2020 is finally coming to a close. Before we can sprint (or more likely cautiously put one baby toe over the line) into 2021, there’s one final hurdle;

The holiday season.

For some the holidays will offer a break from work or virtual schooling. For many of us, myself included, we might be really excited about the holidays and getting this year as far in the rearview mirror as possible.

Stress on Top of Stress, Adding in Loss

However, many of you tell me that you find the holidays filled with stress. And the thing about 2020 is, all the little stressors seem harder than ever to tolerate because our baseline level of stress is like water so deep our head is almost fully covered. We might have our nose just high enough that we can breath if we stand on our tip toes, but then if a small wave comes we are choking and sputtering again.

For many of us, even if there are parts of the holidays we are grateful and excited for, it still brings a sense of loss.

Loss of normal, loss of being with loved ones, coping with isolation. Our family lost our beloved grandmother in April this year but instead of doing Christmas with the whole family in person, we will be doing it via Zoom.

Holiday Eating: A Recipe for Weight Gain

While I am all about trusting our natural biological functions, our environment, particularly over the holiday season, poses a significant challenge to our biological system. Throw in the incredible amount of stress and grief of 2020, and you have what I call the perfect storm for overeating and weight gain.

Some of the factors below are the primary contributors:

• Wide variety and large amount of highly palatable calorie dense foods. Did you know that people eat more when given a variety of foods (Remick, Polivy, & Pliner, 2009)? So if you have a family like mine who needs to make 1,400 types of holiday cookies, we can partially blame that tradition for the over consumption. Although we can’t really exchange them over Zoom, so maybe this year will be improved?!
• Stress. What stresses you over the holidays? Normally for me, it’s gift giving. It is so much pressure! And I hate getting things unless I’m confident the person will use and like them. This year, I’m almost 100% sure it will be the stress of loss and missing loved ones. Whatever it is for you: gifts, family dynamics and discussions, food preparation and everything else, there are no shortages of reasons to be stressed. And stress makes us crave foods with higher fat, sugar and salt content and is associated with weight gain over time (Groesz et al., 2012).
• Busyness and other barriers keep us from regular exercise and healthy food preparation. This often has a negative impact on our mood and energy levels. And what’s a great, but really short-term, way to get energy? Eat a Christmas cookie! Says our brain.

Overeating Cookies is Actually the Adaptive Response

I have talked in the past about the importance of making lifestyle changes from a place of self-respect and trust. This is essential and often overlooked.

The reality is, our bodies and brains evolved to live in a much different environment. As much as the food industry and policy makers want you to believe that it’s lack of willpower and personal responsibility making us overweight, this does not make sense.

What are the odds that a huge percentage of people in westernized countries suddenly all became “weak-willed” at the same time, thus causing the obesity epidemic? Seems unlikely.

Our Brains Are Doing What They Were Designed to Do

When our brains evolved, it was adaptive to eat a lot of calorie dense foods when available, so when food was less available, we could survive a famine. But what happens when you put brains designed like that into our current food environment, where we are bombarded with tasty foods full of sugar, fat and salt on a daily basis? It only makes evolutionary sense that we started eating more and gaining weight. The opposite, not eating highly palatable foods when they are around, is actually a less adaptive response according to biology.

I have been reading the book How Not to Diet by Michael Greger, MD, and I love his quote on this:

So the prime cause for the obesity epidemic is neither gluttony nor sloth. Obesity may simply be a normal response to an abnormal environment.”

– Micheal Greger, MD, FACLM, How Not to Diet

So if you are like most of us you can feel good about the fact that your brain wants to overeat Christmas cookies as they have just the right combination of sugar, salt, and fat that our brains crave. Our brains are just doing what they were designed to do, and this is no reason for shame or frustration with ourselves.

Making Things Easier on Ourselves

So armed with this information, what can we do?

When it comes to any challenging situation with eating and weight, there is rarely a lack of “tips” you can find to address the situation. I have some below, based primarily on science, but you can also find tips like this all over the internet.

My hope is that you can review these and any other lifestyle change tips from a place of understanding your body and trying to work with your body and yourself, versus a place of restriction. That is, make changes to your routine from a place of self-respect, versus “how can I keep myself in check” this holiday season.

Making Changes from a Place of Respect

Most of this comes down to the tone and underlying feeling of HOW a change feels to you and WHY you are making it. For example, in the past when I struggled with binge eating and dieting, I would approach the holidays with rigid goals for myself that I could never meet. Like, I will only eat two cookies and no other desserts, or I will not have any sweets this year.

These “goals” came from a place of not trusting myself to regulate my intake and trying to keep myself “under control” during the holidays. It didn’t feel helpful and it never worked.

That said, someone else could make that same goal from a place of respect, if they truly thought that was the best or perhaps simplest option for them. It all depends on the person and the WHY behind what they are doing.

The Same Behavior Can Come from a Very Different Underlying Motivation

Two people can have the same outward behavior (e.g., bringing extra Christmas cookies to work to get them out of the house) but very different underlying reasons for this behavior. And the reasons, over time, can make all the difference.

So let’s look at Jessica versus Amy. They both make Christmas cookies and have many extras. They both decide to bring them to work to get the cookies out of the house. But their underlying reasons for this are very different.

If you ask Jessica why, she says “Oh, I cannot control myself around sugar, and I need to be “good” now that the holidays are over.” Amy on the other hand says, “It’s just easier for me to not have them in the house. It’s just so easy to grab one multiple times per day when they are at home.”

