This Holiday Of Miracles—Ancient Wisdom About Managing Your Eating

Taking back control. Rededication. Surviving persecution and abuse.  Triumph after being restricted, forbidden from following your own path. Your prized possession, quality olive oil, gets you through, for much longer than you ever believed it could.

These phrases describe the festival of Hanukkah, yet I can’t help but repackage them as a recipe for moving forward with our eating—both, during this holiday season and beyond, for Jews and non-Jews alike.

First, here’s my very brief summary of the holiday (for a more complete story, check out Chabad and Wikipedia). 

Hanukkah celebrates the rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem a long, long, time ago, more than 21 centuries ago. Following a rebellion against Hellenization, after being persecuted, denied following their own religion, a group of rebels fought back and regained control. They cleansed their temple, and wanted to light their 7-branched menorah, the candelabra, but there was only enough of the purified olive oil required for this ritual lighting to last one day. And yet, voila, it lasted all 8 days. This was great cause for celebration, and what better way than include a lot of fried food?

Some summarize our history more like this: They tried to kill us. They couldn’t. Let’s eat.

Thus, the tradition is to celebrate this triumph over oppression and the miracle of oil. And not just any foods, mind you. The Hanukkah mandate is eating oil rich foods, traditionally white carb types—it’s enough to cause panic among the health conscious and weight-focused.  We eat fried latkes (aka potato pancakes), with sufganiyot for dessert (aka doughnuts). And did I mention this lasts for not one night but for 8?

Regardless of your particular culture or religion, we are all confronted by food challenges this season. And while I have addressed this subject in various posts previously, http://dropitandeat.blogspot.com/2011/11/taking-charge-practical-strategies-for.html, http://dropitandeat.blogspot.com/2010/12/recovering-from-slip-coping-with.html, I thought I’d give a bit more support to get you through this challenging (yet potentially joyous) season.


Balance

From my own experience, I’ll tell you that eating latkes or similarly fried foods, as the main entrée, isn’t going to work for me. I have no problem with including oil in my diet (see http://bit.ly/dOZNqH  and http://bit.ly/uqnq92), but I need to have some balance. All too often, health-promoting types (nutritionists included) get stuck focusing on individual foods or nutrients, neglecting one important fact—we don’t eat single nutrients or food items. 


And we don’t need to get all nutrients from a single food! No, we eat foods together, providing us the opportunity to balance our meals, and our day’s intake, to stay healthy.

Take control of portions

Yes, Hanukkah at my house will include latkes, on more than one night. There will be the traditional potato and onion ones, and my more recent favorite—a parsnip-potato pancake. Perhaps I’ll even try a cardamom leek fritter recipe I stumbled upon recently. But served as the whole meal? I don’t think so. So what will I do? I’ll serve them with a soup and a salad, some lighter fare. On one night, I’ll also serve my homemade sufganiyot, these two-bite delights that really satisfy; at least the portions are small. The bottle of oil, in my home, lasts way more than eight nights, I’ll add. While the sufganiyot are deep fried, I’m light handed pouring oil for my latkes preparation.


Choose what you enjoy. Enjoy what you choose.

Wondering how you’ll manage the Christmas bird or roast with all the fixings, with a yule log for dessert, too? You, too, can add some balance, picking and choosing the richer and the less dense items. But do include foods you enjoy! Otherwise, you may find yourself indulging when you aren’t hungry later, making up for your feeling of deprivation.

And please don’t forget to leave leftovers! Better to enjoy the extra food when you aren’t stuffed; won’t the cake and pie taste better when you’re hungrier? Perhaps for breakfast the next morning? Yes, it’s allowed!

If you are doing the preparing, shopping and cooking for the holiday feast, remember that you have the right and the ability to dictate the meal content. Substitute some applesauce instead of the full amount of butter in the cake. Offer a range of your favorite vegetables to accompany the meal. Strain the fat off before mixing the gravy. Determine the ratio of desserts to guests—must it be one pie for every two people?

Be prepared.

Feeling overwhelmed? Preplan as much as you can. Make a shopping list; then send someone else to retrieve the foods. Bake in advance, and then freeze cookies and cakes. Sure, you may end up eating them right from the freezer, but wouldn’t they taste better eaten mindfully at room temperature?

