an intuitive eating coach’s top 5 tips to survive halloween weekend
It’s officially spooky season and according to diet culture, the scariest thing of all is being surrounded by Halloween treats all weekend. How will you control yourself? What if you are just *really* good this week, so you can earn a cheat this weekend? What if you overindulge and have to cut meals or workout extra next week? I swear, it’s the diet culture version of lions and tigers and bears!
If the thought of all of this is making your palms sweat like you just saw a ghost, then stick around because I have 5 tips for shifting the narrative and navigating Halloween weekend with curiosity and kindness:
Allow yourself to enjoy your favorite Halloween treats without restriction or rules. The psychology behind restriction + rules works against us. Conditional enjoyment backfires and just makes us want treats more and often results in eating to the point of feeling uncomfortably full or having a physical reaction (like feeling nauseous). Ultimately, it feeds into the restrict-binge cycle and an unhealthy relationship with food. Giving unconditional permission to eat your favorites normalizes their presence in your life and takes away that witchy hold they seem to have over us.
Remember: you don't have to earn your favorite Halloween treats. This means that you don't need to workout extra or eat less around the holiday to make up for it. You are worthy of food, all food, no matter what you do to workout or what you ate earlier in the day or the next day. There is no moral value on food and how you eat doesn’t reflect your moral value either. Being “good” to earn food just continues to place certain foods on a pedestal, making you want them even more.
Slow down and enjoy your favorites mindfully. I know this can feel a little harder to do in the moment and truth be told, it’s okay if this step isn’t perfect. If you can, try to tune into the experience and notice the smells, tastes, textures, and sounds as you enjoy your treats. What is pleasant and makes the treat especially enjoyable? What isn't? You’d be amazed how many people do this and find that they don’t even like their treat foods, they were just enticing because they were considered to be off limits.
Incorporate your Halloween booty into your regular routine in the coming days/weeks. Normalizing these foods in your routine helps take away the "magical pull" that we feel to over-indulge when we *finally* have access to them. Just as restricting feeds into the restrict-binge cycle, the antidote is to normalize all foods, so it doesn’t feel like such a big deal to enjoy a specific food.
If you *do* eat Halloween treats until you feel uncomfortably full, remember, IT'S OKAY. You are human and this is completely normal and expected behavior when treats feel off limits. You are not a bad person for this! Give yourself grace and try to stay in the moment, noticing how you feel and whether you would want to feel that way again.
Holidays can feel like an especially scary challenge because we are often faced with foods that we might not have very often, whether that’s a result of restrictive dieting or not. One of the biggest fears I see with clients is that they will lose control and won’t be able to stop eating. Taking one or more of these steps will help you normalize the presence of *all* foods in your routine, take away the magical power of treat foods, and help you connect with how your body feels, so you can focus on feeling better in the future!
Does this stress you out? Tap below to schedule a discovery call and we can start to dig in deeper to how YOU can best navigate holidays without being distracted by diet culture!