Ep 42 - Intentional Overeating at Thanksgiving & Other Special Occasions

November 28,2024

Happy Thanksgiving Confident Eaters! Special occasions and holidays are often linked to overeating. And the truth is natural eaters DO overeat every now and then. The difference is that they do it intentionally. So is it okay to sometimes overeat? How do natural eaters navigate the abundance of delicious foods?

Today’s episode covers…

• What is intentional overeating?

• 3 steps to intentionally overeat for the right reasons

• Why guilt does more harm than the food itself

• How to enjoy holiday meals without derailing your progress

  Hello, confident eaters. Happy Thanksgiving. If you are in the U S we are celebrating today giving thanks. But today's episode is going to be one that you can use any time of the year for special events or occasions where you might be choosing to eat more food than normal. We're talking about intentional overeating where you actually choose to overeat because believe it or not, this is something that natural eaters do at times. Now next week, if you were listening to this live. For only next week, December 2nd through six. I am offering a limited number of one time holiday recovery sessions.

These are sessions that are designed to help you navigate the holidays while becoming a natural eater. So it's a one-time private session that will give you personalized coaching to either help you prepare for the holidays with a binge free plan or to turn around any recent binge and create a clear strategy to avoid it from happening again.

So included with this one time 60 minute private session with me, you're also going to get exclusive access to my navigating holidays video module from the confident eater course, as well as the accompanying worksheet to support you through the season. You're also going to walk away with a customized step-by-step plan to help keep you binge free in 2025.

So if you've been on a binge streak recently, we can turn this around in just 60 minutes together. And this session alone could save you thousands of extra calories and even more importantly, your peace of mind. So you can book this holiday recovery session in the show notes.

All right, so let's be honest Thanksgiving and today, these big holiday events are usually synonymous with overeating. Thanksgiving in particular, we tend to think about it as one where we laid out on the couch, have our pants and buttons, and we're taking a nap. Now, I first want to say before we dive into this topic. That you never have to overeat this episode is not necessarily like your permission slip to overeat, but more, if you do decide to choose to overeat how to do that intentionally, but you always have the decision that if you do not want to eat a lot of food on this day or any day you don't have to. Even if every single person around you is, you still always get to choose what in how much food you consume.

That is something that is within your power and your power only. Even if your aunt becky is giving you every piece of pie that is known to earth. You can still decide to say no, or I'll take that home for later, or I'll try that another time. It looks delicious. Thanks so much for making it.

You were still in charge of your body today and every day. But at the same time, I see often that there's this unnecessary fear and guilt this time of year, too. And that guilt and fear can overpower any joy we might be able to have around the holidays or special events.

So, what if overeating when done intentionally didn't have to be a problem that had to, we're going to talk about on this episode, we're going to explore how you can approach Thanksgiving or any meal with a mindful guilt-free mindset. Even if you plan to eat more than usual.

So first, what is intentional overeating? What do we even mean by this? When you talk about binge eating, we can confidently say that's something that we don't want to do. And binge-eating, it's something where we are usually eating a very large amount of food, a larger than most people would normally consume in one occasion to the point of physical pain, we feel out of control. We feel like we can't stop. And it's usually done very quickly in this fast manner. So we really do not ever feel could after a binge. So we can safely say that we never want to binge again.. That is something I can guarantee.

Now, overeating however, can become a bit more nuanced. And this is where it can get a little bit more difficult because natural eaters do choose to eat past fullness on occasion.

It is not wrong or disorder to sometimes eat past fullness. It's something that humans have been doing for all of history. Sometimes, occasionally not being perfect eaters. Believe it or not.

So that's what we need to talk about and discuss is if we are going to overeat, how is that going to be the quote unquote good type of overeating, the intentional type of overeating.

So how I'm going to define intentional overeating is where you choose to go slightly beyond your normal level of comfortable fullness for reasons you like. I'm going to say the sentence again, and we're going to break it down a little.

So it's where you choose to go slightly beyond your normal level of fullness. So you're choosing to do it. It's not just happening to you. You're not just all of a sudden, oh my gosh, I'm overeating. You're choosing to do it. And it's slightly beyond your normal level of comfortable fullness. This is not overeating until we can not move.

This is slightly just a little inch past our normal level of comfortable fullness. And the last part is for reasons you like. If you do not like your reasons for overeating that does not get included in intentional overeating.

So one of my friends gave me this example that I really love. When I was telling her about this topic. Which think of it, like the difference between having a few drinks out on a night with your friends versus finishing a bottle of wine alone on the couch, because you're sad or anxious.

One of those you might like your reasons for the other ones you might not. You might love having a few drinks out with your friends. You find it really fun. And even if you don't feel your best the next day or after you feel okay with it, because you intentionally chose to do it, and you knew the repercussions of your actions and you were okay doing it anyways, versus when we're using a food or alcohol to escape our emotions.