Plan for the holiday eating schedule—be sure to eat breakfast in the morning, rather than letting one meal slide into the next. And don’t even think of restricting early in the day to compensate for potential overeating later. That, my friends, is a recipe for disaster.


Consider your limits.

And do watch your alcohol intake if you are trying to stay in control of your eating. Sure, it might decrease your stress, but it will also decrease your inhibitions around food (and, perhaps around those difficult relatives). That may be fine, if you are comfortable with the outcome. But it seems to me that rarely is the case.

I hope this helps limit the holiday stress.

Do enjoy the holidays, including your favorite foods!

Happy Holidays!

Taking Charge: Practical Strategies for Enjoying Holiday Eating and the Morning After

Ready to take control?

You, my readers, are a diverse bunch. Some of you are overweight, perhaps higher than your usual and healthy weight. You struggle to have balance in your eating—to eat what you’d like, and to learn to eat just enough. Others maintain their weight in a healthy range, yet grapple with these very same issues. Just because you may look fine, doesn’t mean you’re not challenging yourself to improve your relationship with food. You, too, may be working on legalizing foods, moving from a diet mentality.

Many of you are underweight, as evidenced not only by the scale, but by your body’s function—your low heart rate, body temperature, or hormone levels, resulting from inappropriate weight loss, food restriction or over-exercise. You too may be trying to release yourself from the grips of disordered thoughts and behaviors around food, whether or not it is visible to those around you.

Yet as diverse as you are, it seems most everyone gets challenged around holiday and social eating situations. Social anxiety may add flames to the fire. But I’ll leave that to the therapist bloggers to better address.

Last November, I did a post on recovering after slips, such as after Thanksgiving. Now I’m realizing I’d better address prevention. Perhaps I should have thought of this sooner? It’s not too late! (For those non-US residents, plug in Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza or any other social eating situations not connected to a holiday celebration—the situation is the same.)

It may seem strange, but regardless of what end of the scale you’re on, or what your personal needs are— weight loss or gain or stabilization—these guidelines apply. Because we all want a sense of control over our situation—to eat what we’d like and eat enough of it—but not too much; to enjoy eating and feel entitled to eat, regardless of our size, in spite of the opinions of others; we’d like to free ourselves, discarding those useless rules around good food/bad food, appropriate times, and inappropriate times to consume food.

So here are my tips:

Maintain normalcy before the gathering.

Don’t skimp on your eating beforehand or you’ll be more vulnerable at the event. All too often I’m told of a client’s attempt to prevent overeating. What do they do? They eat less before the meal out or the function, figuring they’ll save some calories. Then they arrive more vulnerable than anticipated. As a result, their resolve to mindfully select their food, or to pace themselves through the afternoon of eating goes out the window.

The sensory stimulus doesn’t help.  The pleasant aromas and visual displays of appetizers through desserts calls to us. Their strategy backfires, and they feel a sense of hopelessness with getting their control back.

Using your head to maintain the necessary balance

Or like my patient, Shari, you restrict before the event, eat fine or over eat at the event, then restrict again afterwards. Hmm. Does this make sense? Somehow, when you hear it told about Shari, it’s clear how senseless this is. Yet my clients believe that somehow they are different, that the rules don’t apply. They are smart. They get it. I know they do. Yet I frequently have to remind them they are not special; lovely individuals, yes. But not so unique that the system doesn’t apply to them.

Get informed. Ask questions.

"What will you be serving?" "What time will we be eating?" It helps having a sense of what to expect. Going to a friend or family’s home? Ask what you can bring—not if you can bring something. Perhaps you'll contribute something you really enjoy and feel good about eating. A lighter dessert? A favorite vegetable dish? An appetizer you’re comfortable eating?

Pre-plan.

It starts with inquiring about what’s being served. For some, it’s necessary to think through your options in advance. If you are dining out, consider checking the menu online, to be less overwhelmed with the decision making during the gathering. Going to family for a holiday meal? Hmmm, they’re serving 6 different starch choices, including mashed potatoes, stuffing, winter squash, sweet potato casserole, biscuits, and pumpkin bread. Which ones can I get at any time? Which ones are my favorites? Which ones should I just pass on, without regret?

Remember, it’s not your last chance to eat.  So if cranberry sauce is a favorite, plan to buy it and keep some at home. Add it to turkey sandwiches or make a turkey with the fixings, even when it’s not Thanksgiving or Christmas.

