know Santa Claus read the letter I threw up the chimney because I told him to bring me a kitten and here it is."

Papa smiled and looked at mamma, and then everybody said "Merry Christmas" at once.