episode 157: my number one tip for holiday eating
Today’s episode is 10 minutes all about my number one tip for holiday eating. And the cool thing is it isn’t even just for the holidays—you can use this tip anytime of year for any big dinner out, party or event.
If you’re listening to The Diet Diaries then you’re likely someone who at some point has suffered from disordered eating like “saving up” calories for a party or not eating all day leading up to a big event so that you don’t eat more than your allotted calories for the day.
And if you take a moment to think about it, you’ll quickly realize that strategy has never ONCE worked. You always ended up overeating because you were so damn hungry.
Can you lose weight without counting calories during the holidays?
Today’s episode talks about how to eat at a holiday dinner or party without feeling stuffed or like you’re going “off the rails.” And if you’re currently working on (or want to work on) losing weight without counting calories, this episode will definitely hit home for you.
If you’re curious about how to lose weight without counting calories, this episode and this blog post can help you get started.
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[00:00:00] Hi friends, it's episode 157 of the Diet Diaries. If you're listening to this on the day it's published, it is Monday. December 11th. Today's going to be a short episode. One, because as always I'm recording this about a week before and I am heading into the city to go have lunch with one of my closest friends at a restaurant in the West Village.
[00:00:21] And I'm super, super excited. It's like a cool, kind of like trendy restaurant. I never get to do stuff like this. So I'm super excited. I put on like an outfit. I feel really good. I just blew out my hair. Like I'm very excited to go into the city today. And I also. Last week's episode was a short one. I'm gonna try and keep them short for the rest of the month.
[00:00:40] I think we all just have so much going on right now that like little bite sized pieces of information are more helpful right now than like super long podcast episodes. Um, a couple weeks ago, Oh, yeah, a couple weeks ago was one with Carissa, which was a longer one. So that hit like kind of right a little bit before the holidays.
[00:00:58] Um, so anyway, just so you know what to expect kind of for the rest of the month. And I'm having, I'm actually trying to decide what I'm going to do about publishing episodes on Mondays, but Christmas and New Year's Day both fall on a Monday. So I have to see if I may be published on Tuesday. I don't know.
[00:01:15] I'll keep you posted. So here's what I wanted to talk about today. I am going to tell you my number one tip, skill, piece of advice, whatever you want to call it, that this is what I do as well for holiday eating. And this doesn't even just apply to holiday eating. This applies to any like party, big event, dinner out, all during the year.
[00:01:41] And that is, it's kind of a two parter. And if you're on my email list, I did talk about this in my email a few weeks ago. But as you know, we need to hear things many, many times before they sink in. Um, and it's, here's kind of the two parts. One is do not walk into that meal.
[00:02:11] This is a classic, like, stereotypical, I'm going to call it a disordered eating behavior. I did this for many years, like decades, and it's something we think that we're like, Um, it's like a checks and balances thing. We think, well, if I eat less earlier in the day and I eat fewer calories, I can save them up and use them later.
[00:02:31] And I get how logically that might make sense, except that your body doesn't, physiologically, your body doesn't work with that. It might make sense in your brain, but your body's like, no, I'm hungry. And so if you eat less earlier in the day. So that you save up calories going in, which means you're naturally going to be hungrier going into that meal.
[00:02:49] You are going to be so hungry that you were going to then eat more than you would have eaten if you had eaten food during the day and gone in kind of like a regular level of hungry and not saved up those calories. So the whole thing backfires. You a hundred percent of the time end up eating more food by eating less earlier in the day than if you had eaten kind of your regular meals during the day.
[00:03:11] So this is, it's not an effective tool and it's not even needed, right? If you go into these big special meals, holiday dinners, dinners out, parties, whatever it is, kind of a, and I'm saying regular level of hunger, and I'm not going to get into like the hunger scale and all of that right now, but you know the difference between saving up calories and feeling starving and being, oh my god, like, where is the food?
[00:03:32] And going and being like, yeah, I'm kind of hungry, I'm looking forward to eating, but like, I'm cool. You want to go in with that second one so that you can pay attention, you can make thoughtful choices, you can be present, and you can notice what's happening as you're eating. It's already More challenging at big dinners, holidays, families, friends, parties, whatever it is to stay present, pay attention because you're socializing and there's a lot going out around.
[00:04:00] There's a lot of options. So if you go into that meal starving, you're already so hungry, you can't slow down you. It becomes then even harder to pay attention and make the choices you want to make. You are not setting yourself up for success. So. And it might feel uncomfortable to say, Oh, I'm going to have my regular breakfast and my regular lunch.
