Here’s why and how to savor the holidays keeping your health and your happiness intact.
First off, take a deep breath and work on stressing less over food and weight gain during the holidays. While it is true that an ultra-processed diet can raise cortisol levels and inflammation, so can stressing about food. So, relax, smile and let’s chat about holiday eating from a happier, low-stress perspective.
The average weight gain during the holidays is 1-2 pounds, not the assumed 10 pounds you may hear or see on social media. Keep in mind that our body weight can and should fluctuate a bit during the day, the month, and from season to season.
Skipping meals, restricting, and deprivation are all unhappy, stressful approaches to eating and can damage your relationship with food, your ability to feel and respond to body signals, increase stress-based inflammation, and lead to an all-or-nothing, binge-restrict eating pattern.
Things to try instead:
· Pay attention to your hunger and fullness signals – listen to your body.
· Hydrate well (primarily with water) and stay active in ways that make you happy.
· Don’t skip meals in anticipation of an eating event. Going in too hungry can lead to overdoing it and craving more highly processed foods.
· Enjoy your favorites without guilt. Letting go of food shame helps you eat a reasonable amount of your favorite foods and treats without binging because you know that you can have them again another time.
· Try to get some produce and protein in with each meal and pay attention to fullness levels to avoid that “garbage-gut” feeling.
· Give yourself grace. You may overeat. That is ok, you are still a good person, and you can resume your healthy, happy eating routines without punishment or shame.
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