You don’t need a dog for a doggie bag. Plan to bring a piece of pie, or a package of leftovers for a later time. Perhaps you’ll get hungry again later that evening. You’ll better appreciate the leftovers when you are less full anyway.

Plate the appys.

Enjoy the appetizers. But know how much you are eating. Select what you’d like, and place them on a plate, together. This allows you to take note of what you are consuming. When we are simply grazing on them, without really seeing or acknowledging them, it is much easier to over eat.

Watch the alcohol.

Painting by Russell D'alessio, Bar Harbor, ME
I hope these women had eaten before their martinis!

Nothing decreases our awareness and inhibitions like alcohol. If you can drink responsibly, that’s fine. Best to delay your drinks until after you’ve had some solid food, though.

Be flexible*.

Maybe you decide you’d like something other than what you intended to eat. Or you ate more than you anticipated, even though you tried to be well prepared. The worst thing you can do is to beat your self up. Best to work on moving on. (Yes, it takes 3,500 surplus calories to gain a single pound.)

We may not be able to control senseless comments from those around us at family and social gatherings. And unless we are hosting, we can’t eliminate temptations. But we can certainly take charge of our own thoughts and actions. And in the worst-case scenario, remember it’s only one meal, or one day. So if you ate more than you needed and are sitting with regret, re-visit that old post on the morning after.

* Did you, like me, wish this subheading was left-justified, instead of over here on the right? It's the start of being flexible!

As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

The Morning After

Moving on after overeating.

I slept past my spin class this morning. Then onto the NY Times for a bit of reading, when I started to have distracting thoughts about how you are surviving after a food focused holiday. So here I am.

We spend a lot of time preparing for holiday meals—the cooking, the planning, the anticipating. But we give minimal attention to getting past the eating-driven event. So how’d you do? Did you get to enjoy your food? Did you even taste it? Were you preoccupied with what you were eating and what the consequence would be? Are you feeling you really overdid it?

The problem with Thanksgiving is there is too much delicious food to eat, and it’s hard to enjoy it all at one sitting. And because we view many of the foods as special treats, dishes that are cooked or baked just once a year, we tend to view it as “now or never”.

So here are a few thoughts for managing post Thanksgiving and other eating fests:

• Don’t get rid of the leftovers. Oh no, is it too late? The point is, you don’t want to be set up to see these food items as things you must eat all in one day, on the only day of the year they are served. And the only day they are allowed. Are they already gone? Then plan to make them again at a later date.

• I did say keep them. But take them out of view. If the pumpkin or apple pie sits on the counter it will call to you to eat it. I mean it. This is a truly normal experience, and no sign of weakness, I might add. Slice up the leftovers, wrap them well and slip them in a Ziploc in the freezer. And push them to the back. You don’t have to have them hidden or throw them out. At least this allows to you not eat them on impulse (really, they are not as good straight from the freezer). Then allow yourself to include them when you’re hungry. Yes, even apple pie can satisfy many a food group, perhaps with a glass of milk for breakfast. I hope it’s not too late!

• I don’t encourage calorie counting, but the number 3,500 is good to keep in mind. That’s how many extra calories, surplus, over-and-above-your-baseline-need for calories that you must eat to gain a single pound. Why tell you this? Because if you’re ruminating about how you overate yesterday it’s a helpful reality check. Maybe you really ate more than you needed by last night. I know I did. But in the scheme of things, it’s not going to make a dent in your weight.

That is unless you decide that you blew it. And you know how that cycle goes. You’ll then continue in one of two directions. Either 1) You’ll feel like you failed and then decide to “keep going”, to continue to overeat, without regard to the signals your body gives you, without attention to hunger and fullness or 2) You’ll feel like you failed and decide to “make up for it”, eating less than you need, in spite of what your body is telling you, denying your hunger.

Best solution? Take a breath and move on. It’s only a single meal or day. And try to do something to help you feel good today. A walk, perhaps? Bubble bath? Shopping?

As for me, I’m gonna take some pictures to post with this blog, finish reading the newspaper, then take my baby for a walk. My dog, that is. Then it’s time for some bread baking for dinner tonight!

I'd love to hear from you! Did you survive this holiday eating better than past years? Did you learn something you might use to prevent a slip next time? Enjoy the rest of the weekend.