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Eating disorders can be hard. I feel like it can feel magnified when you are in the midst of one during the holidays. A lot of times it can seem like the holidays are centered around food. It can be stressful as well as triggering! I tend to forget that I need to validate my feelings and try to make healthy decisions for myself despite the circumstances. I found this cool acrostic that has great reminders to keep in mind throughout this month:
H unger means you eat when physically hungry instead of emotionally hungry.
A ttitudes about your size has to with the size of your heart instead of the size of your body.
P eople accept and value you for who you are, not according to how you look.
P roblems are resolved in ways other than stuffing your feelings with food.
Y ou spend as much time and energy on helping others, as you do on how you look.
H appiness comes from within rather than from expectations of others.
O ccasions for the holidays emphasize relating to others instead of emphasizing food.
L ove of self means you deserve to treat yourself in the best humanly possible way.
I dentity of self involves more than how you look.
D isapproval of self is changed to approval of who you are.
A cceptance of what one can not change includes your body features.
Y ou treat yourself as you treat your best friend.
S ociety values you for being you without emphasis to your weight or size.
– See more at: http://www.mirror-mirror.org/holiday.htm#sthash.uLLyO2t1.dpuf
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That’s really helpful to keep in mind. I have had problems with eating in the past and things are way better now but stressful times, like the holidays, are always a trigger for those unhealthy behaviors I used to resort to. I’m writing down that happy holidays acrostic to keep for myself to use, not only for the holidays but year around!
Def something that I’ll keep in mind. I always struggle around the holidays… there’s something about family and food that is just so comforting to me. Staying healthy and sticking to the good behaviors that I have worked hard to learn has been very important to me. Thanks for this positivity!
The holidays are very tough for me too. But for a different reason. It’s so lonely for me this time of year. I don’t have a family and I have friends but none of them are close enough for me to be comfortable enough to go to their family functions for the holiday season. There are a few good points I try to remind myself too. At least I can anticipate that the holiday season is tough for me so I plan ahead as to how I’m going to handle it until Spring comes back. I have no expectations for anyone or anything. That way, I will never be disappointed. I don’t expect people to invite me to Christmas parties and I don’t expect people to buy me gifts of any kind. So I’m either saying to myself, “I expected that to happen,” or if someone does invite me somewhere or buy me presents, “Wow! I’m so grateful! Thank you!” I hope this helps you at all. Great post!
Thanks for opening up about that and for sharing how you deal with the holiday season. I know it can be extremely difficult to deal with, especially since the media and everything around us is broadcasting the idea of family, friends, holiday warmth and gatherings all day and night. I have the same mindset when it comes to holidays, “no expectations so no real disappointments”. It’s been too many times that I’ve wanted and even felt like I needed to be around everyone during this time and partake in all of the festivities and found myself upset b/c I didn’t get any of that. My family isn’t so big on Christmas anymore since we all grew up. Everyone does their own thing and I always felt left out. I’m just now getting use to doing my own thing for the most part so it’s been ok.
I’m glad that you see the positive in things but I also would love for you to try to be more optimistic 🙂 .. Maybe you can break out of your comfort zone and join in the festivities at a friend’s house or go to a local community event. I went to an event last year at my local YMCA and surprisingly, I had a good time. I can def help you find something to do if you’re interested. You seem awesome and I bet anyone would enjoy your company.
Well I used to be skinny and then, I got shubby a little fat because, I was eating a lot of food when I was hospitalized, and then in the holidays my family gets together and everybody brings different food we even buy 100 pound pigs for pork and have huge parties that over 200 people come over to our parties and my family s Puerto rican so they cook a lot of food and eat a lot. I think when you are stressed out you eat more from experience I broke up with my boyfriend and I am literally skinny again when you stessed about anything you tend to eat more, life is much harder like that should star thinking about a diet.
I think that people get a little carried away on the holidays and start feasting and eating a lot off food what they don’t realize is the weight they gain during these holidays. People love he holidays because they now they are going to be stuffing their faces. Then they complain when people call them fat.
As someone with an eating disorder, I find holidays or really any day of celebration o be extremely stressful.
I remember on my birthday my partner took me out for sushi because he knew it’s my favorite. I spent the whole time stressing over the number of calories I was consuming and neither of us ended up enjoying ourselves. I don’t even eat sushi anymore because of the high caloric content despite how much I love it.
The problem is eating disorders are isolating and holidays/celebrations are very social events. I’ve cancelled so many celebrations with friends because I was worried about the presence of food. Back in February a very special anniversary of mine came along and I was originally going to go out to dinner to celebrate with a bunch of friends. After a good week of stressing and starving myself to prepare for a big meal I finally decided I couldn’t do it and I cancelled.
Eating disorders are terrible illnesses. They suck the fun out of everything.