4 Gifts to Give Yourself this Holiday Season

If you’re desiring a more peaceful relationship with food and your body, here are four gifts to consider giving yourself this holiday season.

1/ Silence Your Food Grinch
Silence the Grinch (a.k.a. the Food Police) in your head that says you're being bad for enjoying all the yummy holiday fare.

Unless you stole the food or harmed someone to get it, there is absolutely no reason to feel bad, guilty or ashamed about your food choices.

You also never have to earn the right to eat anything or make up for your eating.

(For more holiday Intuitive Eating tips, click here.)

2/ Ditch Diet Culture Content
To help you move away from diet culture and the diet mentality—and stop spending so much time, energy and headspace thinking about food and your body—ditch any content regarding dieting, food restrictions, good and bad foods, weight loss, the thin ideal, fitspo and so on.

Do an audit of all the content you engage with including social media, videos, TV shows, podcasts, apps, websites, blogs, newsletters, magazines, books, cookbooks, etc.

Consider replacing this content with more supportive resources in areas such as Intuitive Eating, Health at Every Size, body liberation and size diversity.

3/ Toss Your Scale
It’s so easy to let the number on your scale define you, to dictate how you feel about yourself and determine how you go about your day.

By tossing (or donating) your scale, you're reclaiming your power from a piece of junk that’s completely incapable of measuring your innate worth and overall wellbeing.

If you’re not quite ready to get rid of your scale, put it in an inconvenient spot, like the back of your closet or a high shelf in your garage.

4/ Skip the Dieting Bandwagon
Resolve to not jump on the dieting bandwagon come January. And when I say dieting, I mean any eating, lifestyle or wellness plan with a bunch of food rules and eating restrictions.

Diets erode your ability to trust your body and your instincts, and negatively impact your physical and psychological wellbeing. Plus, they suck all the joy out of eating and living. 

If you are tempted to go on a diet, which is completely understandable given the world we live in, I encourage you to learn about the potential negative side effects—everything the diet companies don’t warn you about—so you can make an informed decision. If you have a history of dieting, you’re likely quite familiar with these outcomes.

Beyond the Holidays
If you want help getting off the dieting roller coaster and giving yourself the gift of a more peaceful relationship with food and your body that lasts well beyond the holidays, I'm here for you.

Josie's Hit Diet Rock Bottom. Have You, Too?

Josie has been dieting for more than 20 years.

At the age of 11, she went on her first diet. She’s been riding the dieting roller coaster ever since.

Over the years, she’s tried dozens of plans and programs, some of them multiple times.

She can easily rattle off the number of calories, points and carbs in hundreds of different foods.

Again and again, she’s felt the euphoria that comes with weight loss—and the shame that accompanies rebound weight gain.

When friends, co-workers and celebrities have raved about their new diet, she’s always jumped on board believing “This might finally be the one!”

Lately, however, she just can’t muster up her usual enthusiasm.

She’ll start a new diet then abandon it after a week or two.

Her decades of yo-yo dieting have left her feeling frustrated, exhausted, depressed and hopeless—and like a huge failure.

Josie's ready to throw her hands up in the air.

She's finally hit diet rock bottom.

Hitting Diet Rock Bottom
Although she’s unhappy with her weight, Josie can’t stand the thought of going on another diet.

She can’t stomach one more Last Supper, one more Monday of starting over, one more list of good and bad foods.

She’s burned out on tracking, counting, measuring and weighing.

She’s sick of letting her bathroom scale dictate her mood, her behavior and how her day unfolds.

So much of her life, she feels, has been wasted obsessing over every bite, feeling guilty about her choices and strategizing how she can make up for her food sins.

Josie’s tired of packing her own food to take to social gatherings and being preoccupied at parties by all the food she’s not allowed to eat but really, really wants.

She’s sad about how many events she’s skipped because she feared falling off the wagon or didn’t like how she looked.

After decades of being told what to eat, Josie doesn’t even know what she likes anymore.

She eats what she thinks she should, which often leaves her feeling unsatisfied and, understandably, scrounging for more food.

Her long list of food rules has sucked all the joy and pleasure out of eating.

The more she deprives herself, the more she finds herself eating in secret and bingeing on all her forbidden foods.

Many foods are banned from her house because she simply doesn’t trust herself with them.

Josie’s tired of denying her cravings, sneaking food, swinging from restricting to bingeing, and feeling out of control and ashamed.

She’s flat out dieted-out.

No matter how tempting the latest diet may sound, she now knows all too well that it will not improve her relationship with food and her body—it will only make it worse.

Yet, she doesn’t know what to do. For most of her life, all she’s known is dieting.

Sound Familiar?
If any of this sounds familiar, you’ve likely hit diet bottom, too.

Please know, you’re not alone.

I’ve heard hundreds of stories like Josie’s over the years.

And while you might feel like you’re stuck and at a dead end, you’re not.

There is another way; it's called Intuitive Eating.

Intuitive Eating isn't a plan or program but rather a set of guideposts that lead you back to the intuitive eater you can into this world as before diet culture disconnected you from your innate wisdom. 

It's about rejecting the diet mentality and trusting your body's inner cues (e.g., hunger, fullness, pleasure, satisfaction) to guide your eating instead of external rules.

By putting the same effort you put into dieting toward getting out of it, you can cultivate a more peaceful, trusting and roller coaster-free relationship with food and your body.

I don't have any magical powers. Neither do my clients. If we can reclaim our ability to eat intuitively, so can you.

5 Gifts to Give Yourself this Holiday Season

If you’re desiring a more peaceful, trusting and relaxed relationship with food and your body, here are five gifts to consider giving yourself this holiday season.

1/ Wear Comfortable Clothing
You know those holiday party clothes in your closet that haven’t fit comfortably in years, if ever? Get rid of them.

Instead, buy, borrow or rent an outfit that fits your here-and-now body—one that makes you feel fabulous instead of frustrated.

2/ Smash Your Scale
It’s so easy to let the number on your scale define you, to dictate how you feel about yourself and determine how you go about your day.

By smashing your scale, you're reclaiming your power from a worthless piece of junk that’s completely incapable of measuring your innate worth and overall wellbeing.

Of course, you can donate your scale; however, it’s a lot more fun to smash it! Just be sure to wear safety goggles.

3/ Silence Your Food Grinch
Silence the Grinch (a.k.a. the Food Police) in your head that says you’re being bad and will have to pay for eating all the yummy holiday fare.

Unless you stole the food or harmed someone to get it, there is absolutely no reason to feel bad, guilty or ashamed about your food choices. Nor do you ever have to make up for your eating.

(For more holiday Intuitive Eating tips, click here.)

4/ Take Timeouts
Despite all the delight the holidays bring, the season can be quite stressful. When you’re overwhelmed, it’s easy to become disconnected from your body and its needs.

Strive to take regular timeouts for rejuvenating, centering self-care, whether it’s going for a walk, soaking in the tub, meditating by the fire, or getting lost in a book.

You can also try my number-one holiday stress buster.

5/ Ditch Dieting
Resolve to not jump on the dieting bandwagon come January. And when I say dieting, I mean any eating, lifestyle or wellness plan with a bunch of food rules and restrictions.

Diets erode your ability to trust your body and your instincts, and negatively impact your physical and psychological wellbeing. Plus, they suck all the joy out of eating and living.

Beyond the Holidays
If you want to get off the dieting roller coaster and give yourself the gift of a more peaceful relationship with food and your body that lasts well beyond the holidays, I invite you to check out my individual coaching program.