If You Think You Ate "Too Much"
The one after Thanksgiving.
…You didn’t.
I spent years of my adult life worrying that I was overeating. That I was having “too much” of this or that. Thinking it was a problem that I was always hungrier than others around me, and that I consistently needed to eat more than just about anyone else I knew.
I remember spending holidays trying to be as “good” during the day as possible, aka avoiding eating much at other meals before the big holiday dinner, and trying to do whatever I could to squeeze in as many workouts leading up to Thanksgiving as possible. If I didn’t, or couldn’t, there was guilt. Oh, the puddles and puddles of guilt.
Eventually, thanks to some <literally> life-altering wisdom from registered dietitian Christy Harrison via the podcast “Food Psych” a few years ago + learning about intuitive eating as well as the reality of diet culture, I was able to let that way of thinking go. Shed it like an unnecessary winter coat, and finally broke free of the calorie counting and the guilt and the exercise addiction and the disordered eating and just… all of it. And gosh, was it liberating. There’s more to it, certainly, but that’s a story for another day; my point here is just to tell you I GET IT. I have been there, and I know that for a lot of people, diet culture is still very much a main character in their lives. Maybe there’s a seat at your dinner table whose whole job it is to make you feel like it’s dangerous to sit amongst your favorite foods, or that it somehow makes you a bad person for wanting to enjoy holiday meals, and not stopping when you get to whatever arbitrary calorie total you’d established in your head. I know there are still plenty of loud voices out there, in media and in real life, telling you how many calories you need to burn in your workout this coming week to “make up” for however many slices of pie or scoops of mashed potatoes you ate.
But what if you just………. didn’t?
Wild and crazy thought, I know (but really, I know it may literally seem radical and scary to you — I see you), but maybe consider it.
Here me out, okay? What if you just hit silence on those voices in your head and across social media, and went on with your day and your week and your life post-holiday without feeling the pressure to run any extra miles or spend any additional hours in the gym? I mean, please definitely run the extra miles and do whatever workouts you want if they give you joy — I mean, personally, fitness brings me joy, and there’s nothing toxic about that — but do it for that reason only… not because you think you have to punish yourself or because you’ve been made to believe that more sweat means you can somehow undo eating things you didn’t know the exact calorie count of this weekend, or that weren’t made with ingredients your fav influencer has assured you are “clean.” You can move on with your life in a post-Thanksgiving glow without any added guilt that you didn’t do enough, or that you somehow overdid it. Contrary to popular belief, it’s OK to enjoy a holiday, and to eat sugar and refined carbs, and honestly whatever the hell else you want to eat, whether it’s a holiday or not.
You won’t destroy your health, or implode, and you won’t suddenly gain 20 pounds. And honestly, even if you did, that doesn’t make you any better or worse of a human. Weight does not equate worth.
Did you hear that? One more time — say it aloud with me:
Weight does not equate worth.
So…………. go on and savor the rest of your Sunday! If you have some extra holiday desserts and leftovers still snuggling in your fridge, eat them, if you want. It’s fine, I promise.
You get this one life — why not enjoy it?
+++++
Alright, off my soapbox. 😚 Thank you for reading, and I hope you had a great Thanksgiving, no matter how you spent it— including if you ignored it, or went ahead and made something other than turkey and cranberry sauce. (That’s what we did with our holiday — I made my mom’s baked ziti instead and I have zero regrets.)
Sending you all the YAYs,
Joelle
you KNOW i love this one!