It is all about the Love

It is all about the Love

by | Feb 18, 2022 | Holidays, Lifestyle, Self-Love

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What is the most important love?

Self-love is the most important kind of love available. We often look at love of a partner, family and friends AND leave out the most important person= YOU.

I wrote a whole chapter about Self-Love in my book: Feed Your Soul; Nourish Your Body!
A Six Step System to Peace with Food. Self-Love is one important component in making peace with food. When you have food issues, partly we being to think so negatively about ourselves. Focusing time and effort on self-love helps with food issues.
Being loving is not always present in our society today. There is a lot of negativity all around. I noticed so much more with the rise of the internet and the rise of unfiltered comments.

Isn’t Self-Love selfish? 

We are primed to not value being loving to ourselves, and it can be considered selfish. We often tend to overlook self-love for fear of being selfish. As I stated above, self-love is the most important kind of love.

Why is self-love so important? 

There are different aspects to consider at when we look at Self-Love:

  1. Self-Esteem- which is how you feel about yourself. Your sense of value and good feelings about yourself.
  2. Self-Worth- which is how you see your value in the world. Do you think you have a right to exist? This is such a difficult concept, especially when we have food and weight issues.
  3. Body Image- how do you feel about your body? Do you think you are ugly, not worthy and thinking you take up took much space?

When we are in alignment with our self-esteem, self-worth, and positive body image- it is easier to love ourselves. When we have disordered eating or binge eating, we can feel horrible about ourselves AND our bodies. This feeling keeps us stuck in the negativity. Without self-love there is not a way out of this spiral downward. More than anything focus on increasing your self-love and your feeling about yourself and your eating will balance out. 

5 ways to engage in Self-Love: 

  1. Start and end the day by saying something positive to yourself. This sets up your mind and spirit for the positive. You can do it more often during the day for a greater effect.
  2.  Stop judgment of yourself and others. There is a lot of danger in comparing ourselves to others. If it is not uplifting and it brings you down. It does not matter what anyone else does if it is uplifting to you. 
  3. Be at peace in your mind. How do you think about yourself? How much to you ruminate on what is going wrong and what is bad? Critical thoughts of yourself and others. Peace can come in so many ways- I like to journal those thoughts, I like conscious journaling (morning pages) which frees my mind daily from all the chaos.
  4. Say no to people, places, and things you need to say no to. Is there chaos around you? People who are not kind to you? Self-love means I invite people to be with me that are kind and loving to me. I can be more loving to myself when I surround myself with loving people. Remember before when we talked about the negativity on the internet and especially social media. Consider saying no to negative people who fill your feed with toxic statements. I have let go of many people on social media who just talk cruelly about others. I think it is ok to hear other opinions on social media, but not toxic statements. 
  5. Notice the negative statements you make about yourself. Consider how you would talk to your child, niece, or nephew- a cherished child. Think of yourself as that cherished child. Tell that child side of yourself how great they are.

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a Counselor, Speaker, Podcaster, and Inspirational Coach who specializes in working with people who suffer from binge eating and emotional eating. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She is the author of the book Feed Your Soul Nourish Your Life! A Six Step System to Peace with Food and the Amazon #1 Best Selling book Discovery Your Inspiration. 

You can hear Kim talk more on this topic on her podcast Feed Your Soul with Kim and you can find it on all podcast platforms. 

Wondering if you are an emotional eater? Sign up for the free Am I an Emotional Eater Quiz. 

What Happens When We Don’t Focus on Gratitude?

What Happens When We Don’t Focus on Gratitude?

by | Dec 9, 2021 | Holidays, Lifestyle, Self-Love

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When some people think of gratitude, they think of the Thanksgiving holiday. But to focus on gratitude we must move the conversation beyond the annual holiday. It must be a way of life, which can have a deep impact on you. 

Just as gratitude can have a positive effect on you; refusing to express gratitude has a host of negative effects including these three problems…

First, without gratitude, you can experience poor self-image.

It might seem like a stretch to say that self-image can be boosted with gratitude. Truthfully, when you focus on what you don’t have, it’s easy to develop a poor self-image. We then compare ourselves to others and we always come out lacking. Gratitude allows us to be grateful for what we have right now- no matter what. It allows us to see the good in today. 

