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7 Ways to Ditch Food Guilt During Holiday Meals and Embrace Joy

7 Ways to Ditch Food Guilt During Holiday Meals and Embrace Joy

There’s no doubt that food is the main focus during the holidays – outside of family, of course. It’s common to feel food guilt, especially if you’re not used to indulging. A 2020 study found that 63% of Americans experienced food guilt during the holiday season.

It’s important to give yourself grace this time of year since it’s only a few days and you should be able to enjoy sharing meals with your loved ones. Here’s what you need to know about food guilt to have a happy holiday season.

This story is part of 12 days of advicehelping you get the most out of your technology, your home and your health this holiday season.

What is food guilt?

From talking refrigerators to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.

Food guilt occurs when you feel bad about something you ate. You feel shame and guilt for what you chose to eat. For some, this guilt can quickly escalate into deeper feelings of shame, especially in people suffering from disordered eating.

If you’re strict with yourself about eating nutritious foods, you might end up feeling guilty if you eat something that you consider unhealthy or that contains more sugar, salt, or fat than it should. you are used to it.

Why do we feel food guilt?

Food guilt is often linked to your relationship with food. If you’re on a strict diet and “slipping,” you may tend to feel guilty about what you’ve eaten.

From talking refrigerators to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.

7 Tips for Dealing with Food Guilt During the Holidays

The holidays can be especially difficult with food guilt. You may be sitting down for meals that are outside of your nutritional comfort zone, so it’s important to approach the season with tips for managing food guilt.

Woman feels guilty about eating less nutritious foods

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1. Consider Eating Less Nutritious Foods as Part of a Balanced Diet

THE U.S. Department of Health and Human Services outlines a “healthy” diet that people should stick to, breaking down the amount of protein, carbs, and various nutrients you need per day. It’s important to balance “healthy” foods with foods that are richer, because in moderation, there’s nothing wrong with eating stereotypically less nutrient-dense foods. When you cut out foods completely, especially fun treats like ice cream or chips, you may find that you crave them even more. If you allow yourself to eat these treats occasionally in moderate quantities, eating nutritious foods the rest of the time won’t hurt so much.

2. Practice mindful eating

Eating mindfully is the act of watch what you eat and enjoy every bite. With this practice, you are able to devote more time and energy to thinking about your diet, according to Harvard School of Public Health. This involves chewing well and eating slowly so you can savor every bite of food. Research into mindful eating has shown that it can reduce anxiety around eating, as well as overeating.

3. Focus on how you feel after eating certain foods

Sometimes food guilt is unavoidable, but what you can do when it happens is identify that it’s happening. This way you can really think about why you feel this way. Sometimes people don’t even realize that the feeling of guilt is related to a certain food or meal and why it occurs. If you’ve started a food journal, you can also write down these feelings to see if there are any patterns related to which feelings occur and when.

4. Start a food journal

Keeping a food diary can have a positive effect on the way you eat. According to Harvard Medical SchoolA food diary can help you track what you eat, how much you eat, and how you feel afterward. If you’re looking to improve your relationship with food, you can also include the reasons why you eat. However, it’s important not to overly monitor every single thing you eat, as this can turn into obsessive behavior and even eating disorders. A few research also showed that when people get tired of keeping a food diary, they give it up and return to their previous eating habits.

Close up of food diary

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5. Avoid getting too carried away with nutritional mandates

In the same way that keeping a strict food diary can turn negative, focusing too much on what constitutes a “healthy” diet, fad diets, and anything related to these strict diets can also have a negative effect. on you. Diets such as Keto or Atkins are not necessarily diets that can be maintained over the long term — unless otherwise recommended by your doctor. And while counting calories or macros can help you lose weight, if that’s what you’re aiming for, doing it for an extended period of time can trigger eating disorders, according to Duke Health. Paying too much attention to these numbers can certainly make you feel guilty if you “exceed” what you think is ideal, which can make you feel even more guilty about what you eat.

6. Honor your hunger

Your body sends signals to your brain when it’s hungry, and you feel these pains when your body needs food. It is important to listen to your body. When he tells you he’s hungry, you have to feed him. When it tells you it’s full, you should stop eating. Listening to what your body is telling you is essential to knowing when and how much to eat.

7. Accept that you deserve to eat without punishing yourself afterwards

Give yourself grace when you feel like you’ve “slipped,” because when it comes to a balanced diet, you actually haven’t slipped at all. You deserve to get treats when you want them and when it makes you happy – and that doesn’t mean you have to go to the gym for 2 hours or skip a meal later. Every day is a new day, and as long as you eat a nutritious diet most of the time, having a few fun snacks and meals is totally fine. If you’re unhappy with what you ate today, remember that you can eat something else tomorrow—you don’t need to feel guilty.