My Favorite Thing About Valentine's Day Was the Day After

When I was in college, my favorite thing about Valentine’s Day was the day after. 

My roommate and I would go to multiple stores and scoop up all the marked-down bags of conversation hearts. 

For days, we’d eat handful after handful of those chalky, pastel hearts until there were no more to be found anywhere in town.

Fat-Free Food Rule
I ate the candy with gusto not only because I enjoyed its taste (unsurprisingly, my favorite childhood candy was Necco Wafers) but also because it was fat-free. 

This was the fat-free era and like many others who were also following this latest diet trend, I had a food rule that my diet should contain as little fat as possible. 

Practically everything I ate was low-fat or fat-free from yogurt, cream cheese and ice cream to salad dressing, rice cakes and cookies (hello, Snackwell's!).

Since the conversation hearts contained zero fat, I was able to enjoy them without my internal Food Police berating me and making me feel guilty like it did when I consumed so-called "bad" foods.

Scarcity Mindset
Looking back at my love affair with conversation hearts, I can now see that another factor was at play: scarcity. 

Because the Valentine’s Day candy was only available for a few weeks a year, it triggered a scarcity mindset. (Unlike today, you couldn’t buy conversation hearts year-round online—internet shopping wasn’t even a thing yet.)

When something we need or desire is scarce or under the threat of scarcity, it’s a natural human response to want to get as much of it as possible as fast as possible before it’s gone. 

We’re simply trying to ensure our needs are met. Doing so feels essential to our safety and survival, even with something as unessential as conversation hearts. 

Understandably, we saw the scarcity mindset big time with many different things during the pandemic, especially in the early days when folks panicked over items like toilet paper. Many of us who never worried much about having enough toilet paper were suddenly frantically buying a ton more than we ever had before.

Spotting Scarcity
It’s helpful to understand when scarcity is playing a role with something you’re eating. 

Otherwise, you may mistakenly believe that you’re out of control, that you lack willpower and self-discipline, that you can’t be trusted with the food and should never have it again. After all, this is what diet culture teaches us to believe. 

The scarcity you’re experiencing may be intentional, such as purposefully restricting certain foods, like bread or sweets. 

It could also be unintentional, such as only having access to a particular food for a limited time perhaps due to supply shortages, budget constraints or a holiday item that only comes around once a year. 

If I had access to conversation hearts year-round and ate them whenever I wanted, my desire to consume bagfuls of them come Valentine’s Day would have been much less. 

By enjoying them on a regular basis, I would have habituated to them. Their novelty would have worn off and they wouldn’t have been such a big deal. 

While I may have still sought out marked-down bags the day after the holiday because I loved a good deal (still do!) and the colorful candy with its cute sayings, I likely wouldn’t have felt the need to buy every last bag since scarcity was no longer a factor.

Permission to Be Human
I encourage you to reflect on the role scarcity plays in your relationship with food. 

Can you recall a time when you experienced a scarcity mindset with a particular food? What was that experience like for you? 

Did you find yourself consuming a lot of it due to a sense of deprivation or out of fear that it was going away soon? If so, how did you respond? Did you feel out of control, guilty, ashamed or compelled to make up for it?

Knowing what you know now—that it’s natural human behavior to desire and eat a lot of something that’s scarce—can you treat yourself with understanding, grace and compassion when you experience scarcity eating in the future? 

Above all, can you give yourself permission to be human?

I Now Eat Xmas Cookies Guilt-Free. And Stopped Researching Diets.

What’s your relationship like with holiday eating?

Do you love all the holiday fare yet feel overwhelmed by anxiety, stress, guilt or shame for eating in ways you typically don’t? 

At night, do you lie in bed resolving to start a new diet and exercise program in January?

Do you wish you could enjoy the holiday season without being distracted by all the food noise in your head? 

If so, you’re not alone—and it doesn’t have to be this way.

My clients have discovered that after working for a while on divesting from diet culture and eating more intuitively, their experience with holiday eating is much different than years prior. 

Over the years, their comments have sounded like this...