We can tend to focus on what we do not have, maybe feel jealous of what others have, thinking how we are different, and do not match up to others. We focus on our flaws, lack and deficits, which leads us to a loop of negative thoughts. These negative thoughts increase the negativity towards ourselves: poor self-image. 

Second, without gratitude there is difficulty with forgiveness.

I know that forgiveness is easier said than done. Bad things happen that are tough to get over and even tougher to forgive: car accidents, violence, name calling, others inflicting pain. 

We tend to want the other person to “pay for what they have done.” Generally whatever consequence they get (if they get one) is not seen as enough to pay for the damage. 

Ultimately, there is freedom for the person doing the forgiving, which helps them let the situation go and not let it eat away at them. 

Third, without gratitude there is a negative mindset. 

Paying too much attention to what you don’t have can create a negative mindset. We can tend to see that others have more than we do and feel jealous about it. This leads to us feeling negative. 

The cure is to see what you already have as a blessing, because it is a way to turn the jealousy into more positive feelings and we are in the feeling of gratitude. 

Finally, don’t allow negativity, bitterness, or poor self-image to keep you from living your best life! 

Gratitude is a choice and it’s one you can make right now, no matter what’s happening around you. We can all think of how life is bad AND the change comes with the focus on what is right. I always tell myself: What I focus on grows. I chose the good!

Honestly, gratitude can change your whole life—find out how when you download your free Gratitude eBook and Journal! Get it now- here is the link

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a Counselor, Speaker, Podcaster, and Inspirational Coach who specializes in working with people who suffer from binge eating and emotional eating. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She is the author of the book Feed Your Soul Nourish Your Life! A Six Step System to Peace with Food and the Amazon #1 Best Selling book Discovery Your Inspiration. 

You can find Kim on her podcast Feed Your Soul with Kim and you can find it on all podcast platforms. 

Wondering if you are an emotional eater? Sign up for the free Am I an Emotional Eater Quiz. 

Intuitive Eating at Thanksgiving

Intuitive Eating at Thanksgiving

by | Nov 12, 2021 | Binge eating, Holidays

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Can you be an intuitive eater at Thanksgiving?

It can seem like an oxymoron to say you are being an intuitive eater at Thanksgiving because they don’t really seem to go together.

Doesn’t seem like if you’re going to talk about Thanksgiving, it’s about overeating, about having a lot of different foods and about binging. When we talk about intuitive eating, that’s about becoming more in touch with your body and what your body needs. 

I don’t think intuitive eating and Thanksgiving are talked about enough. 

I have learned that after years of being an intuitive eater, and helping other intuitive eaters, I know it is possible. And I know that it works at Thanksgiving, because I’ve done it myself and my clients have done it also. 

I call this time of year the Holiday trifecta, which is the time between October 1 and December 31 when there are many different holidays. This is really the time of year where people are encouraged to binge and to overeat. And we really give ourselves a pass on eating intuitively. I’m okay if you want to overeat. That’s fine.

If you do want to overeat, consider if it is coming from the backlash from the diet mindset, right? I have talked about this often on the Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast and in my blog: that the diet mindset (the dieting and restricting) leads us to binging, at certain times. I think this is what actually leads us to binge over the holidays and then we restrict throughout the year.

Binging over the holidays is socially acceptable, as long as you plan to diet in January. It’s this never-ending cycle. I want to wonder with you if you could plan to eat intuitively 365 days a year? Eating on Thanksgiving is no different than eating on February 3rd, right? They’re not different. And we could come to the table like literally and figuratively in the same way through using intuitive eating all throughout the year. 

Over the holidays, marketers create a feast or famine mindset with holiday foods!

I find this time of year is really challenging, because we’re really met with the idea of special foods. Those foods that only come out during the holiday time. And they’re available only for a limited time. They’re special and you can’t get them at any other time of the year.

Starbucks is great at this. They’re great about having the pumpkin spice latte that comes out on a certain day and lasts for a limited time. There’s this limited time where you can get it and that’s just like restriction. Throughout the whole year we cannot get pumpkin spice latte (it is like a restriction) and we know it will end soon, so we look forward to it and go crazy over it, because it’s in such limited supply.

This is where marketing does that kind of feast and famine idea. And then we buy more of it!

I also became aware of this binge/restrict idea over the holidays when I thought about the foods that we have at Thanksgiving time. I thought about and realized that I literally could have any of those items in that holiday meal anytime throughout the year.

