I was in a yoga class the other day and the instructor wished everyone a happy upcoming Thanksgiving and she cautioned us all to “be careful” about our food choices. Um…. what?! Be careful? Be careful about what? We could assume she meant be careful you don’t eat “too much” or eat “bad foods”, but I like this new list of the only things you need to be careful about when eating on Thanksgiving. Be careful your food isn’t held at improper temperatures, be careful the food you’re eating is free of your allergens, and be careful you’re not eating according to diet rules.
As American Thanksgiving approaches, you’re probably seeing articles telling you which foods to avoid and which are lower calorie and therefore the “better” choice. These traditional “eat this”, “not that” posts completely negate a person’s personal preferences, hunger, and satisfaction levels.
I’m giving you full permission to challenge one (or several) of your food rules this weekend. It doesn’t mean you have to give it up completely just yet, but experiment with how it feels to break a rule this weekend. It may feel scary and that’s okay. It may also feel empowering and inspire you to keep challenging the rules all week long!
Wherever you are on your self acceptance/love/respect journey, you can still start by taking care of yourself today.
There is nothing wrong with emotional eating! Our society that fears weight gain says it’s bad because emotional eating can lead to weight gain if done too often. But eating emotionally is actually a pretty useful coping strategy for many people. I was, exactly as this post states, […]
A part of intuitive eating is finding satisfaction in the foods you eat. You will eventually get to a place where you may be satisfied with less of certain foods than you used to. And you may turn away foods that aren’t up to your standards. But this isn’t about dieting and finding the miracle cure to eating less. It’s not about being able to say no to foods that aren’t “worth the calories”. It’s about being attuned with your body and knowing what it’s needing. When we talk about food being “worth the calories”, we assume that we have some sort of calorie limit. We assume that we can’t trust our body to regulate itself and we assume that the only reason we eat is for nourishment vs pleasure. Also, every meal is not going to be perfect. Sometimes we need the energy and calories from food and we eat a meal that is less than pleasurable but will give us the nutrition we need to get through the day.
