11/22/2021
Even as a health coach I would never tell anyone to refrain from eating some delicious foods during the holidays (unless there was a medical consideration). Refraining from your favorite foods during large get-togethers is not practical, realistic or desirable.
Instead I encourage people to find their Bliss Point, which is the point of optimal enjoyment of your holiday meal. In other words, how do I enjoy my favorite foods without feeling like complete s**t afterwards?
Let’s address this by looking at two important concepts.
First, the brain has a switch that tells us when we are full called “satiety”. The problem is, it takes 15-20 for your brain to realize if it’s full.
If you eat fast, you are usually finished eating before the brain has time to tell you that you’re full. Since the stomach is very elastic you can keep eating and eating. Then once that satiety switch flips then it’s too late, and now you went straight from hungry to “stuffed”. You completely bypass satisfied.
Now everything in your body has to slow down in order for your metabolism to devote its resources to breaking down the large amount of food you just ate. You feel super sluggish. Your mood and mental faculties are compromised too.
The second thing to consider is something called “Parkinson’s Law”. Parkinson’s Law essentially states that if you give yourself a week to finish a project then you would use the whole week to do it. Likewise, If you gave yourself 3 days you would get the project done in 3 days.
When it comes to eating this can be used to our benefit or our detriment. In other words, if I use a big plate I will fill it, and if I use a smaller plate I will fill it too.
But using the small plate would have a lot less calories total, and would possibly allow you to feel satisfied before feeling stuffed. Plus if you usually go back for seconds, then you won’t eat as much in total.
The same goes with portion sizes. No matter what size scoop I put in my plate, chances are I will eat it all.
Going into anything with a plan helps. In terms of holiday meals, a few tricks may save you a few hundred to a thousand calories. But most importantly it may actually help you enjoy your meal more than you regret it.
The big takeaways here are
1. Go into your meal with the idea that you would love to feel good after eating delicious food, as opposed to feeling like s**t. Isn’t it weird we even have to stop and asses this?
2. Use Parkinson’s Law to your benefit. Use smaller plates with slightly smaller portions. You will still enjoy all youur favorite foods, while tricking your brain into being satisfied before you overdo it.
I hope you truly ENJOY your holiday!