I wonder for you, if you allowed yourself to have these foods at any time of the year, if they felt like they were something that wasn’t special, but that were regular. If you wanted it, I tend to not have the holiday foods the other time of the year because I just make other choices. 

Intuitive Eating means food is not restricted and I can have what I want. 

I don’t need to restrict all year, and then binge at the holiday time. It is the dieting mindset (I need to restrict) that can lead you binge over the holidays. 

Consider the concept of habituation, which is when you have full free access to foods that you want: you are not denied foods. This is what happens around Halloween and candy. If you have access to candy throughout the year, Halloween doesn’t become that big of a deal. When you have the food in your regular rotation as what you can just have, it’s just food that you have. It doesn’t feel like you’ve been restricted during the other part of the year. Habituation is one way to get out of that dieting mindset.

The messages about binging are so pronounced this time of year. It is constantly in our faces about having this food, about how special it is, and how you should just eat. If you want it eat it. That is fine. Just recognize that when we intuitively eat, there is always the opportunity to eat what we want.

The idea of overeating at the holidays is ingrained in our society. 

I just want you to be aware that its part of our society and kind of we made the decision to jump into that mindset and to be a part of it. And I’m saying there is a way to jump out of it. 

Some ideas that are ingrained in our society are: 

  1. We should exercise heavily on Thanksgiving, so then we can have permission to overeat later in the day. This comes from the mindset that we have to punish ourselves with exercise, so that we can eat more later on in the day. 
  2. A long time ago, when I would go to weight loss programs, I remember going quite a few times at Thanksgiving time and we’d be given a paper plate. We were supposed to plan out what we would have on the plate on Thanksgiving. We’d be told the number value to each of the foods (points, calories, macros, etc.). You would then pick all the foods that you wanted, and you’d write it on your plate and write the number value equal to what you were allowed to have on that day. Then that was what you were going to eat for your holiday meal. I was planning what I would have on Thanksgiving days/weeks before it was even that day. Truthfully, I do not know what I really want until the day of. It was expected you would eat the items and amount that was written on your plate, and then you’d stop. Then you were expected to just stop without any real way of making that happen. Or reason why. It was not based on hunger or satiety, just on what number value you were allowed to eat. 
  3. I also know people will not eat to have the super large Thanksgiving meal. This is restricting to overeat. This is part of the dieting mindset. If you do this consider what you’re doing and notice how it set you up for failure.
  4. Another thing that happens over the holiday is overeating your favorite foods, because it’s the only day you’re going to have it. Telling yourself, I’m going to really go all in because this is the only day, I’m going to have this food. Well, like I said earlier, really this food, at least in the United States is available all the time. Really think about if it’s this one special food, and you want to have it other days of the year, have it other days of the year. That’s what Intuitive Eating is all about. 
  5. Overeat on Thanksgiving Day and expect to be physically uncomfortable. I know of people who overeat at Thanksgiving knowing they will be sick. They have pills or supplements available to curb the upset stomach. Ask yourself, why am I eating foods that make me sick or eating quantities that make you sick. This is another place where Intuitive Eating is so helpful. We believe you should eat what you want and eat until you’re satisfied. 
  6. I have learned many low calorie, low fat and not tasty foods. You make the version of the item to be low calorie, low fat. It was never the tasty version of it. You’re eating something that really isn’t as satisfying. Intuitive Eating says to eat what you like, eat what tastes good. 

How can you be more intuitive at the holiday meals? Here are some things I do:

First, my family choses to be active on Thanksgiving. Our family has a tradition to do a local turkey trot, because it’s fun, people dress in fun clothing and a great community gathering. If we’re not able to do that, we’ll go take a long walk on Thanksgiving. We don’t do it to burn calories. We do it because it feels good. 

Second, I eat my regular meals, at regular times, just like normal. The Thanksgiving meal is one meal of the day, I don’t come to the table starving. I don’t come with expectations of eating a whole lot or eating a little. I come to the table with expectations of putting a reasonable portion on my plate, the amount that I want and the food that I want. I’ll tell myself that if I want to have more, I can go back and get more. And what I find is now that I’ve been doing intuitive eating for quite a few years, is that I’m pretty good on what my portion size is, and I don’t need to go back for more. But I don’t have this internal obsession about having more food.

