T'is the Season

It's that time of year. Everywhere you turn there is a party platter loaded with tempting delights and sugary treats... T'is the season of indulgence and decadence. Unfortunately, it often comes with strained family dynamics, loneliness, expectations and money pressures... and leads us to that all too common side dish: post-indulgence guilt.

Here are two articles I'd like to share with you. They are from slightly different angles but ultimately give the same message - EAT! Enjoy. Nourish yourself. Practice letting go of fears and shoulds and tuning into what you really, truly need. Celebrate! Here's to a supremely nourishing, decadent feast this Holiday season. Have fun, explore and send me a message about what you find out!


Marc David, The Institute for the Psychology of Eating

Every year since my first book came out in 1991, I am approached by at least one magazine to be interviewed on holiday eating. Generally, they're writing an article on how people binge and overeat and go crazy with food during Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. "How to stop people from gorging themselves" is the basic theme. What are the tricks to harnessing our willpower, and preventing the horror of weight gain?

Every time an editor at some magazine or newspaper asks me these questions, they're so sincere, so looking for answers, and so dumbfounded as to why America can't seem to get it's collective appetite under control.

Truthfully, I'm absolutely finished answering such questions with "people need to eat more mindfully" or "put down your fork between bites" or "eat lots of fiber rich foods so you'll feel filled up."

Here's what I'd really like to say about holiday eating:

Go for it.

Eat, gorge, imbibe, let loose, express yourself, give in to your food fantasies, and let me know what happens.

The holidays are for celebrating. It's a time to open up. "The Feast" is a theme in life, and virtually every culture with a written record and a long history has its feast times when they celebrate full force with food, with music, with dance, with pleasure . . .
Oddly enough, without times in our year when we can "let go," it actually becomes more difficult for us to be "in control" during day-to-day life. Control and let go are two sides of the same coin, and each needs the other. For many people, once you give yourself the inner permission to feast, something can relax, and it's easier to feast in a "healthy" way.

The more we fear the gorging, the food, the pleasure of it all, the more we live in fear. And fear is perhaps the most unsavory and anti-nutritious ingredient in any meal.

Wishing you a relaxed, nourishing, and pleasure-filled Thanksgiving . . .

Enjoy the holidays,

~ Marc

Mindless Eating or Mindless Not Eating?

Nourishing Connections

Karin Kratina, PhD, RD, LD/N

Amy Tuttle, RD, LCSW

We've all heard about "mindless eating" and how it contributes to weight gain. But we don't often hear about mindless not eating and how it impacts our struggles with emotional eating. And yet for many of us, especially during this hectic time of the year, mindless not eating is one of the major reasons we end up eating past comfortable fullness.

Having too much to do and not enough time to do it, we find ourselves saying "yes" when we wish we had said "no," showing up when we really needed to lie down. As a result, we unintentionally ignore or delay meeting our needs. Though we are exquisitely tuned in and responsive to the needs of others, we become disconnected from the signals from our own body and spirit. We rush out of the house in the morning with no time for breakfast. We skip lunch to run errands. We get home later than usual, hours after our body has tried to tell us it needed fuel. Mindlessly not eating.

Inevitably, when we slow down after mindless not eating, and when we are no longer distracted by others' needs, our body naturally responds to our low blood glucose by letting us know, "Eat! Eat as fast as you can!"

When we combine this natural end result of mindless not eating with the challenges around this time of year that bring on emotional eating-missing loved ones, loneliness, worries about finances, and dysfunctional family dynamics, we increase the likelihood that we will end up eating emotionally.

It's easy to lose our mindfulness during the holidays and to mindlessly not eat. But if we can remember to include our needs on our "to do" list, stopping every couple of hours to eat, to breathe, to receive, to be, we allow ourselves the opportunity not only to avoid an emotional eating episode but also to be more fully present with the people we care about at this time of the year.

Stay Attuned Tip
Treat yourself like a little child. As you head out to each busy day this week, take time to prepare and pack meals and snacks. Stop to rest and feed yourself before you get cranky. Enjoy!