[00:04:22] And then yeah, I might eat more at this meal because it is a special meal out. It is a big deal. There are foods I'm only going to have once a year. I might choose to eat more. That might make you feel uncomfortable, especially if you're working on fat loss. But I will tell you that one day in one meal. Do not change anything.
[00:04:39] Just like you've never lost weight from dieting for a day, you don't gain weight from eating more than you usually do for a day. Right? That logic goes both ways. And I say that with like so much compassion and like giving you a big hug because we tend to like not think these things through very clearly.
[00:05:02] And so I really encourage you to go through the day leading up to that meal. Eating regularly. And what I mean regularly, I mean prioritizing protein, prioritizing veggies, prioritizing fiber, eating meals that are going to give you the nutrition you need, that are going to help you feel full at each of those mealtimes, and that you enjoy, right?
[00:05:23] Restricting and depriving yourself so that you can, quote, make up for it later in the day, is not only unsustainable, it is unkind, it is not a way to treat yourself, right? You don't have to earn your food. There isn't, there doesn't need to be a checks and balances system. I, like, I was talking with, I was interviewed on a podcast last week, which is going to come out soon.
[00:05:47] I'm super excited for you guys to listen to this. And we, Weight watchers came up and we were talking about the point system and she was talking about this idea that you can bank points. Like it's just that creates very disordered thinking. If I eat less now, I can eat more later. And for those of us listening to this podcast who have a history around food that we have, that is not a way to approach food.
[00:06:10] If you're someone who's never had suffered from disordered eating and had this all or nothing thinking and restricted food, Maybe that could work for you, right? I'm never going to say that, like, I know I said before, 100 percent of the time, and I do believe that for us. For the population of people who are listening to this, for us, that is true.
[00:06:27] For other folks who've never dealt with disordered eating, maybe that does work for them, right? But that's not who I work with. That's not who I help, like, Good for you. Go do your thing. For us, it is not a way to go into things. And now let's say like, you might be thinking, well, you know, we have our holiday dinner at three o'clock, so I don't want to eat a full lunch.
[00:06:46] Okay, cool. I get that. So maybe you eat like your regular breakfast, whatever time, and then you have something smaller at noon before you go. Or maybe you eat a bigger breakfast, but a little later, right? You can play around with it. There is flexibility there. I don't want you to wash over that meal and feel like not hungry or not looking forward to eating or like you've already eaten so much food that you can't even enjoy it, right?
[00:07:09] There is a middle ground here, as always, right? Between eating nothing, eating like, you know, wasa bread. I don't know if you guys know wasa bread. That was like my thing. It was like, they're like these very dry, thin crackers that I used to eat. often in place of bread. And they're actually not bad. I actually kind of like them.
[00:07:26] It was the reason why I was eating them that brings up a lot of stuff. So inherently there's no problem with that food as always. It's like, why are you doing this? I mean, eating like that with like, you know, tuna fish, which again is a great choice because it's protein, but it was more like, how can I eat as few calories as possible?
[00:07:43] Right? I wasn't thinking like, oh, there's like some protein and some carbs and I'd have something with it. No, it was like, let me eat as few calories as possible. So. You know, my, I, I kind of got off on a tangent, but there, but there is something between eating as little as possible and. eating in a way where you walk in not hungry or not looking forward to it.
[00:08:03] My point with this is to, if you notice the thoughts coming up around, I have to save up, I have to eat less so that I can eat more later, or I know that I want to be able to eat all these things, so I need to like, You know, even things out. Notice those thoughts. It's normal if they come. That's how we're programmed.
[00:08:22] And then respond to it in a way that makes sense. That's aligned with your values, right? It always comes back to this, right? Is that really taking care of yourself? Is that really setting you up for success? Are you really gonna be able to walk into that meal and make the choices that you want to make in that moment?
[00:08:37] Probably not. It's gonna be a lot harder. So that's really all I wanted to say today. This is gonna be a super short episode. This is something that I, this is a skill that I work all the time because it sets you up to be able to use the other skills, right? So kind of like the skills kind of become like a domino effect.
[00:08:59] And so when you have the space and the attention and the presence, Because you've made one kind of starting choice, it makes it easier to make all the other choices. And when you walk into something starving because you have barely eaten all day, it is nearly impossible to make the choices that you want to make.
[00:09:18] And again, this is not just about the holidays. This is a year round. So, that's it for today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. Um, reach out if you've got questions, if this is something you've struggled with. I'm always here to listen. Um, and that's it. I'll be back next week.