’Tis the season for overeating
Nicola Down learns how to get through the season of excess
Mince pies are just mince pies. They’re simply pastry and dried spiced fruit, with a pretty dusting of icing sugar. They are not the holy grail of holiday cheer (despite what the supermarket ads say), nor are they sent by angels of vengeance to ruin Christmas. They are not a bad thing that happened to me or a bad thing I did.
And yet, every year, they make me feel guilty and greedy and wretched. The reason? I can never stop at one, two, or three. Heck, I’ve been known to hoover up a six-pack in one sitting. I wish I could eat them like a ‘normal’ person – you know, place in mouth, chew, savour, and get on with enjoying the festivities – but I can’t. At Christmas, I want all the mince pies, ever. And get this: I don’t even like mince pies.
It feels out of control. Control? Who am I kidding? While I’m no Christmas calorie counter trying to squeeze into a teeny hot-tomato dress by NYE, the festive season is the time of year when I realise, deep down, I don’t have the healthy relationship with food I think – or wish – I did. And according to psychologist and weight-loss specialist Karina Melvin, author of new book, Artful Eating, I’m far from alone.
“MANY WOMEN FIND THAT CHRISTMAS CHALLENGES THEIR RELATIONSHIP
WITH FOOD like no other time of the year,” she tells me, reassuringly. The reason? The festive season essentially boils down to three things: family, emotions and food – and this complex cocktail can derail the best of us. “The constant whirlwind of family and friends, the expectations to have a good time and always be happy, but also the anxiety and pressure when we’re not, can be overwhelming and suffocating,” says Melvin. “At the same time, food is everywhere and we’re encouraged to eat for reasons other than hunger or because we particularly enjoy a food. Combined, this can cause us to eat and eat.”
You might think the answer then is a no-brainer. Banish ‘trigger’ foods from your kitchen (yes, mince pies I’m talking about you), make side-eyes with trays of heavenly canapés at parties but always side-step them, and be in your Uber by the time the port-glazed Stilton course arrives at dinner. Okay, so it’s a bit bah humbug, but rock-solid restraint is the only way to put the breaks on crazy Christmas binges, right?
Not so, says Melvin, whose big theory in her new book is that we need to relearn how to indulge and reconnect with our body’s hunger signals that naturally put the brakes on our eating. “If you really want a food or are genuinely hungry, you should always have it,” she says. “It’s a dieting mentality, where we suppress our body’s natural hunger signals and ban foods, that is actually the very thing that causes us to overeat. Restrictive diets with lots of rules, or that exclude foods, as well as plans that require bulletproof self-restraint, have made us lose perspective of what our body needs. Instead of responding to the chemical signals in our body that tell us when to eat, such as a rumbling stomach, we’re increasingly trying to ignore or override them, which inevitably backfires,” she continues. “When this happens, we start following ever-stricter plans, which means we continue to lose all the pleasure and enjoyment that is essential for having a healthy relationship with food and to maintain a healthy weight.”
I bet my very last Rolo this rings as many bells for you as it does for me. Looking back, I’ve forever been trying to override my body’s hunger signals. During my late teens, twenties and early thirties, I was always on some doomed deprivation diet that felt like self-punishment, left me ravenous and made me feel bad about indulging in the foods I loved and guilty around food, something that Melvin believes is still skewing my relationship with food in my forties. “Any diet or eating plan you follow that makes you feel this way will backfire in the long term,” says Melvin. “When you feel guilty around food, you tend to have more cravings, to eat food quickly and not pay full attention to it, which causes you to be less satisfied and desire even more food.” The answer? Melvin says it’s to stop blaming the food itself and shift your focus on to why and how you’re eating. (Fear not, there’s smart advice on how to do that on the next page.)
BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. GETTING FOOD TANGLED UP
WITH YOUR EMOTIONS is the other thing that derails us at Christmas. “Its not the abundance of festive food that’s the problem, but how we use it to cope,” says Melvin. Which means that you open the fridge because you’re overwhelmed by family pressure, or you demolish the Champagne truffles you’d bought for a neighbour to distract yourself from the fact that you’re bickering with your partner.
For me, the worst part is that when I emo-eat, nothing seems to satisfy me and so I inevitably go back for more and more. What gives? “You’ll never feel full when you’re eating due to emotional hunger because you’re not hungry in the first place,” she says. “So emotional eating typically leads to overeating, because you were never in
“When you feel GUILTY around FOOD, you tend to have more CRAVINGS”
tune with the message from your stomach to say you were hungry or that you’re full.”
Hearing this has made me want to call peace with mince pies. It’s also made me realise this: it’s not a diet or eating plan that I need to change my behaviour, but to get back in touch with my body’s natural signals. After all, they want me to have a happy and healthy relationship with food – I just need to listen. Below is some other thought-changing advice that will help unblock the psychological barriers that are causing food or weight woes, and stop you from devouring every nutmeg-heavy morsel in sight.