If we're just saying, screw it, give me wine, screw it. I'm going to overeat today. That's probably not a reason that you enjoy. That's a reason that you feel guilty for after. That's a reason that you say, Ooh, I probably shouldn't have done that.

So natural eaters at times do choose to occasionally overt eat. They're not perfect eaters who stop at their exact perfect level of fullness all the time. But there's really no right or wrong answers with this. Some natural eaters do overeat at Thanksgiving and some don't.

When I think about my younger brothers who are natural eaters, I don't really think they overeat most Thanksgivings, but I also have some memories of them choosing to overeat. Oh Thanksgiving.

Some natural eaters, overeat. If you go to olive garden at the limited buffet and some won't, it's just depending on their mindset around it. And if they like their reasons. I have noticed that most natural eaters will overeat if the food tastes really, really good. Now you might be thinking, well, I think all foods, food tastes really good, but that's likely because you're still operating from a diet brain in a scarcity mindset.

Your brain is scared that food is going to disappear off the face of the planet because you've given it so many artificial rules that it's going to make food tastes extra good even though if it's not actually that good.

And so to a natural eater, the food has to be in like truly the top 1% of all foods they've ever eaten in order for it to be worth going a bit past fullness on.

So this is not just like any food that tastes good is like the top of the top of the top of foods. So there's no right or wrong answers as a natural eater. They do overeat at times, but it's more rare in usually intentional.

So what intentional overeating is not, it is not just saying screw it. I don't care. I mean, it's not just throwing your hands up in the air and saying, I don't care what I do anymore. I'm just going to continue to overeat. That's not very intentional. That's giving up.

There is a difference between being intentional and overeating and giving up and overeating. It's also not mindlessly eat it. So it's not just zoning out and not even paying attention to the food where you feel like you finished the meal and you're like, I don't even remember eating it. The food is gone. I don't remember tasting it. I was so guilty the whole time. No, we're talking about mindfully eating this food in amounts that feel good to you being present for the whole experience. And this is also not eating until you are in pain or extremely uncomfortable. This is slightly past your comfortable level of fullness, not laying down and feeling like you can't move unable to go for a walk. It's just a teeny bit past where you normally would stop.

So, how do you do this? If you want to intentionally overeat at this Thanksgiving or at another special event or meal where it's going to be the top 1% of foods and it's going to be delicious and you're going to be okay. Intentionally doing this over, eating.

Your first step is to make a clear cut decision. So we literally want you to say to yourself, I'm choosing to enjoy this meal past my normal fullness signal without guilt. Take responsibility for it. It's not just something that's happening to you coming over you. It's something you're choosing and you're choosing to do it without guilt moving on after. Release the pressure to make up for it later, because we'll talk about it in a second, how that guilt will make it so much worse of an experience and often lead to more overeating.

So you're deciding I'm going to overheat this time. You're going to put a box on it and decide this is going to be it. And then I'm going to move on and I'm just going to resume my normal eating again. I'm not going to restrict, I'm not going to try to go on a diet tomorrow. I'm just going to keep moving forward. Just like any other eater would.

Now, once you make this clear cut decision, make sure you're choosing these indulgences, what you want to be eating mindfully. So only do this with foods you're most excited about. You probably don't want to choose to intentionally overeat on a pie that is two weeks old and falling apart and crumbling at the seams. That's just to me personally, not going to be very worth it.

I want to do this on the fresh baked pie that was just made a few hours ago that was put in with so much love and care and I love pie. So that's going to be something that I love, but maybe you don't like pie. Maybe your thing is more of the stuffing at Thanksgiving, and that's the thing you want to have. Choose what you're truly most excited about and asking yourself, what do I love here? What do I really want to saver?

And then the final step is to practice awareness while you're eating so truly slowing down. So you can see where every bite. I want you to challenge yourself to double the amount of bites that you make this meal.

So if you normally would eat a piece of pie in three ginormous bites, make it six, or if you normally make it six bites, make it 12, make the experience enjoyable, slow it down. You might actually realize that you don't want to overeat past fullness as much as you thought you did. You might actually realize I'm actually good because I actually got what I wanted because I savored it and slowed down. But if you slave to saver and slow down and you still decide, you want to intentionally keep eating that is okay.

But check in with your body during the meal, promise that you're still going to be present for this experience, ask yourself, am I still enjoying this? Like truly enjoying this experience? Or am I starting to kind of wind down with it? This is like the same thing where, again, going back to the night out with drinking example, It's like two way.

Yeah. You've been out all night drinking with your friends. You're starting to get tired. You need to ask yourself, am I truly enjoying this experience at anymore? Or am I just trying to make it last? When I know it's not going to last anymore and I just need to go home and go to bed.

