78: Can you have peace with food this holiday season?

 Do you find you are already thinking about candy? It is front and center in the grocery stores. I have already heard stories of people buying Halloween candy in September and eating all of it. 

The saying “failing to plan means you’re planning to fail” takes on a whole new meaning when we look at the holiday season. We think we will do it the RIGHT way (whatever that is) and not have problems with food. 

You need to listen to today’s Feed Your Soul with Kim Podcast where we discuss how the holiday season sets you up to overeat and feel bad about yourself.   

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

• How this holiday season sets us up to overeat. 
• Six questions to help you determine what you really need this holiday season. 
• One doable to get you started. 

Peace with Food: Holiday Edition 

I mentioned 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 

Here are the questions we address in this podcast. To move through this time, it can be helpful to have a plan: 

• How will I address food? 
• How will I address my emotions? 
• How will I address my thoughts? 
• How will I address my social obligations, including family members? 
• How will I create peace? 
• How will I act in a loving way towards myself? 

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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Transcript

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Welcome to the feed your soul with Kim Podcast. I'm Kim McLaughlin your host. And I've helped people when they're feeling overwhelmed and overloaded, and it shows up in overeating. And do we have a special edition for you today, we're talking about whether you can have peace with food this holiday season. We're going to talk about how the holiday season sets you up to overeat. I'm going to offer you six questions to help you determine what you really need to do this holiday season in order to feel more peace with food, and I have a special offer for a way to get help over this holiday season that we're going to talk about in a few minutes. Let's get started. Hey, welcome, everyone to the podcast. This is an important topic. And I'm Kim McLaughlin, you're on feed your soul with Kim podcast. And today the the topic is can you have peace with food this holiday season. It is the end of September as I am recording this and I am seeing in the stores a lot of candy there is this big aisle. In the front of the store is candy front and center. It's all kinds of special candy, Halloween candy, all the things that we don't see in the front of the store except at this time of year. I know that some of you might have already bought some i i hear the stories, people everybody talks to me about what's going on. And one of the things they've been saying is they bought the candy in advance expecting it to last the month. And it's already been. And if that's you, you got to listen to this program because we're going to talk about what to do. It's a really difficult time of year. It's the time of year that I lovingly called the holiday trifecta. Because the holiday trifecta is this time, it's three months. So it's a long time, October, November, December, it ends for me it ends around January one because this is the time that there are three months of pressure and stress and overwhelm. And it can show up in over eating, it can show up in trying to restrict, but it does show up. And I want to talk about this now. So we can be on the front end of stopping it have a putting an end to it and having this time actually be a time of peace with food, when that'd be lovely. So some of the things to think about is to start wondering how are you handling food over this holiday season. I'm going to talk today more in terms of the Halloween time because that's really this this coming month is what we're challenged with is the the candy and all the things around us. So one of the things I wanted to think you'd ask yourself is, are you keeping candy in the house? Do you actually have candy? Do you have it now? Or do you plan to get it later, I know some of my go twos around the Halloween and candy have been all by the candy and say, Oh, I'm gonna save it for Halloween. And then, you know, once it gets open, you just take a here and here and then I think I'll just form by my, I'll buy more before Halloween comes and so I'll just replace it. And it's a way of overeating and binging that kind of I get to slide into the holiday without kind of challenging myself and going Kim, what the heck's going on. So that's one of the things I've done around candy at the holidays. I've also done it where at Halloween where I won't even buy candy. And when I was single I would I found that I didn't want to have it in the house so I just wouldn't buy it. And with that I wouldn't be around for Halloween. So I would always make sure I was either working late on Halloween or one of my go twos was I would go to the gym on Halloween. So when all the kids were trick or treating, I was at the gym. Another thing that I started to do is I would stay home with my dog and we'd be upstairs I keep the whole downstairs dark and watch television upstairs but I wouldn't answer the door because I didn't want to have candy in my house. That was the level of fear that I had around candy. Fast forward to now we we haven't bought any Halloween candy but when we do it's it's not an issue anymore. or, and it doesn't call to me like it used to it used to, I used to think like the candy could, it could get into my brain and just make me do stuff that I didn't want to do. And that really was difficult to me. Another way that I see people handing link, Candy food during the holidays is they just say, they won't overeat, it's like, I'm not going to have that I'm not going to eat that, I am not going to do it. And then despite what they want to do, they end up overeating and feeling bad about themselves and feeling overwhelmed and shameful about it. And then also your body ends up feeling not too good. Another way I know people do it, this hasn't been my thing is they plan to overeat and plan to just say, I'm going to just overeat, I'm going to eat everything that comes. And I put in parentheses, that one of the things that you know, they know is going to happen is they're going to gain weight, because they're eating a lot more than their body really wants and needs. And then they know that come January one, they're going to go to their go to diet. So January, there'll be the oh, I'm going to just