Every year, around the end of October, I write lots of articles about healthy holiday cookies, nutritious renditions of Thanksgiving favorites, simple ways to stay slim during
the holiday season, and so forth. You know – all the things that are supposed to help a health-conscious person navigate through a season of holiday dinners, cocktail parties and school festivals.

But even the most creative dieting tricks and healthy stuffing recipes won’t help if you don’t follow them. Really, you already know what and how to eat. So why do you find yourself bent over a plate of brownies, or halfway through a second heaping helping of stuffing, gravy and buttered rolls that you swore you wouldn’t take?

Tricks don’t work because they don’t combat the underlying issues, the mental and emotional side of eating. And the holidays are emotional. We’re pressed for time, short on money, and either overburdened with family responsibilities or feeling the pang of loneliness. Certain key dishes may also bring back happy memories of past holidays. And all those high-carb, sugar-rich holiday treats temporarily boost levels of serotonin, the brain’s feel-good neurotransmitter – which makes us crave more.

Most of the time, we’re not really hungry for pecan pie or holiday ham. We’re craving a quick boost in feel-good brain chemicals to counter the effects of holiday emotions, or we’re starving for connection, peace, happiness, a fond memory of past experiences. And when you’re gripped by that kind of hunger, all the dieting tricks in the world won’t help.

This season, try something different: look to the underlying cause, the emotions themselves. Approach this exploration with a gentle, inquisitive air, rather than another must-complete item to cross off your to-do list. And maintain a sense of humor; hold your exploration lightly, and just notice what comes up. Here’s how you might begin:

Stay in touch with your feelings. Most of the time, we don’t have a clue what we’re feeling in any given moment. And in the blur of holiday shopping, cardwriting and entertaining, it’s even easier to lose touch. Make it a habit to check in two or three times a day; just before meals is the perfect chance to stay on top of your feelings, before they run your food choices.

Ask yourself “How do I feel in this moment?” If your first answer is “Fine,” keep going. Get a little deeper and more specific in your inquiry; keep asking until you hit something that seems authentic. Checking in with your feelings before you hit tricky areas – office parties, dinners, events at your child’s school – will greatly increase your personal power, and your ability to make food choices based on your current desires – not hidden emotional cues.

Be in your body. Many otherwise healthy and happy folk walk around all day in a state of half-awareness, not really present in the room, on the earth, in their bodies. We get in a habit of checking out, sometimes because there’s so much going on in our heads, sometimes because it’s uncomfortable to be in the particular body we’re in. And when we’re not aware of our bodies, we can’t tell if we’re hungry, what we need to nourish our bodies, or when we’re getting full.

Try this: when you pause during the day to check in with your feelings, also check in with your body. Start with your feet. Are they grounded, making full contact with the earth? Notice that. Then slowly draw your awareness up your body, through your legs,
your pelvis, your abdomen. Pause at your stomach, and see how it feels. Is it empty, or satisfied? Does it feel tense, or soft and relaxed? Continue in this way up through your body, noticing how each area feels, and breathing slowly and deeply.

Examine your cravings. I had one client who was obsessed with crunchy granola when she got stressed. It wasn’t the sweetness she was craving; ice cream, chocolate or cake didn’t do it for her. It was the specific texture: biting down and chewing on hard, crunchy granola relieved some of the stress she felt. It even sounded loud, exemplifying the “noise” in her head. And it gave her a sense of power and control, of taking charge over areas of chaos in her life.

The next time you find yourself in the throes of an insatiable craving, examine it. What is it you’re really hungry for when you’re dying for a candy cane? Is it the peppermint flavor, the sweetness or the hard, crunchy feeling? If you’re aching for warm eggnog, maybe it’s the burst of serotonin from the sugar, or perhaps the temperature and creamy texture is symbolic of what you need in your life: something warm and comforting to fill up the empty spaces.

Once you have a better idea of what you’re really craving, you’re better equipped to make a choice.

Break the chain. I once had a client tell me that she would find herself halfway through a bag of chips, with no memory of making a conscious decision to indulge. She didn’t even remember opening the bag, and she felt utterly powerless. But somehow, she got there, through a series of events. There are many links in the chain of events that lead to eating, and if any of them is broken, the end result is different.

So imagine this: you’re sitting in an upstairs room of your home, working at your computer, when you’re absolutely gripped by an overwhelming desire to finish off the rest of last night’s pumpkin pie. If you were to follow that desire to its logical conclusion, you would stand up, maybe close your computer, walk out of the room and down the stairs, go into the kitchen, open the refrigerator, remove the pie, set it on the counter… you get the picture.

What if you broke that chain of events at any point? Suppose instead of setting the pie on the counter, you put it back in the refrigerator? Or instead of walking into the kitchen at the bottom of the stairs, you turned instead and walked into the living room, where you picked up a book and began to read? Once you become aware of the long chain of events that precede a food binge, you’ll begin to recognize – and even take advantage of – the opportunities to break that chain at any point.

Shift your focus. Imagine you’re alone in the house with a refrigerator full of holiday leftovers and a mind and body full of stress. Just before you plunge your hand into a bag of Christmas cookies, or your fork into an apple pie, quickly shift your attention. Take your focus to something outside of yourself. It may be visual: look out the window at the snow,
the clouds moving across the sky, the blush of sunset. Or it may be auditory – the sound of your children playing in the living room, a favorite song. Focusing on sensory input calms the mind, gets you back in your body and helps you stay present. It’s also a fast, simple
way to break the chain.

Hold the edge. In some yoga practices, there’s a concept known as holding the edge: when you notice discomfort arising in a particular posture, you don’t react, hopping abruptly out of the posture, nor do you push through it. You just pause at that edge, breathe, and notice what’s going on.

So when you experience the urge to eat, and you know you’re not physically hungry, don’t do anything. This is a slightly different approach from shifting the focus; in this one, the urge is the focus. Just feel it. It will grow. It may become intensely uncomfortable. Keep feeling it, staying at that edge of discomfort, and notice what comes up. Don’t shift the focus, or try to change the urge – just observe. For most people, this experience can be anxiety provoking and powerfully disconcerting – but quite illuminating.

Be happy now. We think once we get thin, or lower our blood pressure, or give up sugar once and for all, we’ll be happy. Most of the time, though, it’s the opposite: once you get happy, you’ll have a better chance of achieving your goals. A few years ago, a study found happiness may breed success, rather than the other way around. The researchers suggested that happy people were more likely to seek out opportunities that would ensure their success. I believe happy people are more likely to stick to dietary goals, and less likely to eat from stress, depression or anxiety.

At any rate, there’s no point in delaying happiness, or loving your body and yourself, while you wait to achieve some possibly far-off goal. It’s all a process, and it may be a life-long one. Enjoy your holidays – and your life – in the meantime. .

Lisa Turner is a chef and food writer in Boulder. She also teaches cooking and nutrition classes at Bauman College, and offers catering and nutrition consulting. Visit TheHealthyGourmet.net or InspiredEating.com for more details.