Imagine sitting down at your holiday table. Smelling all the yummy smells – excited to try a new dish or plate up some old favorites that only hit the table once a year. Then your sister-in-law Karen announces she’s not eating sugar this holiday season because she’s taking the latest GLP-1 weight loss medication to lose the last 25 pounds of post-menopause weight gain she’s held on to for the past decade. How do you navigate diet talk during the holidays?
Why does someone always have to drop the “I can’t/shouldn’t eat food because I’m doing…” GLP-1 medications for weight loss, Noom, Keto, Paleo, low-carb, no-sugar,” on and on, until you’re ready to poke your eye out with the fork instead of stabbing into a turkey leg dipped in cranberry sauce (made with REAL sugar)!
It’s unfortunate how diet talk and diet culture manage to show up in even the safest places – like your holiday dinner table, church, school, medical office, inner circle of friends, the hair salon, etc. How do you deal? What can you say? Do you need to say anything at all?
Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered!
Don’t walk into any holiday gathering without some anti-diet talk resources like…
The Intuitive Eater’s Holiday Bill of Rights was originally published by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, back in 2014. Here are my interpretations of these classic statements. You have the right to…
- Savor your meal without judgment from yourself or others. AND without discussion of calories eaten, if foods should or shouldn’t be eaten on someone’s diet plan, or without making a plan to earn or burn calories/foods.
- Enjoy additional servings of any food without apology – this includes whipped cream, pie, and ALL carbs!
- Honor your fullness and satisfaction, even if that means saying “no thank you” when offered more food or feeling sad that you’ve had enough, but “the food just tastes SO good.” Remember, you can always come back for seconds whenever you want or take leftovers to-go – AND eat those whenever you want.
- Say “no thank you” even if the cook worked for hours on the meal or spent a lot of money on having the meal catered. It’s not your responsibility to make someone happy by eating more than you’re comfortable with. SEE leftovers to-go above.
- Ask for seconds of any food without explanation. (NOTE: the theme here is NO comments on people’s food choices! Ever!)
- Wear clothes you feel comfortable in – that doesn’t confine or bind your ability to enjoy the meal and time with people you care about. You have the right to dress according to your style, not to anyone else’s preference.
- Embrace family food traditions that are nourishing and ditch the ones that cause unnecessary stress or trigger negative emotional responses.
And my personal favorite and tradition since I was in my 20s…
- You have the right to eat pumpkin pie for breakfast! (or any leftovers 😉
TRUTH: I used to eat just the pumpkin pie filling and leave the crust, thinking I was saving calories
Now I make pumpkin pie with a nutty granola crust. The crunchiness balances the smooth, creamy filling brilliantly!
While you’re prepping for your holiday feasts or making your lists and checking them twice, don’t miss these Savor Food and Body Podcast episodes with Leslie Schilling and Dr. Maggie Landes.
Leslie passionately shares how to navigate all this diet talk and diet culture in safe places like Christianity and why intuitive eating is a divine gift of grace that you were born with. Listen to the show here.
Maggie (equally passionately) shares her professional medical opinion on why using BMI and weight as markers for health is the root cause of weight stigma at the doctor’s office. You’ll also get strategies on how to survive a visit with your doc without internalizing body shame or getting a list of useless weight loss tips. Listen to the show here.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode! If you like what you hear, leave a rating and a comment. All of this will help other people find the show, too!
