You can find tips for managing the food reasons: that is, the candy, cookies, and feasts. Most December magazines, in fact, offer not only yummy recipes, but also ideas for minimizing diet damage. I'm thinking less about food choices this season, though, than about "speaking up"-the subject of my last blog, and of a "related link", "Dealing With Food Pushers." And that leads us straight to those family visits.
Reports of holiday weight gain vary, from the proverbial "seasonal seven" to more recent studies citing one to two pound average gains. However, even here, many people gain more. And most important, most don't lose those pounds, so the yearly holidays account for the upward creep we so lament. If we're to stop that creep, we do need to think of food choice. We need to think of stress management, too. But we absolutely can't forget to think of those family visits.
Becoming more assertive around diet, as I discussed, indeed helps with "food pushers". Food pushers aren't limited to family members, of course, but spurning Grandma's lasagne or Mom's fudge can load the heaviest emotional baggage. Diet maintenance demands new kinds of responses, often involving "speaking up". Family visits wreak diet disaster in less visible ways, though, too. And it's these that often fall off the holiday weight gain radar.
Sarah, for one, had relatively supportive and understanding parents. They knew how hard she'd had to work to get in shape. They didn't push food. However, "When I'm there, I just eat more," she'd noted. "I'm checking the refrigerator, grazing, taking seconds." Why was it so much easier to avoid these habits at her own place?
Like anything else, eating habits connect to cues and associations. Think of the smokers who avoid taking breaks in their usual spots, because they know they'll want to light up. In Sarah's case, it seemed that 20 years of earlier eating would reemerge on settling into her childhood home. Recognizing this enabled her to stop and think, and to talk herself through: "Okay, just because I'm here, I don't have to visit the refrigerator. I can wait ‘til dinner."
The self-talk helped, but wasn't necessarily easy or comfortable. For it's often not only the cues and associations we've got to challenge. When we start to behave differently around others-most especially our parents and siblings and close relations-we can experience an unwelcome and unexpected unease. This holds true even when the others are supportive, as for Sarah, and intensifies when others resist or actively discourage the changing.
Mary occupied the role as the family "black sheep", in that her parents and brothers had always considered her the one who simply couldn't "follow through". Directly and indirectly they'd let her know for years that they didn't expect her to succeed. She'd had a tough time in grade school, true enough, but the "slacker" label stuck. Successes went unnoticed. And as far as her weight went, no one expected her to stick to a diet for more than a few weeks.
If Mary announced she was watching her weight, "Oh, sure," might be the reaction. Cookies would still emerge, leftovers thrust upon her. Obviously, assertiveness might help her deal, but how would it feel to actually succeed once and for all, to overturn her family's expectations? "Looking back, I think I felt I was proving them wrong, almost like I was hurting them, even though I know that's irrational," she reflects. "I felt pretty sad, and that surprised me. I felt distanced from them for a while. I feel lucky that I was eventually able to get my eating in order. My weight's not perfect, but I don't gorge any more, and I pretty much stay on track, even when I go home."
Does Mary's family acknowledge her success now? "Actually, one of my brothers has, which has been a mixed thing. It feels good, but it's also annoying-why couldn't he have supported me before?"
Tom is still figuring out how family visits have affected his "upward creep". For him, the creep has been significant. "I've gained at least five pounds every year since college," he reports. At almost 35, "I've got a lot of weight to lose." For the most part, Tom's efforts to reform his eating are moving along. But he still finds himself "shoveling it in", at his family holiday table. "It's like I don't even think," he says of his approach to these gatherings. He's just beginning to ask himself what might be fueling that automatic behavior.
Indeed, not thinking, running on automatic, is how the damage happens. Paying attention comprises step one in striking "family visits" off the holiday weight gain list. Is it habit and familiarity? Guilt at "rejecting" food offerings? Discomfort at behaving differently than others expect? Anxiety in abandoning your role? Fear of provoking envy, even?
While it's not an easy set of questions to pursue-certainly those "how to eat at a buffet" tips are much less complicated-for some, it's key to keeping in shape for the months and years that follow these seasons.
