79: The struggle with Halloween candy is real

 I have been thinking about my history with candy and Halloween. I have been reminded of the lengths I would go through to not have candy in my house. Does that sound familiar? 

I figured if I did not buy it, I would be “safe” from overeating it. That thought process did not work out too well. 

You need to listen to today’s Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast, because it gets personal. I tell you my story of the lengths I would go through to avoid being anywhere near Halloween candy and what helped me break free.    

This is not a candy bashing podcast; we are talking about it with real stories to help illuminate how fearful we can be of a simple food product. 

Join us in this Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast where we discuss: 

• Candy can feel overwhelming 
• What was the one thing that helped me break free from the struggle with candy and not feel burdened anymore 
• One doable to get you started. 

Peace with Food: Holiday Edition 

I mentioned in the podcast this super affordable option ($29) for me to support you over this holiday season. It starts soon and you do not want to miss out on the support and strategies to have a peaceful experience this holiday season. 

Check it out here: 

https://go.feedyoursoulunlimited.com/holidaychallenge2022 

Emotional Eating Solutions

 
We love talking about food satisfaction and all the ways to better take care of yourself. BUT do you need more?

Emotional Eating Solutions is Kim’s signature self-paced course to look at food differently. This course is the way to get into action and make changes in your food AND in your life!

Find out more about Emotional Eating Solutions here:  https://feedyoursoulunlimited.com/emotional-eating-solutions-self-study/

Get your Free Quiz…

Are you an Emotional Eater? 

Connect with Kim

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Kim McLaughlin, MA

Kim McLaughlin is a psychotherapist, coach, speaker, and author. She helps people who feel frustrated overwhelmed and overloaded, and it shows up in overeating. She has a Master of Arts Degree in Clinical Psychology. Kim is a certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, an

