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The holiday season is upon us. No matter what holiday you celebrate and how you celebrate it, many of the season's gatherings center around food. This can be really challenging, so I wanted to provide some 4 recovery tips for navigating nutrition during the holidays.
1. Set realistic expectations. Navigating the holidays while working on eating disorder recovery can be exhausting. What are the activities that you actually want to do? Where is going to be the most supportive environment for you to celebrate and maintain your recovery? What might you need to say no to?
2. Have a plan. Talk with your team proactively about travel occasions and celebrations so that they can help you plan ahead. Things to consider include: eating schedules on travel days, coping strategies for holiday meals, and more.
3. Don't skip meals (or snacks) before your holiday meal or outing. Holidays have special meals and outings. While this can be distressing, skipping meals or snacks is not the way to cope with those feelings. It also creates a cycle where you will feel ravenous before your meal and likely lead to you eating past comfortable fullness. Consistent meals and snacks allow us to enjoy our holiday the whole day.
4. Ask for support. Having an identified support person can be helpful during the holidays. This might look like sitting next to them during a meal or having a secret code that communicates "I need a break".
We hope that these tips can help you navigate your holiday. If you are looking for more tips, we would love to help you!