Third, I pay attention to my hunger cues and eat when hungry. I also notice my satiety cues (fullness) and stop when full. I scan my body and start noticing how hungry am I? Do I want more food is my body needing more food, what might be my right kind of food? I don’t want to eat in a way that’s going to make me feel sick. 

Lastly, I pay attention to my emotions. Emotions are one of the six components of feeding your soul. I always make my mental plan about how I will take care of myself emotionally throughout Thanksgiving. I put together my plan of what I need to do to take care of myself. If I feel overwhelmed or a little bit overloaded with people or with what’s going on, I tend to I might take a walk, go talk to different groups of people, or changing the subject helps me a lot. Taking a deep breath helps me emotionally. I have ideas of what I can do emotionally, so that I just feel really calm and centered throughout the whole event. 

Consider is what you might need for the holiday this year. If you were going to enter the into this in more of an intuitive eating kind of wait, what might you do? You could try one of my ideas or use some of your own. I encourage you to consider them and make your plan in advance for how you can be more of an intuitive eater during this time of year. It is always my goal to have peace around food and peace in our lives because that it just feels better that way. I encourage you to try intuitive eating this year and see how it can work for you.

(Note: you can listen to this blog on the Feed Your Soul with Kim podcast)

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a Counselor, Speaker, Podcaster, and Inspirational Coach who specializes in working with people who suffer from binge eating and emotional eating. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. 

Ready to make changes in your life and with food? Sign up for Emotional Eating Solutions 8-week Self Study Course here. 

Determine if you are an Emotional Eater by signing up for the free Am I an Emotional Eater Quiz at https://kimmclaughlin.influencersoft.com/FYSU-EE

You can find Kim on her podcast Feed Your Soul with Kim and you can find it on all podcast platforms.

Kim is the author of the book Feed Your Soul Nourish Your Life! A Six Step System to Peace with Food and the Amazon #1 Best Selling book Discovery Your Inspiration.

Holiday Trifecta_ Candy Edition

Holiday Trifecta_ Candy Edition

by | Nov 4, 2021 | Binge eating, Emotional Eating, Holidays

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You can’t enter the store without candy being front and center right now. I call this time of year the Holiday Trifecta- the candy addition.

 What is the Holiday Trifecta????

The Holiday Trifecta is the 3 months between October 1 and December 31st.

Where we’re inundated with food that is different than what we have during the rest of the year.

There’s a lot of concern this time of year about:

  • Overeating
  • Emotional eating
  • Gaining weight 

All of the food issues this time of year leads to dieting in January. These 3 months set up up to overeat!!!!! 

Sometimes we’ll go into this time-period with kind of an abandon:

  1. I’m just going to eat all I want to eat this  holiday.
  2. On January 1st, I’m going to diet and lose all the weight. 
  3. I’m going to regain “control over food” at the first of the year. 

I encourage you to think about this all differently.

There are these strong messages that you can’t control food.

Those messages show up during the holiday time because it feels it can feel kind of out of control.

The message come January one the way you are supposed to control it then is to diet.

We have that binge diet cycle going on, that’s hard to get out of, we also can get the message that we can’t stop eating once we start, which reinforces the idea that we shouldn’t even start eating.

If we do eat these things that we think are bad, that then we’re feeling out of control. We think we shouldn’t be eating it in the first place. Also, we know that eating is super pleasurable.

It’s been the way that we’ve coped with different issues in life- through eating.

  1. If we’re happy
  2. When we’re excited
  3. At times of sadness
  4. Feeling lonely.

The holidays can be some of the greatest times for coping with feelings. 

Another occurance over the holidays is the sheer amount of special foods. These special foods come out once a year. Right now it is candy and soon enough it will be the next set of special foods.  

The candy can show up at work, school and when our children trick or treat.

It is all over the place. 

Once a year we often feel obliged to buy the bags and bags of candies. 

This is the one time of year that candy consumption is huge and socially acceptable.  We allow binging on candy on Halloween, and it is very normal to engage in that behavior.

This time of year the special foods come out the ones that show up once a year. 

There’s a big lookout for the release of the Pumpkin Spice Latte, which Starbucks puts out only this time of year. It’s for a short period of time. If you want to have it, it’s one of those foods that’s going to go away at Starbucks. This is brilliant marketing because it gets you wanting this thing. And then you might have a lot of it because you know, you’re going to be deprived of it for the rest of the year, that kind of idea of it’s a restriction for the rest of the year. So when it comes out, you might tend to binge these things like a pumpkin spice latte.

