The No Stress Guide to Diet Talk Around the Holidays
Diet talk around the holidays gets crazy! It's easy to let how other people talk about themselves affect how you feel you should talk about yourself. A friend or coworker talking about wanting to go on a diet, or "casually" mentioning all the "junk" she's eaten lately and needing to "burn it off" at the gym is more than enough to put you in a frenzy! And it can feel like all the work you've done towards eating intuitively falls to the wayside with just a few words. "I need to eat better."
Even if you're not specifically saying these words to yourself, saying them in your mind and through your actions of slowly moving towards restricting again is basically all in the same.But know this...You can control how you respond to other people's diet talk!Maybe this is how it's gone in the past. Maybe you remember sitting at the lunch table on break at work and other girls in the office start talking about the office party you both were at the night before and eating/drinking too much. You hear their own guiltiness coming out with how they talk about the food and number of cocktails they had. And what this does to you is make you feel like surely you, also, had too much and should be doing something about it.
Maybe you're over at your neighbor's house at a cookie exchange and one of the women there talks about how she can't eat anything because it seems that even just a stick of celery causes her to gain weight!
This is diet talk.
It's talking about food in a way that shows that you, or someone else, don't trust it. It's talking about your body in a way that elicits shame and guilt and fear.Can you relate?So what is there to do? You've been on your own, personal and wonderful intuitive eating journey. But now it's so tempting to want to go back to old habits of restricting and overexercising. Because around the holidays everything feels too much and it'd just be easier to restrict and know that you're in control.But you can stand strong, my dear friend! You don't have to give in to diet talk that is so strong at this time of year! All it takes is daily, and sometimes moment by moment, reminding yourself who you are and why you're here in this moment, in your journey.Here's a few tips for navigating diet talk (without stress!) around the holidays!
1. CHANGE THE CONVERSATION
If you feel the turn in the conversation moving towards body bashing and food critiquing, try changing the conversation. You can be direct and say things like, "Let's not talk about our bodies like that" or "That type of talk about food isn't healthy," or you can be simple and subtle and just start talking about something totally different. It's important, not only for yourself and your own mental health and growth in this area of self care, but also as a way of taking a stand for other women! Be the change and change that conversation!
2. WALK AWAY
Here's a simple one, walk away. Go find a different circle to talk with. Walking away is probably a bit easier than staying in the conversation for most people and can be helpful if you're still in the works of building up courage to stand for yourself and intuitive eating. Which is not a problem! Courage is not always a giant leap, but often comes from small baby steps in the right direction.
3. SPEAK TRUTH
Whenever you're battling a negative thought or action, the absolute best thing to do is speak truth in my opinion. Speaking truths, such as, "I am enough right now," or "I don't need to restrict to be healthy," are amazing ways of being able to combat diet talk. Something I recommend is having a few of these truths written on notecards that you keep with you and/or place around your home. The idea is to fill your mind with so much that is body positive and that promotes a healthy relationship with food that the other stuff, aka diet talk, doesn't have as much of an effect on you. What would your truth or truths be?Above all, I want you to know that standing up for yourself against diet talk is a form of self care. You do not have to engage in the typical January 1st diet another year. Be the change that has others around you wanting this new-found confidence that you now have! I believe in you!