Welcome to my new series on Party Season! We’re starting an all new series on facing the joys and challenges of the holiday season, starting with the biggest eating opportunity of the year: Thanksgiving!
So for the new four weeks, we’re working through how to enjoy the holidays AND avoid the traps that cause us to overeat and gain that dreaded holiday weight. It’s actually possible to enjoy the holidays and NOT eat your face off while you’re doing it. Not so sure? Let’s get started and figure it out!
One of the first things that can trip us up is how we think about the holiday altogether. Thanksgiving has been my favorite holiday for a long time, even more than Christmas! For a long time, I thought well, of course, that makes sense – fat girl loves the stuff-your-face holiday the best, right? But I realized over the years that that wasn’t why I loved Thanksgiving. It wasn’t actually the food at all. Let me tell you how I figured it out.
For many years, Thanksgiving dinner was at my grandmother’s house. Our family traveled from Boston when I was young, and while I was in college I drove over the bridge to join the family and stay at Grandma’s for the long weekend. Even in medical school, I was able to spend Thanksgiving at Grandma’s. But once I started hosting my own Thanksgiving, it wasn’t the same. Even though I was cooking a lot of the same foods (even Grandma’s stewed tomatoes!), it just wasn’t what I remembered Thanksgiving was supposed to be.
It wasn’t the food at all. What I loved about Thanksgiving was the family gathering, the noise of the game on the TV, the voices of the card players talking smack at the table, and the sounds of the cousins tossing the football on the front lawn. I missed hanging with my cousins and seeing aunties I hadn’t seen for a year. I even missed arguing with my cousins about whose job it was to clean up after dinner (all of us – every time)!
I could make the food. Eating the food tasted the same. But the experience of Thanksgiving and the parts I loved best weren’t the food.
So how about you? What do you love about the Thanksgiving holiday? I bet it’s not just the food. I challenge you to sit down and write a list of what you love about Thanksgiving for yourself. Getting clear about what matters to you most about the holiday allows your brain to recognize that the food is not the center and isn’t what you care about most. It allows you to focus on experiencing what you love when Thanksgiving arrives instead of missing it because your attention is on the food.
If you can find the parts of Thanksgiving that you love the most and keep your attention there, the food becomes less interesting and more of a bonus. You can enjoy it and spend most of your time on what you enjoy most, whatever that is. The food isn’t central, isn’t magnetic, isn’t the reason for the day. And when that’s how you see things, you’re less likely to overeat and gain weight. You get to enjoy some food AND experience the holiday, and maybe lose some weight. At least you probably won’t gain any because you didn’t stuff yourself!
It’s time to look at Thanksgiving in a whole new way! We’re going to spend the next few weeks getting equipped to enjoy this holiday and still keep on our weight loss plan. Stay with me and we’ll get through the holidays together!
Next week, I’ll have a new post for you to help you break the magnetic pull of your favorite holiday foods. You’ll be in control instead of them being in control of you!
Watch out for my new Mindful Eating Meditation series – you will be able to get on-demand help with finding hunger, managing cravings, and stopping when you’re full – all tools you need to calm your brain and take back control. You’ll get a chance to buy this series for yourself and maybe also for someone you love who could use the support – keep an eye out for your chance to get this help!
Here’s your video help for this week – I added a meditation practice to this video so you can practice getting your mind right for Thanksgiving Day! Don’t miss it!