eat, I'm gonna eat whatever I want. And come January one, I'll deal with it come January one, I'll start my diet, I'll start my diet then. And it's this way of binging. And then feeling shame, and then restricting, but it's a plan full binge, planful shame, feeling shameful. And then plan for restricting. We've talked about this before on the podcast of the diet. Cycle is diet, binge shame, diet, binge, shame diet, and it goes round and round. And sometimes we set ourselves up over this holiday time to say I'm just going to binge and I'll deal with it later. Another way to do it is to plan to restrict the whole time. And like, I'm just not going to have it I'm not going to do any of that I'm not going to go anywhere near it. And then it just it never I talked about this earlier. Like I don't know that that that generally lasts, but the restriction of I'm just not going to eat, I'm not going to eat, I'm not going to eat. And these things can be really tough this time of year can be really tough. And I'm bringing it up now because I'm thinking about how you have to have a plan. And I'm going to talk later we'll talk about my plan, I have peace with food holiday addiction edition piece with food holiday edition, coming up starting a little later in in October, where we're going to talk about how to deal with food and how to not manage it, but really embrace food in a way that fits for you. So I am going to talk about that more. That is a way to start looking at food differently. I think of that the same if you fail to plan you, if you fail to plan means you're planning to fail it. And I think of that over the holiday season because we generally fail to plan to plan what to do and how to deal with life. And when we're looking at the holidays when we're looking at food, it's really beyond the food. It's all of the components and I'm going to talk about that a little later in the podcast is that I have six components to feed your soul and I think of them as you balance out all of them. And when we just focus on food and restricting and no food or I'm going to manage the foods you're really not dealing with the totality of what was going on or what is showing up in your life that leads you to that comfort of food. One of the things that happens over this time of year is that there are these special foods for each of the THE MONTH october november december. There generally is a special food or a multitude of special foods that show up those time of year that we really feel like we've restricted all year long and then we go all in to eat it and I thought about how the holidays really create that dieting mindset of I don't eat these foods all year long. And then I get this special food and I'm gonna have a lot of this special food. One of the things I think of is like that pumpkin spice latte which I do like and it becomes a special thing and I thought how amazing or how interesting it is a Starbucks how they how they advertise it, how they start going. You know the countdown to PSL the countdown to Pumpkin Spice Latte. Today's the day you can get it and and how it will be this thing to get and they've created this kind of fervor over it because it's limited. It's a limited time so when things are limited just like a diet, we want to go in and have a lot of it because is we're no, we're not going to have it later. And I want you to just consider what that does to you. I've thought about that. In terms of like Thanksgiving, our tradition is to have turkey and to have gravy and mashed potatoes. And I realized that if we're looking at having it just one time a year, then it becomes restricted the rest of the year. And now I invite our family like we can have things or turkey whenever we want, we can have it throughout the year, we can have mashed potatoes throughout the year, we can have gravy throughout the years. So it's really not a special food that we have to overindulge in because we have this one day to eat it. That has been an interesting shift in our lifestyle and shift in mindset in terms of these aren't special foods. They're foods that we have throughout the year. And it doesn't make it like a deprivation, that we don't have it. Hi everyone this is Kim, I just want to give you a heads up that it is the holiday season. And we are offering our peace with food holiday edition program. It is very affordable. It's $29. It starts on October the 24th. Every week, you will get helpful strategies that you can do over this holiday season. And all of these strategies are independent, so you can pick and choose which ones work for you. I think it is your best bet to have peace with food this holiday season. Check it out, we have the link in the show notes. When we're looking at this time of year, when there's so much difficulty around food and food is front and center. Next month, I'll talk about how the Thanksgiving food is front and center and how it's big all around, you know front and center in the store, what we can do is start beginning to have a plan. Remember, failing to plan means you're planning to fail. So having a plan but it's not a diet plan, like like, you know, this is a plan to address the we've talked before in the podcast about the six components. And I'm going to go through this in terms of a plan for each component to have you start thinking about it. And actually in the peace for food holiday edition, we're going to have a plan for each of the six components. Throughout the time of the plan or the time of the program, we're going to be developing plans of what you can do. It's interesting because I didn't call peace with food holiday edition, often people will call it a challenge. And this is not a challenge. And it's not challenging. It's a way of looking at food differently, and also embracing what you can get out of this holiday time and how to have peace. Let's talk about some of the plans. One, how will I address food? How will I deal with food over this time? Am I going to restrict? am I planning to eat everything I want? am I planning to intuitively eat to eat more mindfully? So really thinking about what is your idea about food? Am I going to not have candy in the house? Because I'm afraid of it? Just looking at what? And be conscious about what your plan is? Because then it can create more opportunities for peace? And also is the plan one that's going to bring peace if I'm restricting and saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That can lead to feeling of deprivation which will lead to us wanting to have it later. Which leads to that