During the holiday’s many people are afraid of overeating and feel very guilty about food. But how to get to a point when you don’t feel guilty nor have a desire to binge eat? Ever. How to eat the delicious holiday food without shame or remorse, feeling full and satisfied following your normal hunger cues?
As many of you know I used to have bulimia and I was fighting binge eating for years. I tried different ways to fix my eating but nothing worked. But I discovered some key factors that started my recovery journey and ended all my problems with food. Now I am fully recovered, can eat when hungry stop when full and have no desire to binge eat. Not even during the holiday season.
In this video and article, I want to give you some of the key mindset shifts that worked for me, how to get rid of the constant need to overeat or binge eat and how I made peace with food.
1. Ditch the diet mentality
Diet mentality is one of the biggest reasons we have problems with constant overeating and binge eating. Diets do not work! And even the diet mentality does not work and will keep us binge-prone and miserable because the diet mentality underlying message is restriction and deprivation.
For example, you allow yourself to eat the delicious holiday food, all the amounts and specific foods you desire…BUT you know it will only last until the holiday season is over because from the 1st of January you gonna be “good again” and start another diet and exercise program to “burn off all the calories”. This kind of thinking, however, creates the “last supper eating”-mindset. When you binge today (feeling shame and guilt) because you know from “tomorrow” another diet will start. Welcome to the neverending binge-restrict cycle!
Watch the video about the “Diet Mindset” HERE.
2. Give yourself the unconditional permission to eat
When you ditch the diet mentality then the next step is to practice giving yourself an unconditional permission to eat. To allow yourself food not only physically but mentally as well. And most importantly, without guilt shame, no “shoulds” or “musts, with no “good and bad foods” mindset. Without the perfectionism mindset or choosing foods based on lower calorie amounts or what is “healthier” substitute. You have full permission to eat whatever, whenever and however much you want. For the rest. of. your. life!
If you approach the holiday eating with this mindset then you heal any guilt you have during eating. No more stepping into the cycle of “binge today and restrict tomorrow” and the relationship you have with food will heal.
Watch the video about giving yourself the “Unconditional Permission To Eat” HERE.
3. Enjoy the holiday season but food is not the most important part of it!
Food is a necessary part of our lives. We can eat it with full freedom, to enjoy it and celebrate it. But food should not be the most important focus in our lives. Food is just food. It’s not part of your personality or a moral issue. Especially during the holidays, we should shift our focus towards things that really matter – your family, important relationships, loving conversations and feeling grateful. Food is not worth obsessing over, fighting over (in your mind) or to be made the central focus of our lives. The more you ditch the diet mentality and give yourself the unconditional permission to eat during the holidays the more you are actually able to focus on the truly important things in your life. The stuff that really matters!
Hope you like the video and the tips! Wish you happy (and guilt and deprivation-free) holidays!