Zero Strings Attached
“I used to give myself a free pass to eat anything I wanted during the holidays. It wasn’t really free, however, as I believed I had to pay the price come January 1 by going on another diet and working out more. It’s so liberating to be able to enjoy all my holiday favorites with zero strings attached.”

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Stopped Stuffing Myself
“Since I’m no longer planning to cut out carbs in January, I no longer feel the need to stuff myself with sweets before they are off-limits.”

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No Looming Threat
“From Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, I felt like I was engaging in one long Last Supper before my next diet started. The physical discomfort I felt from eating every meal as if it was going to be my last one convinced me all the more that I needed to get back on track in the new year. 

Thank goodness I now know it was the looming threat of another diet that was causing my scarcity-driven Last Supper eating. Without another diet around the corner, I'm now able to eat in a much more satisfying way.

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More Present and Engaged
“Once I started giving myself unconditional permission to eat whatever I want any day of the year, I stopped feeling obsessed with all the holiday food. I still love making it and eating it but I no longer think about it all the time. I'm now much more present for my loved ones and more engaged in other aspects of the season.” 

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Feel a Sense of Ease
“I used to go into the holiday season feeling deprived from my latest diet. As a result, I felt out of control with all that good food. It was like I had found water after being lost in the desert for months. I couldn’t get enough of it. Once I understood it was the dieting, not a lack of self-control, that caused me to eat in a binge-y way, I stopped restricting and eventually started feeling a sense of ease and peace with food."

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No Longer Feel Bad
“I still sometimes eat until I’m super full because the food is so delicious! The big difference is that I don’t feel bad about it anymore and I don’t feel like I have to make up for it.”

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Relief to Stop Researching
“In years past, I always spent New Year’s Day researching detox and diet plans. It’s a relief to know that this year I won’t be wasting my money on an expensive cleanse package or my time trying to learn the rules of a new diet program.”

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There's No Guilt
“My holiday eating is so much more enjoyable now that I no longer feel guilty for eating a bunch of Christmas cookies.”

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A Priceless Gift
Of course, the shift to more peaceful, pleasurable holiday eating doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to move away from diet culture toward a more intuitive relationship with food and your body.

Most people, including me, have found that with patience, practice and perseverance, the food stuff gets a little easier with each passing year.

To be able to eat with ease and gusto during the holiday season, and all year round, is a priceless gift—but even more so, it’s an inherent human right—that everyone deserves, including you.

You Don't Have to Earn Your Pie. Or Make Up for Eating It.

Along with all the delicious food, the Thanksgiving holiday often comes with an unsavory serving of diet culture.

For a pleasurable, peaceful eating experience, keep in mind these Thanksgiving don’ts:

1. You don’t have to earn it.
Despite what diet culture wants you to believe, you don’t have to do anything to earn your Thanksgiving meal. You don’t have to do an intense workout or not eat all day to deserve a spot at the table. 

2. You don’t have to make up for it.
Just like you don’t have to earn the right to eat, you don’t have to make up for your eating after the holiday by working out extra hard, skipping meals or starting a cleanse or diet.

3. You don’t have to justify.
Whether it’s having seconds or thirds, filling your plate with mostly mashed potatoes, or eating pie for breakfast, you don’t have to justify your choices to anyone. You have the right to eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

(For tips on handling the Food Police in your life, head on over to here.)

4. You don’t have to feel bad.
Diet culture wants you to feel bad, out of control, weak, guilty and ashamed for eating a lot. You don’t.

It’s normal to sometimes eat simply for pleasure and to sometimes eat until you're stuffed, especially when enjoying foods that are novel and only around for a brief period.

5. You don’t have to participate.
Just like people who avoid discussing religion, politics and money, you don’t have to participate in diet and weight talk.

One approach for navigating it, especially when dining with a wide range of people, is to nonchalantly change the subject.

For example, if your cousin starts raving about his latest diet or your mom comments on someone's weight, steer the conversation toward a different topic, such as “I’d love to know what shows everyone is into right now” or “What’s your favorite holiday memory?”

Of course, these five don’ts are helpful to practice not just on Thanksgiving, but every day of the year.