The binging can happen becuase the food only shows up a short period of time, it is tasty AND it has fond memories.

There are other special foods that we bring out this time of year:

  • Holiday cookies
  • Cheesecake
  • Turkey
  • Gravy
  • Ham
  • Lots of foods we don’t have the rest of the year.

We binge on them, because we don’t allow ourselves to have them any other time of the year. 

When we allow ourselves the holiday foods throughout the year, they lose their hold on us to binge them. 

We know through the research about habituation is that the more we’re allowed to have these foods, that the less they have control over us.

Literally, if we allowed ourselves to have candy, turkey cheesecake throughout the year they wouldn’t have such a draw for us this one time of year. We wouldn’t be binging on them because they wouldn’t have that big of a grasp on us. 

It’s interesting that at a local fitness center, one of the things they’re doing in the month of November is a “no candy” November. You win a prize at the end of the month if you don’t eat candy. And I thought that was interesting because that once again goes to the idea of restricting ourselves from certain foods because we can’t control them.

If we are in this kind of group setting, then we’re buying into the idea that I need to restrict candy because I can be out of control with it. And it’s interesting to me that so many people buy into that mindset of “I need to eliminate a type of food, because I can be out of control with it.” They didn’t say, let’s eliminate soup or let’s eliminate salad or let’s eliminate apples, because there’s good/bad concept associated with candy. 

Consider and wonder, if you are falling into that kind of mindset of, “I shouldn’t have any more candy.” 

There was trick or treating the other day and now there’s all this leftover candy. I know people that will sell it to the dentist, who then send it to troops overseas, which is kind of a nice thing to do, because they deserve as much a sweet treat as anybody. But there’s also this idea that you need to get rid of the candy because you can be out of control with candy. 

Maybe what makes you out of control with candy is that you deny yourself of it. 

It’s just a different way of looking at it. And it becomes more in alignment with the intuitive eating idea that we talk about here. We know from research is that we binge that there’s a diet/binge cycle that happens. 

Here is a way to look at what happens:

Diet/Restrict leads to Binge leads to Shame leads back to Diet/Restrict: it is a cycle

Think of this cycle as a circle where you start dieting/restricting, because you do not like how your weight or how much you have been eating. Then, at some point, you binge, because you have been deprived. This binging leads to feeling shame (I have myself, I am mad at myself, or I am afraid I will gain weight).

The only way we know how to deal with the shame is to go back and diet/restrict. We think this will solve the problem. And we start the cycle all over again. What I want to do is help you get out of that dieting binge cycle, because it just is a circle, it goes around and around and around. 

It and it’s becoming harder and harder to notice what are diets because they’re touted as being healthy a healthy lifestyle, a healthy way of eating. Generally, those are code words for diet and restriction. 

The other thing we know about binging and how to start noticing when this is going on is that we start to look at food is good and bad. This is good food, this is bad food, this is what I should eat, this is what I shouldn’t eat.

There’s a right food, there’s a wrong food, there’s healthy food, there’s unhealthy food.

And we, we think that if we eat these certain foods, that the outcome will be that we’ll get fat. You think you must avoid this bad food, because you’ll get fat from it. Or I’ll feel bad about my body, or I’ll be out of control, and I can’t stop. We tend to want to keep that bad food out of our out of being in front of us.

I was just so earlier just talked about that fitness center that’s having a contest to not eat candy all month. That is because they’re calling candy, bad food. And what we know is that when we start calling it bad, ultimately, we’ll want to have it because calling it bad and not having it is a form of restriction. And we’re ultimately going to have it. 