Controlled Versus Autonomous Motivation Makes All the Difference

Again, same behavior, different underlying motivation. Jessica is coming from a place of lack of trust and rigid ideas about what is “good” and “bad” with regards to her eating. Although Amy does not mention her brain or biology, she may know how much our brains “light up” their reward centers when we see foods like cookies and she is just trying to work with her brain and body instead of against it.

With that in mind, here are some tips to help minimize the impact of our holiday food environment and help our bodies function in the way they were intended: processing real whole foods and minimizing consumption of excessively processed stuff.

I also recommended focusing on changes that maximize feeling good in your body and enjoying the holiday season as much as possible, versus from a place more focused on external factors, like your weight goals.

7 Tips to Enjoy the Holidays and Minimize Stress about Weight or Eating

1. Focus on the purpose of the gathering. I recently heard Brene Brown interview Priya Parker on her book The Art of Gathering. They talked about the importance of having a focused intention behind our gatherings and using them as opportunities to truly connect and support one another. If nothing else 2020 has offered us the opportunity to take a look at our behavior and ask ourselves, do our actions truly serve us. If you are gathering at times out of obligation or focused on external things (like how your home looks) maybe it’s time to regroup and look at the true purpose of getting together with that group and how you can emphasize this. My favorite example was of a baby shower and recalling the true intention of supporting the mother in her entry to motherhood. They added an exercise where each person offered parenting advice to the new mom, and a story of where they struggled as a new mother. I know our Christmas Zoom will offer opportunities to tell stories about loved ones we have lost, and opportunities to express our gratitude towards our family.
2. Schedule downtime and/or some form of movement. One really great way to get out of touch with your body’s signals, is to let yourself get totally out of your routines and sit on the couch all day. Instead, a helpful strategy is to make sure you schedule time for movement you enjoy, or something else that involves active relaxation (massage? Watching your favorite holiday movie? Taking a walk and catching up with a friend or relative?). Although much of our holidays tend to revolve around food, see if you can think of an activity that can be done separate from eating/drinking to remind your brain that it can and should experience pleasure outside of activities than involve eating.
3. Let yourself get moderately hungry before eating. It’s hard to listen to your body’s satiety signals if you were never hungry in the first place. If you are like most of us, the name of the game during holiday parties is grazing. I can’t remember the last time I was truly hungry before sitting down for the actual “dinner.” See if you can plan to stop eating for at least an hour before the dinner, ideally 2-3 hours, and minimize the excessive snacking before dinner. This will actually make dinner more enjoyable, and it’s easier to stop eating when you are satisfied, if you were actually hungry to begin. I am admittedly pretty notoriously bad at this (those hor d’oeuvres are just so tempting!) so this is going to be my main goal for this holiday season.
4. Watch where you place yourself and the tempting foods. If we are right next to the tempting food, of course we are more likely to eat it! Position yourself away from the snack or hor d’oeuvres table and engage yourself in another activity. Focus on finding someone to catch up with and really immerse yourself in the conversation. At home, remove the cookies and sweets from the home, or at least put them out of sight. My cookies are currently in the way back top shelf of our pantry, so that a decent amount of them actually make it to our holiday gatherings!
5. If hosting, ask for help, and consider making fewer dishes. If you are too wiped out to really enjoy the gathering because you have been cooking all day long, it will probably be hard to enjoy the gathering. Additionally, fatigue reduces our feelings of self-control (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Take a realistic look at how many dishes you are preparing and delegate if needed. Also, consider realistically how much leftovers you will have and consider making less, particularly of the foods you tend to overeat.
6. Freeze excessive leftovers. Hate wasting food? Me too. Even though you can make the argument that food you eat when you are not hungry is pretty much “wasted” as well, we can still be proactive to avoid food waste. The first step is not making too much, but many foods can be frozen. Just be sure to label your frozen food before you freeze it. I find it helpful to write down all the frozen food I stash away on a whiteboard in our kitchen. That way I won’t forget what is in there and increase the chances we actually eat it.
7. Remind yourself of the mindset you want to bring to the gathering. If you are like most of us, it’s easy to have good intentions, but fall back into old habits, especially during the chaos of the holidays. The good news? It’s never too late to reset and remind yourself of how you want to feel in your body and the best ways to get there. Set reminders on your phone if you need. These could simply say “check in with your body” or “are you hungry?” or “how can you maximize the time this holiday season?” Find language that works for you to bring yourself into the present moment and shift your mindset as needed.

What Do You Think? Any Challenges You Anticipate in Using These Tips?

Do you find it challenging to make adjustments from a place of self-respect? That is, do you fall back into a dieting mindset? How does this impact your experience during the holidays? I would love to hear your thoughts! Comment below or send me a message at info@drshawnhondorp.com

Wanting to Focus on Your Health Without Dieting but not Sure Where to Start?

Let’s set you up for success and reduce the need for “self control.” Check out my 5 quick tips to use less willpower and make healthy living easier here.

References

Groesz, L. M., McCoy, S., Carl, J., Saslow, L., & Stewart, J. (2012). What is eating you? Stress and the drive to eat. Appetite, 58, 717-721.

Muraven, M., & Baumeister, R. F. (2000). Self-regulation and depletion of limited resources: Does self-control resemble a muscle? Psychological Bulletin, 126(2), 247–259.

Remick, A. K., Polivy, J., & Pliner, P. (2009). Internal and external moderators of the effect of variety on food intake. Psychological Bulletin, 135(3), 434–451.