Millions of Americans made plans to stuff themselves on Thursday, November 25, 2010. In the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving day, talk of food dominated the airwaves. While listening to Raleigh area radio morning shows, you would have heard stories about deep frying turkeys and listened to giddy voices discuss how much they would eat.
Thanksgiving day truly is the Intuitive Eating Super Bowl! Instead of Super Bowl Sunday, it's Super Bowl Thursday. From dealing with a culturally sanctioned agreement to stuff ourselves to working with personal habits of chronic overeating, eating intuitively on Thanksgiving is the ultimate showdown.
For many people, the process of overeating on Thanksgiving day looks like this: as soon as the food is ready, you eat, then you wait until your stomach empties a bit, and then you begin eating again for the entire day. On reflection, do we ever spend any other day eating like that? Do we really know why we eat in this manner, besides the fact that eating excessively seems almost expected? When the warm and uncomfortable feeling of being stuffed subsides, many of us are triggered to eat again.
All of this eating is usually followed by sleeping or sitting on the couch watching TV…the best recipe for weight gain. This type of eating excess may simply be a magnification of the everyday overeating that is so routine for a great deal of people, from the overweight to those with a "socially pleasing" body size. Some people simply recover from and repent for their overeating more easily than others.
Family members can spend days preparing for Thanksgiving. This yearly epic cooking marathon yields a feast that can feed a family 5 to 10 times over. We have made this food special. We are eager to get as many helpings of turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, and candied yams that our stomachs can hold. Our eyes bulge at the sight of all the food presented before us, while our stomachs eventually groan in protest and our digestive systems display the unpleasant consequences of our excesses. The idea of any of us honoring our hunger and fullness signals seems like a joke in this scenario.
Your first holiday season of eating intuitively may have some major challenges. Although, you most likely will have success with waiting until you are hungry to eat, eating past your fullness may be a pitfall. To you, the food may taste too good to stop. However, that first Intuitive Eating Superbowl will represent a shift in the game. At least your hunger and fullness signals will get some points on the scoreboard! The compulsion to eat and overeat will win by a much smaller margin. More importantly, you will have begun the process of turning the tide of your body being the underdog to being an intuitive eating pro.
You have probably had many years of winning the game of eating until you're stuffed. How about a new more sophisticated game? How about giving your body the gift of eliminating eating distress and claiming triumph for once (possibly for the rest of your life)?
The analogy of Thanksgiving day being the Intuitive Eating Super Bowl yields many important points. Players in the NFL train and play football for months, while giving their best efforts to get one of two coveted positions in the Super Bowl. Many of us have spent years or decades of our eating being controlled by external forces. How many times have you eaten because you're "supposed to," eaten to deal with emotions, eaten because you were triggered by a commercial?
Practicing Intuitive Eating is a way of re-training yourself to eat for what your body truly needs. Every day can be a joyful training day for you as you honor your hunger and fullness signals and cope with your emotions without using food. Then, you will be well equipped for victory on Turkey day!
Practicing intuitive eating is a long-term solution for eliminating overeating and naturally managing your weight. Develop your own ability to recognize and dodge the siege of “you must overeat” messages that begin in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and pester us each day. If you haven’t yet begun your own intuitive eating journey, start practicing the 10 principles today. By this time next year, the ability to maximize your eating pleasure, while honoring your hunger and fullness signals will reign supreme.
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