 

What I look to do with people is to help develop this idea of peace with food and this way of being a peace with food. And it’s very, very doable. So, let’s talk now about what we can do to get off of this holiday trifecta of candy being a bad food where we can’t have it or we can’t have it around. What I want you to do is to:  

  1. Start being curious. If you want to have candy right now, wonder what’s going on? Am I really wanting it and I responding because I’ve not allowed myself to have it before? Is it that I’m scared about it? Am I concerned about having it? Am I sneaking it and trying to not let others know that I’m eating and begin to have this kind of inquisitive style about what you are thinking of eating most, especially when it is the “bad food”, the “wrong food”, the “unhealthy food”, the “fattening food?” There is this idea that our society has put forth that that we believe then gets dealt with come January one through a diet. And if it really got dealt with, we’d never have to go on a diet on January when again. The diet would be done. That’s not how it works, because the cycle keeps being a repetitive cycle. One thing to do is to be curious to help you get off of that diet/binge/shame cycle. Ask yourself a lot of questions.
  2. Prioritize having pleasurable food, eating foods that you love, eating foods that are yummy, tastes good and feel lovely in your mouth. eating what you love, can be scary. I know you are concerned that you will get out of control. If you’re allowing yourself to eat pleasurable food, you’re not going to be binging, because you’re allowing yourself to have pleasurable food. People will think that if they eat pleasurable food, that it means that every day they’re going to have whatever sweet things or cookies or whatever thing that they think they binge on all the time. And what we know through our research on habituation is that the more you’re exposed to the food and allowed to have it, if you want it, the less you want it, because it will be one of the many types of food you can have throughout the day. Then it is not that big of a deal. 

The holidays can be a time of peace and joy, especially with food. If that does not seem possible you can join us in our Emotional Eating Solutions Self Study Course. It is super affordable and available now. 

Want to learn more about Holiday Trifecta: Candy Edition? You can listen to the full version on our podcast Feed Your Soul with Kim.

 Kim McLaughlin, MA is a Counselor, Speaker, Podcaster, and Inspirational Coach who specializes in working with people who suffer from binge eating and emotional eating. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She is the author of the book Feed Your Soul Nourish Your Life! A Six Step System to Peace with Food and the Amazon #1 Best Selling book Discovery Your Inspiration. 

You can find Kim on her podcast Feed Your Soul with Kim and you can find it on all podcast platforms. 

Determine if you are an Emotional Eater by signing up for the free Am I an Emotional Eater Quiz at https://kimmclaughlin.influencersoft.com/FYSU-EE

I resolve to not have a resolution

I resolve to not have a resolution

by | Jan 28, 2021 | Emotional Eating, Holidays, Self-Love

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I love the start of the New Year, for me, it is a time to reflect and map out what I want in the New Year. I used to think I had to have all of my reflection and planning done by January 1 every year. I now know that there is time to reflect as January moves in and then time to focus on the year ahead. In other words, if you have not done any reflection on the old year by now, it is not too late!

I learn so much when I reflect on the year prior and plan my goals for the New Year. Please note, this does not include “resolutions” which are often not accomplished and abandoned by mid- February (see my podcast below). 

Each New Year, I love creating Vision Boards. It gives me a visual picture and key words to guide me throughout the year.

My friend Erin Summ is offering a virtual Vision Board Workshop called Confident Visionary Event on January 29 and 30. It is from 10-5 Pacific. I have been to her workshops before and you will not be disappointed. Please check out her workshop in the link below to see if this is a fit for you.

https://www.erinsumm.com/confidentvisionary/

FYI- I get no monetary benefit by introducing you to Erin, I just love what she does and want to amplify her message. 

Join us on the Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast where I discuss why dieting is a horrible New Years resolution.

You might have already started one of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions: lose weight and start exercising. We know that by mid-February 80% of people who made a New Year’s Resolution lose their resolve.

Join us on the Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast as we discuss:

  • Who led you to believe that dieting was a good idea at the New Year?
  • The four feelings that accompany your dieting New Year’s Resolution.
  • Five steps you can take now to have a different outcome.

Peace,

Kim

Holiday Hungers 2020

Holiday Hungers 2020

by | Dec 3, 2020 | Emotional Eating, Holidays

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We are deep in this very unusual holiday season. I find that so often over the holidays we are feeding a lot of things other than ourselves. We are trying to feed our soul and our inner knowing, but we are not doing it in the correct way. 

Why is it hard to manage our hunger over the holiday? 

I have consistently heard people talk about feeling scared, confused, and upset about food over this time of year. I call the time between Halloween and New Years as the Holiday Trifecta. It is the time where we are focused on food and often it is food we do not have (or allow ourselves at other times of the year).

We have a lot that comes at us and a lot of expectations this time of year. Expectations that can get to be a little too much for us. It is interesting that food often shows up as difficult over the holidays. We think we are supposed to be a happy time and not experience any “negative emotions.” We wonder why we are upset when it is supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year,” as the song says. In truth, it is not always that wonderful time of the year for lots of different reasons. 