So same thing with food, you might realize that I'm not actually enjoying the pie anymore, and it's just time to stop and I can get this food again later. It's not going to go anywhere. And if it does go anywhere, you can get Thanksgiving pie anytime of year. If you want it, you could make it at home. You can find it somewhere at a store.

So, what if you feel guilty during this, what have you decided? Okay, I'm feeling good. I'm going to over eat just a teeny bit at my Thanksgiving meal to truly enjoy it because I love this food. It's my absolute favorite. Well, whatever meeting you're having. If you feel this guilt, I want to remind you that the guilt about overeating is usually a bigger problem than the food itself.

Because let's go through this situation. You finished your holiday meal. You're feeling good. You're like, Hmm. That was delicious. You're feeling a little full, but you're feeling good. And then all of a sudden, the guilt sets in, oh my gosh, I shouldn't have done that. I wasn't supposed to overeat, even though I chose to overeat, it was probably a bad idea anyways, how am I going to make up for this?

How am I going to get rid of all these extra calories now. Okay. If you start getting into that guilt mindset, I want you to pause because what might happen is you start to promise yourself. Let's just eat less tomorrow. That's the first thing you might do. Let me just restrict tomorrow then Now this is putting you into either mental or physical restriction, mental restriction is where we tell ourselves I shouldn't be having this. And that can make us feel just as deprived as actual physical restriction, where we don't give ourself that food. Now, both of these can drive extra urges to eat. And when we're feeling these extra or just eat because we're feeling deprived either mentally or physically, we're going to likely give in and just say, screw it again and continue to eat over and over again.

Now, the second thing that might happen is you might decide the night of that. You've ruined it. You're not gonna even try to restrict or cut back because you've already ruined it. So might as well keep going. And then you're going to continue to overeat or even full-blown binge the leftovers for the next seven days. And so that's not going to work either.

So notice how every time we feel guilty, whether we go into trying to restrict, or we just go into effet mode, we're going to end up overeating more than if we were just to say, you know what? I did this, I'm feeling good about it. And I'm going to move on from it. I'm going to learn if I overate more than I wanted to, but it's not a big deal. This is just part of life. And part of being an imperfect eater as all eaters are.

So, how do you get read of this extra guilt? I want to remind you the truth here, the facts. All you dine with eat some food. That's all you eat some food, you didn't kill anyone. You didn't burn someone alive. Like all you did was eat some food. There is nothing wrong about that. I, everything else that is coming up right now is just your brains drama.

It is optional thoughts that you don't have to indulge it. Remind yourself that you chose to enjoy this meal. It is something you have thought through, and that is okay. You're allowed to enjoy your food peacefully, especially when you were being super intentional about it. That is such a way.

Now, sometimes guilt is trying to let us know that we're doing something that doesn't align with our values. Sometimes guilt is like a little red flag of like, Hey, let's check in because maybe we were doing something we didn't want to be doing. Like, for example, if you were going to cheat on your partner, you might start to feel some guilt because it's letting you know this doesn't align with my values.

So if you feel like, no, I feel guilty because this actually wasn't something. I wanted to do chances are you didn't like your reasons for overeating or you felt like they weren't good enough reasons to overeat and if you feel that way, don't overeat. If your reasons for overeating were, ah, just think it's going to taste good, but that wasn't worth the physical pain that came after. You don't need to intentionally overeat.

And this is what natural eaters realize too. If one time they gave himself the reason of, oh, you know, I think this food is special and I want to have extra of it. And then they had physical peanut after it. They're gonna remember that. And they're gonna tell themselves that food actually isn't that special because it wasn't worth that extra pain and sluggishness and all the other negative feelings that they had in their body.

So over eating itself is not bad or wrong, but it is true that all actions are going to give you a result in your life. Everything we do or don't do is going to create a result. So if you overeat it every once in a while, you can still likely have all the results you want.

The health, you want the weight you want, the body, you want the habits you want, and you can have this intentional over eating at times. But if it gets to be to the point where it's happening much more than occasionally, that is where I come in and I help you in my confident eater program to stop overeating excessively and get back to just this natural level of eating when you're hungry, stopping when you're full, like 90% of the time.

Natural eaters don't feel guilty for overeating once in a blue moon, because it doesn't happen that often. It just happens once in a blue moon and they like their reasons for doing it so they can just move on. So if you'd like your reasons for overeating, great move on from it. And if you don't ,that's where you might want to get support from someone who's been in your shoes and knows how to get you out of it.

All right. You guys all have an amazing holiday season, whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving or not, or you're listening to this in the middle of July, whenever you're finding my podcast. Welcome. And I want you to all have an amazing week remembering, no matter what happens, you're always in charge. You get to choose and you get to decide how you want to think, feel, and act during this time. All right, happy holidays. Have a good week. Bye.