Navigating my first Christmas as an intuitive eater

Ok so this was my first Christmas doing intuitive eating and it was an emotional rollercoaster. I went into December with this whole yeah I've got this attitude, the treats are starting to come out and I'm not going to binge but I'm going to let myself enjoy this Christmas and have what I want, when I want it and I'm absolutely not going to feel guilty!

And I was doing ok. I was only eating the chocolate when I fancied it, I had brought special cheese, crackers and crisps which I didn't open until Christmas Day because I really didn't fancy them but then I bought a box of mince pies, this was quite early on in December. I bloody love mince pies and never before had I given myself free reign over them, usually I would literally let myself have one or two, sometimes three over the whole of December but never ever had I had this mentality before. I was loving life! By now my hubby had been furloughed again and we would sit there everyday with a mince pie and a cuppa, sometimes a couple of the Christmas chocolates on the plate and I was in heaven! Then out of the blue the guilt and the thoughts of surely a mince pie is way to many calories started to kick in, every time I ate a mince pie I would feel guilty but I was still really fancying one each day. The feeling of guilt in turn then led to me looking at myself in the mirror and hating what I was seeing. The tears started and it was at this point I actually questioned intuitive eating again and thought to myself after Christmas maybe I should just go back to that diet in January, it would have been so easy! I came so close to getting the scales out (I know I should have chucked them in the bin by now) and downloading a diet app but something stopped me.

I put my intuitive eating audio book on and reminded myself I did not want to live like that anymore!! Intuitive eating is a game changer, why would I want to go back to following someone else's rules about MY relationship with food when for the first time I was making my own rules! I was just scared. I was doing something for the first time, that for so many years had felt unnatural that I panicked and I was not prepared for it actually feeling natural and that being ok!! And do you know what I actually got sick of the mince pies in about the third week and stopped eating them.

The rest of Christmas I tried not to let that guilt creep back in again, and if it did I literally told it where to go. I nailed intuitive eating Christmas day, so much so that for the first time in a long time I had room for cheese and biscuits in the evening because I hadn't binged all day! For some reason I didn't do so well boxing day but I was ok with it because I'm still learning and navigating my way through it and to be honest boxing day was a bit more emotional for me so I think that had something to do with it. When I look back at my first Christmas where there were no rules, I don't actually think I done to badly. I'm still on my intuitive eating journey, I didn't give back the control to some app, I'm still trusting myself to make the decisions about what I want to eat, which for me has been the hardest thing since I started and that to me is a win!

Thank you for reading, stay safe and happy eating!