If we tend to emotionally overeat, well now there is even MORE food. And it is a lot of food that we only see once a year. There is often that special food to you (pumpkin spice latte anyone?). You know all those items; I could name a bunch of them. We tend to want it now and often, which makes it hard to check in with our hunger and be mindful about what we eat. 

I remember when I used to work in an office job and there would be food all over starting in October. People bringing in all these items starting with all of Halloween candy and ending with all of the Christmas foods. I remember the lunch break room was filled with holiday food. It was tough to walk by and not eat, all day long. I would walk past it, but for me it was tough because I was thinking about it all day long. 

Now, during the Coronavirus Pandemic, many of us are working from home AND there is a struggle having food in the house. My clients are consistently finding it hard to eating intuitively while working from home. 

Once again there is a lot of this special food around that we only have that once a year and it makes us want to have a lot of it. 

 

Why is it hard to not overeat at the holidays? 

Each holiday has special foods that we, often, do not allow ourselves the rest of the year. From this perspective we can look at the dieting mindset/diet cycle: 

  • Starting with dieting and that means restricting and then when we restrict, we don’t have what we really want. 
  • We, then, overeat because we want it, we do not want to restrict. 
  • That leads us to feel guilty and feeling upset with ourselves that we’ve done.
  • this which then loses back up to want to restrict. 

This cycle can happen with that holiday special food, because if we say to ourselves, I’m not going to get this again for another 12 or 11 months then we’re going to have it. AND we’re going to have a lot of it because we only get it once a year. 

Pumpkin Spice Latte anyone? 

Starbucks has brilliant marketing; they have special drinks that only come out at the holiday time. There is a whole countdown to the special drink and tempt you by saying it is in short supply, so get it now. It can make you worry that you will miss out and not get it. The temptation is to get the most of it that you can. Noticing this as a sales tactic can help you notice how they are influencing your eating.  

What are the Holiday Hungers? 

The Holiday Hungers (you can hear all about this in my Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast) are related to the “four hungers” that lead us to eat and overeat. Note, as I prepared to write about the four hungers, I realized there is a fifth hunger that is showing up bigger than ever during this year of the Covid19 Pandemic.  

The Four Hungers are:

  • Head Hunger- that sense of not being able to not think about food.
  • Mouth Hunger- that sensation of your mouth watering wanting the taste.
  • Heart Hunger- the feeling that you really desire the food.
  • Stomach Hunger- the true hunger of your body.

I noticed this year there is another hunger and that is Spiritual Hunger which is the hunger for something bigger than ourselves. 

What hunger have you been responding to?  

The first type of hunger is Head Hunger. Head hunger reminds me when I used to work in an office, and I could not stop thinking about the food in the break room. I was pretty much obsessed with the food and felt compelled to eat it. 

The second type of hunger is Heart Hunger, which is emotional hunger. This type of hunger comes into play with emotional triggers. If you have heart hunger, what is that hunger telling you? Maybe you need to take care of your heart and take care of the emotions. 

The third type of hunger is Mouth Hunger, which is when a food item sounds good. It is that sense that you just want to eat for the taste. Salivating and yearning for the item. It is not connected to physical hunger and it’s possibly connected to more emotions or more of the thought of being hungry but it’s really not hunger.

The fourth type of hunger is tummy or Stomach Hunger. This type of hunger is telling you, I’m physically hungry. It can be confusing when we are not experiencing physical hunger and we are at an event where there are items we don’t usually have, and we want them. Have them. It is ok. I find we can tend to not eat and go to event overly hungry, so we feel ok to eat everything we want. I wonder how that is working for you. You can then go to the edges of being overly hungry which leads us to binge and get overly full. 

Lastly, let’s look at Spiritual Hunger. This is the hunger for something that is bigger than you. It is a hunger for meaning and purpose. 

If you’re hungry eat till your satisfied, it doesn’t have to be too full but eat. You do not want to go to restrict, binge, guilt cycle which can happen this time of year. 

Now we can identify the hunger and then decide what/if we want to eat. There can be the feeling of powerlessness around food this time of year and you might think I am just going to go all in and overeat and I’ll deal with it the first of January (diet!). Pay attention to the thought that you will just overeat and diet at the New Year. That does not work and there is a better way to deal with food. Whenever you put yourself in a position to feel guilty about what you eat, your tendency will be to restrict later. 

