De-Stress Your Holiday Eating & Drinking

We are all stressed this holiday season, and you may not even know how stressed you are. We are all really good at hiding it, and one way we do that is by turning to food (particularly comfort and sugary foods), as well as alcohol, as a coping mechanism.

The more stressed you are, the more you will probably eat and drink. This isn’t conscious; its driven by subconscious reactions to what you are thinking, believing, feeling and reacting to. The obvious solution is to change what you are thinking and feeling, which is easier said than done, so I’d like to suggest another approach.
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GAINING AWARENESS
Instead of trying to change what you are experiencing, just become aware of it. Acknowledge what you are thinking and feeling, without beating yourself up for it or resisting it.

As you’ve probably discovered, it’s not that easy to recognize stress or your thoughts, when you are lost in then and caught in your day, conversations and stressful scenarios. Years ago, I had a doctor ask me if I was under a lot of stress when I had an autoimmune condition. I told him I didn’t think so, but in truth I was under tremendous stress that I had simply gotten used to. This is happening to all of us now in this Pandemic.

Some indicators to watch for are walking faster, clutching things tighter, talking louder or with a higher voice, and feeling more agitated. Other indications are eating lots of comfort or sugary foods, nibbling a lot, overeating, drinking more often, feeling exhausted, anxious or tense, or having sleep issues. Some people get back pain, high blood pressure or irritable bowel. And many of us put on weight. Chronic stress elevates hormonal cortisol levels in our body, and in that state activates fat-storing around our middles.

Try to notice what’s happening in your body, and if there is tension or any emotional anxiety, take some deep, slow breaths to bring in more oxygen and calm yourself down. When your outbreath is longer than your inhale, you also shift your nervous system out of a fight/flight mode and into a calmer state. Then you’ll feel more relaxed.
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APPLYING CURIOSITY
You have a golden opportunity, every time you get food or a drink, to check in with yourself. This is the chance to ask yourself, “How am I feeling?”, “Am I feeling stressed?”, “What do I really need right now?”, “Am I really hungry?”, “Do I really want this drink?”, “Will this really make me feel better?”, and “Will it feel better afterwards if I have it?”

No judgment. You simply curious and asking yourself what your body really needs and if this choice you are about to make is really serving you.

This practice works well, because when you start to associate getting food or a drink with checking in, you have an opportunity to become aware of yourself and what you are doing. And then you can make a healthier conscious choice, based on what will really feel better to you afterwards.
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CONSCIOUS CHOICES
When you are stressed, you aren’t making conscious choices. You are reacting and on autopilot, and seldom do these choices leave you feeling better in the end.

Our body handles stress by releasing a hormone called cortisol, which stimulates the appetite for carbohydrates to prepare for fight or flight. When cortisol remains elevated in the blood stream for extended periods of time, it also stimulates fat storing. This is a set up for the holidays and leads to that proverbial average holiday weight gain of five pounds, which doesn’t account for what’s already happened prior to the holidays.

You probably don’t want that extra weight. And every time you put something in your mouth, you get to choose if you really want it or not.
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STRESS-FREE APPROACH
The most common strategy for dealing with overeating during the holidays is to put some type of dieting practices into place now or after Christmas. This might mean deciding no desserts, no white foods, no fat or no carbohydrates. Or it could mean deciding to be good during the day or during the week and cheating at night or on the weekends. But this creates a deprivation backlash, further bingeing and a feeling of failure and guilt. And it creates more stress!

A stress-free approach to holiday eating and drinking is to be mindful of stress and hunger levels, avoid criticizing yourself, check in with yourself when you go to eat or drink, breathe with a longer out-breath, eat balanced meals and limited snacks throughout the day, stop eating before you get full, allow a little room for some of your favorite comfort foods to avoid deprivation backlash, enjoy up to one drink a day, and take time out to care for yourself.

Try a few of these ideas during the next few weeks to see what works best for you.


Alice Greene
Healthy Lifestyle Success Coach

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