How to handle the holiday buffet
Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and a new book on habits has an interesting take on eating. As she puts it, when it comes to eating (and most other things) there are 2 types of people. Moderators and Abstainers. Moderators, well, moderate. Occasional indulgences heighten their pleasure and the idea of “never again” getting or having something completely freaks them out. Abstainers, on the other hand, aren’t tempted easily and can say NO forever to something once the “off limits” decision has been made. They also have a hard time stopping once they’ve started so “just having a bite” doesn’t work for them.
Now I haven’t yet read Gretchen Rubin’s newest book but from what I’ve gathered, she believes your type is your type, so own it. I’m all about owning your personality tendencies; however, I DO believe in questioning them when they begin to feel 1) suffocating; 2) restrictive; 3) anxiety producing; and 4) like you’re living a thin slice of life.
The thing about my Abstainer clients is they can get so locked into abstaining that they forget to feel into whether or not saying NO still works for them. And what I know about my Moderator clients is they feel guilty for not saying NO enough. They think they should be like Abstainers with ironclad willpower and just try harder to say NO to sugar or gluten or whatever it is. And so they try, then say yes to dessert and feel like sh*t about themselves for not adhering to the “rules”.
Here’s what’s missing: No one is checking in on their bodies.
Abstainers say NO to pumpkin pie because of their predetermined rules and Moderators say YES, not because their body necessarily wants it but because to say NO makes them feel restricted, bereft and left out.
The problem: Everyone is eating from thinking rather than feeling. Both Abstainers and Moderators are walking in with a pre-set eating plan in their head. Why? Because eating from thinking is a safe default that we know, whereas eating from feeling puts us in a murky grey area where we eat based on our body’s needs, our emotional state and the given moment, which is ever changing and therefore terrifying.
When we eat from feeling, Abstainers may be asked to say YES to something that has previously been a NO and Moderators may be called to say NO when they’re used to saying YES.
I like to call this EATING IN THE GREY; a state where there are no black and white rules to uphold or break but rather where we listen to our physical body’s desires in that particular moment.
For Abstainers and Moderators alike, here’s what eating in the grey looks like at a holiday meal:
You walk up to the buffet line and see turkey, stuffing, rolls, green beans, sweet potatoes, pie, etc.
Before making any decision on what you're going to have or not have, you take a deep breath and feel into what your body wants.
You stand in front of the turkey and ask your physical body, “Do you want to eat this right now?” The key here is knowing you’ve eaten everything at the buffet at least once before so you can imagine what turkey will taste and feel like in your tummy. If the answer is YES to turkey, put it on your plate. If the answer is, “Ya know, I’m not really in a turkey mood since we had turkey last night,” then PASS and move along to stuffing.
For each food item, imagine the flavor, what it will feel like in your body, then let your body answer yes or no to it.
It may be that the only food your body says YES to is pie or green beans. Totally cool. The key in eating in the grey is letting yourself eat without judgement and in full presence of what your body wants. (And if you’re immediate response to this is, “If I do that, I’ll just eat bread and pie all night!,” read this and this.)
**One caveat here. The holidays are a time of wonderful memories where we eat to celebrate, connect and remember traditions. In eating grandma’s pie or mom’s stuffing we eat not out of hunger but to nourish the emotional centers within us that bond us to the people we love. That’s FINE and perfect for practicing eating in the grey. It’s an opportunity to enjoy a scoop of mom’s stuffing while also staying connected to your physical body’s experience and stopping when your body is done rather than when you’ve polished off the stuffing tray because you only get it once a year.
Learning how to eat in the grey is the ONLY way to enjoy the holidays without getting anxious about what you should or shouldn’t eat or saying F*CK IT and eating everything in sight because willpower is too hard. Think about it this way: You are allowed to have anything on the buffet table that you want whenever you want it.
The next time your at a food event that would normally make you anxious, see if you can approach food differently. If you’re an Abstainer, notice if there’s a hard-lined food NO that’s begging for a yes. And if you’re a Moderator, try to say YES not just because the food is there but because it’s the exact thing you want.
Together let’s all ease up, listen in and eat in the grey.
XO,
Jamie