shame, which then leads those wanting to restrict. So really looking at how to address food. Second, how are you going to address emotions, emotions show up a lot over this holiday. Because there are people coming around their situations coming around. There's a lot of expectations that we don't always feel that we can meet. And when that happens, the emotions raise fear, loneliness, anxiety, when I'm thinking about peace with food, the holiday edition, the the special program we're having, did I mention that it's really going to be low cost, like, incredibly affordable. I don't know why you wouldn't do it kind of a thing. Because you need help with emotions over the holidays. There's a lot that shows up even with me and I've been a licensed psychotherapist. For years and years I've been practicing intuitive eating for years. There's still things that show up for me, I am not immune. And I want to have ideas about how to handle emotions and be on the front end. Be on the front end of what might show up and what I might do about it. So that's emotions. The third that I think you need to address is your thoughts. What's coming up In your head, what are you saying to yourself, some of those things can be, my thing I should say is, I need it, I want that food, I'm gonna eat it, I'm gonna have it, I'm gonna have it. The other thoughts that I have is my life isn't as good as theirs. You know, I can look on social media and go, I feel jealous. And my thoughts say My life isn't as good as other people's liquid they haven't I don't have and there's a lot of thoughts that I can have. Possibly you resonate with it, too is this thoughts of negativity and negativity about myself? And what I don't have, we got to get a plan for that. And there are lots of tools and techniques for the thoughts in order to slow them down, bring them to a more manageable level. And so we're not reacting to them. The fourth area that can be addressed is social obligations, lifestyle, including family members, what are you going to do around social obligations? Or what you think is an obligation? Are you going to go Are you not going to go? Do you really want to see that person? Do you not want to see that person? What kind of boundaries Do you want to set up? That is a key component in peace with food holiday edition that we are going to look over is creating some boundaries, so that you have an opportunity for peace with food, but also peace with your life? Can we say that like peace with food equals peace in my life? And that's what we're looking for in that balance. So figuring out or having some idea about how I want to address my social obligations? And do I want them to be obligations? That's important. The fifth area is mindfulness. And so I think asking the question of how do I want to create peace? I think of the December time period, for me, it's that really considering the time of peace and considering the how do I get more centered, how I get more in touch with myself and my joy and the light, that can be tough, especially when you have these other other people's agendas going on that I find that I have had a hard time I found that over the pandemic, when we were shut down, like I found the holiday to be quite wonderful because I was able to I allowed myself to create more peace because the obligations were being cut out. There wasn't as many obligations over the pandemic, at Christmas time at that December holiday. So I found I was creating more peace. And I found out how much I enjoyed it. And this year, I want to embrace it. I want to allow myself to have social activities, and I want to have peace. I want to create that space for peace for myself. So that's my goal. That's my plan for myself. And that might be your plan to we could do that together. Peace with food Holiday Edition is where we're going to do that. The the sixth component is self love, how am I going to act in a loving way towards myself? How am I going to embrace the love, and that is so difficult. With the negativity we take on with the challenges with the feelings with the food with the shame, it's hard to create that. That feeling of self love. And that is that deep place of what do I believe about myself? What do I believe to be true about myself? How am I going to be more loving? When we are more loving food gets in his proper places nourishment, my emotions aren't as hot, my thoughts level down, I'm able to come to the table differently. And that's really important. It's one of the areas that is sorely missing in our society. And I want to bring it back. I want to celebrate self love and being more loving towards ourselves. So what would be a way over this holiday that you could act more lovingly towards yourself? That's a good question. And that would be a plan. What are you going to do for that? If all of those questions lead you to feel overwhelmed, just breathe into it. Just wonder what that's all about. And know then that means maybe that having a plan or having some strategies or tools could be important for you, because there is a better way to come into this holiday Trifecta time period, to feel empowered, to feel empowered. So what I want to challenge you We always talk in our podcasts about duels, is take those five questions and answer them for yourself all How about I'll put those questions in the show notes so you can have the questions in the show notes to start journaling nonmem What's your plan? What's your plan, what's your plan, and then see how you can make that happen. I really want to encourage you to join peace with food holiday edition, I'm going to be talking about it more and more, I'm going to talk more and more about this holiday trifecta, because I think there's room for improvement for all of us. And I'm super excited about it, you'll find a link in the show notes for the program. It starts towards the end of October, you can sign up now. So you're just in on the list, and you're going to be in to get that that flow going on that flow of piece going on throughout the holiday season. I look forward to talking with you more this holiday season. There's a lot for us to cover. There's a lot of things that I want to talk about that are going to be valuable to you and you're going to get a lot of wins and really come into this holiday feeling different and experiencing a different situation. So this is Kim McLaughlin Beecher soul with Kim Podcast. I'm so glad you guys all came I look forward to talking to you more because there's a lot we can do to create peace with food over this holiday season. By