We can move into a place of empowerment in our lives and with food. That feeling of empowered is one of the ways that we must heal that heart hunger. Looking at what are those emotional triggers that is leading us to overeat this is the time of year. 

I encourage you to at least recognize the feelings, to notice them and to see what emotions are showing up for you. 

Emotional eating is showing up often during this Coronavirus Pandemic

Emotional triggers can be things like: 

  1. Living in the time of the Coronavirus Pandemic. 
  2. Not being able to see your family.  
  3. Feeling stressed, lonely, and isolated. 
  4. Feeling bored because we cannot go out.  
  5. Feeling we must give up our needs to meet other’s needs. 
  6. Fear of getting sick or others getting sick. 
  7. Being unemployed and concerned about whether we can get another job. 
  8. Fear of not having enough money to buy presents. 

When we have a history of using to satisfy our feelings food becomes our go to when these uncomfortable situations occur.  

What can you do? 

Start recognizing and noticing these feelings. For me, when I notice I want to overeat or I am overeating, as I notice it, I talk to myself and ask myself questions: 

  • What is going on? 
  • What is making me feel uncomfortable? 
  • What would I like to do about it? 

When I feel the worst is when I don’t have a plan to deal with feeling powerless in situations whether it is with food, other people or situations. When I didn’t know how to deal with my emotional triggers then I felt powerless. 

Loneliness can be an emotional trigger. 

For many people feeling lonely leads to overeating. We are faced with unprecedented times, right now and feeling isolated and lonely are increased. 

Sadness can be an emotional trigger. 

We talked about Holiday Blues on the Feed Your Soul with Kim podcast recently. This season brings up memories or thoughts of what we don’t have and that can bring sadness. Many of us are not with the people we want to be with, or this holiday does not look like the way we want it to or the way it should be. Possibly you are not in a relationship and that brings on its own set of lonely and sad feelings. 

What can you do to lessen the Holiday Hungers?

I find insight is good, but we also must have coping skills to help us. I encourage you to find new activities to try out this year. I love to find ones that don’t involve food or money. I love seeing the creativity that arises. 

  1. Be physically active. If you generally go to the gym- do that. I can tend to not go to the gym over the holidays (I am a regular) because I am too busy, but now it is in my schedule as a must do. I know it makes me feel good and it makes me feel good to be active in the way that that that moves my body. The movement is not about working off the calories or the “bad” food. It is about keeping my body in action and move in a way that works for me. 
  2. Put something fun on your calendar. I usually have list of holiday gatherings and events I and my family want to go to. This year those events are cancelled. I generally crave down time at the holidays to have time to reflect on the spiritual ideas that come out this time of year. In other years, I have felt stretched too thin. Well, this year, I get to have that down time and I plan to take advantage of it!
  3. Get a routine together. You need a routine even when we are in a Pandemic! Go to bed on time, eat your regular foods on your regular schedule. The routine can be lost, and we then feel disconnect from ourselves. When I have my routine, I know my needs are being met. This also sets me up for realistic expectations.
  4. Stick to your budget and be realistic about what you can and cannot afford. Spend the amount of money you planned to spend without going into debt. Do you really want a huge credit card bill in January? Really my presence is my present. Meaning being fully conscious and focusing on your time with people can be more valuable than anything else.

Determining your hunger is the first way to determine what you really need. When we eat due to a non-physical hunger, we are not addressing the true meaning of the hunger. I encourage you to take a moment take a deep breath and notice the hunger and ask it what it must tell you or teach you. If it is true physical hunger (stomach hunger) then EAT. If it is one of the other hungers wonder how you might feed it. Engaging with hunger in this way will lead to greater satisfaction. 

Kim McLaughlin, MA is a Counselor, Speaker, Podcaster and Inspirational Coach who specializes in working with people who suffer from binge eating and emotional eating. She is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. She is the author of the book Feed Your Soul Nourish Your Life! A Six Step System to Peace with Food and the Amazon #1 Best Selling book Discovery Your Inspiration. 

You can find Kim on her podcast Feed Your Soul with Kim and you can find it on all podcast platforms. 

Determine if you are an Emotional Eater by signing up for the free quiz on her website at www.FeedYourSoulUnlimited.com.