This is not a cheat meal
Holiday season is a time of social gatherings and food - aka the perfect time for triggering comments about our eating behaviours and bodies to be made, often causing us to feel shame and guilt instead of warmth and joy. However, if we look at it through the lens of a Body Banterer, it’s also the perfect time to make some positive change, for ourselves and those around us! :)
For me at least, it is often not a comment from those around me that is the most triggering, but the faint echo of my past eating disorder speaking from inside. It challenges me - asks me what I have done to deserve the freedom of eating whatever I want, of eating something just because it looks good. Puts labels on different foods, and makes me believe that eating in a certain way will make me “good” or “bad”.
And of course, these thoughts only become louder and stronger when they are directly reinforced by the spoken words of those around us, - the friends, the family, the people we follow on social media. There are the conflicting messages: The Instagram post of the most beautiful pumpkin pie, ironically placed right above the one that tells us how guilty we should feel for each slice that we eat. Then there is the general “holiday eating guilt” atmosphere that is just everywhere: the guilty look when someone reaches for the chocolate, the “I will have to run for so many hours to burn this off” reverberating from various corners of the room…
It becomes too much for me sometimes. It becomes too loud. So this holiday season, I am determined to speak louder than these voices, both internal and external, and hopefully spread some of these ideas to those around me as well.
Below are my holiday affirmations/reminders:
- THIS IS NOT A CHEAT MEAL. Cheating necessarily implies that you are deviating from some sort of set standard - and there is nothing bad/deviant about feeling warm and happy!
- YOU DESERVE TO EAT AND ENJOY EATING, regardless of anything that has happened before or after (i.e. Whether I have exercised or will exercise, what I ate before or how I will eat later, what my body looks like - none of it has any effect on how much I am worth or how much I deserve).
- FEELING FULL IS NOT A CRIME. Feeling MORE than full is not a crime. Eating is not merely a way to inject yourself with nutrition - it is a way to enjoy life!
- STOP LABELLING THE MORALITY OF FOOD. There are no “good” or “bad” foods - unless you are referring to what tastes good/bad and what you want to go for! :P
- EATING IS JOY. Joy does not need to be compensated for.
Let me know what you think of these affirmations/whether you used them/if you have any new ones to add to this list!
~ Last reminder before I send you all off to enjoy your wonderful thanksgiving - You are worth it, you are deserving, and there is so much life to be lived. Enjoy it! <3
With love,
Steph