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Transcript

Kim McLaughlin: 0:01

Welcome to the feed your soul with Kim Podcast. Today we talk about the struggle with Halloween candy is real. I've been thinking a lot about Halloween and candy. And I've been reminded of a lot of my personal struggle with candy over the holidays. And I want to talk more about it about my story about how to get out of that struggle with Halloween candy and really develop peace with food over the holidays. We're going to talk during this podcast about peace with food over the holidays and how I have a new program that will really uplift you and get you on the road to peace with food over the holidays. Let's get started. Everyone, this is Kim McLaughlin. Welcome to the podcast. I help people when they're struggling with food, and feeling overwhelmed with eating and literally how they come to the table. Today we talk about Halloween candy It is that time of year when candy is all over the place. I've been going to the stores and I take pictures of all the candy aisles because they're huge and full. And it makes me think about how much we can struggle with candy. And some of you might be struggling. So we're going to talk about this today. And to tell you some of my story about struggling with Halloween candy and really some ways out of it because there are ways to have peace with food and peace with candy. I have been thinking about Halloween because I've been working on peace with food holiday edition. It's where I'm helping people around this holiday time I call lovingly the three months of October, November, December, the holiday Trifecta because we're really struggled or struggling and challenged with food at this time of year when there are all these different foods that come out. And right now we're at Halloween time, which is rife with lots of candy. And as I've been working on this program, I've been thinking about my struggle with candy. And it might be some of your struggles too, because I do hear people in my office and just on the internet and friends talk about how they buy candy. And then it's gone that they don't feel that they can have candy in the house and feel real compelled to eat it. And that made me really think of my story. When I was single I I struggled with Halloween a lot. One of the things I would do around Halloween is well I would buy the candy. And then just like many of you, I would eat the candy well before Halloween and feel feel really ashamed of myself and ashamed that I couldn't control it. And I thought I should be able to control it and I didn't know what to do. One of the things I did was I would start working late, I would just stay at the office late on Halloween. And then you know, I wouldn't have to be around so then I wouldn't have to buy the candy, I wouldn't have to give out the candy. I wouldn't have any candy around. And that worked for a while. And then I came up with an even better plan is I started to go to the gym on Halloween night. And I did this for years I was single for lots of years. And I would go to the gym on Halloween night. And what's interesting about being at the gym on Halloween night is that nobody else is there. It's pretty pretty empty. People are out doing other things. But for me it was a way to it wasn't about having to exercise or get you know kind of food out of me or or work off the food. It was really about avoiding having candy in the house and avoiding giving out the candy. So I figured if I would go to the gym on Halloween night, I wouldn't have to do any of those things and I wouldn't have to think about it. So that was my plan is I would just go to the gym every Halloween. Well, there's only so late I'd want to stay at the gym and I would then end up going home after the gym. And what I would do is sneak into the house through the back door come into the house, keep the lights out, go upstairs and turn out turn out all the lights have you know just the television on upstairs so that nobody would know I was there. And then if anybody came to the door to to knock for candy, I just wouldn't answer the door because I was literally afraid to have candy in the house. And so I would try all of these steps to avoid having candy. It wasn't anything, I didn't think I could actually not buy candy, and open the door and tell kids, I don't have any candy. I just was never what I thought I could do. So I did everything I could to avoid Halloween to avoid Halloween candy, because I was convinced every year that I would overeat it because my experience had been that I did overeat it, I did eat a lot of the candy or eat the whole the whole bag of it, and I felt ashamed by it. Hey, everyone, this is Kim and we are going into the holiday season. And I know the struggle is real around food at holiday, I have a new program called Peace with food over the holidays. It is 10 lessons that you get to use at will over the holiday season that will help you navigate the holidays, navigate food and navigate all the areas that can cause difficulties over the holidays. So you get 10 lessons in our private portal, you get three group coaching calls where I answer your questions, and a private Facebook group where you get to interact with other people and get really helpful support over this holidays. The program is so affordable $29 gets you in get you access to all of the learning modules. This is a not to be missed Sign up now piece with food over the holidays. Link is in the show notes get in now. Then, interestingly enough, is I married a man who loves to give out candy at Halloween, he has candy in the house, he doesn't care, it's fine to have candy in the house, he eats it when he wants, he doesn't eat it all the time. And for me, it was a struggle to have it in house because I didn't know what I was going to do with it. And it made me think about Halloween in a different way or having candy in a different way. Because I would watch him and he would have a couple of cans or pieces of candy. I mean, generally he has like a dessert. And that would be a couple of pieces of candy, a dessert it goes away. He doesn't think about it. It's not constantly in the back of his head. And I found that fascinating. I had never thought that you could just have candy in the house and not eat all of it immediately that it could last and last and that you have a little bit here when you want it. And then it's no big deal. Just like having carrots in the house. You know, you just have the carrots and then you don't think about until you want them again. And then you have them in a couple of days. No big deal. So that was one thing that was really interesting to me is learning from him how other people manage or don't even have to manage they just live with food or with candy around. I found that fascinating. The second thing that happened to me is that I learned about intuitive eating. And when I learned about intuitive eating, I learned about having freedom with food and not having candy be the villain villain, that it was just one of the many foods in intuitive eating with. We call it fun food. It's a fun food. It's not necessarily it's not nutritious, but it's a fun food and we all get to have fun food. And, and there's not a restriction on it. It's not good food. It's not bad food. It's just food. It's one of the many types of food that we can have. Just like we don't eat carrots all the time. We're not gonna eat candy all the time. So to me, it became like, putting food in its proper places nourishment. And, and having this whole new idea about food. What I learned with intuitive eating is that if I worked on my mental process about what I was thinking all the time, because what would happen to me is when I had that large bag of candy, I would think about it, I would think about it constantly. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I I thought about it so much that I just eat it so that the thought would go away. I would I'd say oh god, okay, I'm just going to eat it because I've got to get this thought out of my head. And the thought was, you want it you're going to have it go ahead and eat it. You're going to eat it anyway. So just go ahead and do it. And it was this nagging, nagging, nagging and so I ultimately just ate it. I learned through intuitive eating that if I worked on my my mental process about what's going on in my mind that I actually could literally come to the table differently. And then candy would not have this big grip on me. In the process of thinking about all this I thought well what can we do differently over the holidays what could be a different way to come to the table so that there was literally peace with food over the holidays? And I thought about designing this program that would be a program of lessons. And it would be similar to a challenge but not challenging where it would be learning about the different components that gives you peace with food, and then practicing them in a way that feels really doable and manageable. So when we look at peace with food all over the holidays, we're really integrating the six components that we talk about often on this podcast. And I want to reintroduce the six components, because when those six components are imbalanced, or in synergy, you feel comfortable with food, you can have candy, now, it's not that big a deal, you can eat it or not eat it as you see fit. So the six components are where we, and we're actually putting them in the piece with food over the holiday program, that we're having a look at the physical, where we look at food and candy cravings and desires differently. And really, there are tweaks that you can have that will help you have more peace with food so that this food can be around. But it doesn't feel challenging to you. And it doesn't feel overwhelming to you. The second component that we need to look at whether you're going to come with us and work with peace on food over the holidays, or if you do it yourself is the emotions and how do you deal with emotions over the holidays, they always come up, I promise you whether you have family around whether you have friends around, whether you engage with a lot of people, the feelings come up about what life should be like or what it used to be like or what you'd want it to be like or how it's not enough, all those feelings of kind of less than really show up at some point over the holiday. Remember, the holidays are October, November, December, it's a long period of time that is kind of has these opportunities for for sadness or overwhelm for emotions to show up. The third component that we look at that I recommend you look at over this holiday season is the mental component. This is this is a part that I was just talking about a little bit ago, when I talked about those thoughts that kept coming up to me over and over and over again, about how I should eat this food, I want to eat this food, I'm going to eat this food, you're going to do it anyway. And the nagging that my head would have over and over again. And what I know through my personal experience, and my experience with hundreds of clients is that there are things to do with those pesky thoughts that really create a difficulty around food and difficulty in your life. The fourth component that I recommend that you look at if you want peace with food over the holidays, is to look at your lifestyle and social. And what I'm looking at over this holiday that I'm going to work with everybody on in our peace with food over the holidays program is learning how to say no and how to set boundaries. I personally am learning about that more and more daily about how important it is to decide what I want to say a heck yes to and what I want to say no to and creating boundaries with other people. We have lots of competing priorities over this holiday time, October, November, December. It doesn't show up just all at once it shows up sometimes in a slow burn or with somebody that you know that causes problems or you feel uncomfortable with and having boundaries around that is really important. Because then you're taking care of yourself. The fifth component that we talked about and piece over foot with food over the holidays is mindfulness. And what I'm looking at with everybody this year is how to get more quiet with yourself and how to begin to go inside and be more mindful and purposeful with yourself. I've been thinking more about the time over the pandemic and how much I really enjoyed the quiet and not having to have all of the competing priorities and going places and being around a lot of people. It really gave me a chance to be quiet in a way that was really refreshing. And I want to introduce that to all of you this year because I found it was really important. I want to integrate it more and not feel that I'm running at such a quick speed over the holiday because the holiday can this time period can feel like a rush and rush to do more in Russia do more in Russia do more. And I'm going to introduce the idea of how to get quiet and we're going to talk in depth about how we could make that happen. And the sixth component that we talked about in peace with food over the holidays is about self love. And really getting clear on your heart and and what would be loving for yourself. If I was going to be loving to myself, what would I do? I love that question. So one of my favorite questions, if I was going to be loving to myself, right now, what would I do, then that combines up with the idea of boundaries. And so if I'm being loving to myself, it might mean I have to say no to you, and what we are going to talk about, and what we all need to do is figure out what is right for me, and then how might I say no for you, or set a boundary around what other people want me to do? That maybe isn't right for me. So these are all, all these pieces together, come together. And in that kind of synergy, where we can have more peace with food and more peace with food over the holidays. And I just want to make mention that. It's interesting. Every time I think about is like, you know, the six components only one time did I talk about food itself, once in the first was about the physical about food. And when we look at over eating, and what leads us to over eat the foods a small piece of it, the food itself is a small piece, being compelled to have that candy over Halloween had really little to do with candy and feeling. I know sometimes we talk people talk about like feeling addicted to sugar, or they can't manage it, or they can't control it. And I'm here to say that I can have candy or not have candy, it does not have control over me. But when I thought it had control over me it was because those six components that I've just talked about, were not in synergy. They were not aligning together. And so I felt out of control. And that feeling of out of control showed up in me wanting to overeat and overeat candy most especially. So it's, it's a whole different way of looking at food. And the the idea of food restriction really doesn't work saying I won't have it, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go any near anywhere new to it, I'm not going to buy it because I'm afraid of it. If you don't want to have candy around, that's fine. Don't buy any. But if you don't want to have candy around because you're afraid of it, I'm going to challenge that and wonder what's going on for you. And this is where in the piece with food over the holidays program. We're going to talk about this and really get into what's right for you and what's not right for you. I hope you join us in peace with food over the holidays, I'll have a link in the show notes. Because it's going to be really good. I didn't tell you how it's incredibly affordable. It's incredibly affordable this year. Look at the link. It's such a little amount of money, there are 10 lessons, all the six components we're going to cover and it's going to be easy to do and really good, doable that will get you on track. In the end, what I wanted to tell you was now we have candy and now actually I don't think we bought Halloween candy yet. I don't feel compelled to get it in advance. We'll get it whatever day we get it. But we don't not get it. Because I'm afraid of having it in the houses. It's like Oh, forgot to get it. We'll get it when we get it. And also, I don't feel afraid of having it in the house. And also I don't feel afraid of my daughter going out and trick or treating. And her bringing candy back home. I don't care. She can bring it and she might let me have some of it generally she does because she doesn't like everything and I can have it or not have it and I have a piece or two and then I'm done. It doesn't it doesn't overwhelm me. And it's not because I'm restricting. It's because it doesn't have the pull over me like it did when I used to avoid Halloween and avoid Halloween candy. If you're wishing to have peace with food over the holidays stay tuned we're going to talk about this more and more because There literally is a way to at peace with food. I promise you it worked for me it works for my clients and it is possible. This is Kim McLaughlin with the feed your soul with Kim podcast. I am so glad you were here today. I look forward to talking with you all further about how to have more peace with food. Bye everyone. Thank you for joining us on the feed your soul with Kim podcast. We come to you every Monday with fresh new ideas to help you end emotional eating and put food in its proper place as nourishment. Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and review it and let us know what you think. Thank you for joining us