Every year we swear we’re not going overboard and we’ll focus instead on eating mindfully at Christmas…then suddenly we’re knee-deep in mince pies, food guilt, and that familiar December “sod it” spiral that leaves us bloated and already dreading January. 

In today’s episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what’s really going on when Christmas eating feels out of control - and why Christmas isn’t creating the chaos, but magnifying the cracks in your relationship with food and your body.

I’m sharing my own past patterns and helping you see why this cycle is so common for busy women. More importantly, I’ll walk you through three simple steps you can start right now to create more mindfulness with food and stop over eating at Christmas time.

Here’s what we’ll cover:

• Why Christmas overeating is not about lack of discipline — but a nervous system responding to months (or years) of restriction.
• How festive eating becomes a magnified version of your everyday patterns.
• The real reason “pre-Christmas restriction” always backfires — and how it sets up the binge–guilt cycle.
• Three simple, practical habits you can begin today to create a calmer, more mindful Christmas.

NEXT STEPS:

1. Share this episode with a friend
2. Listen to next: Episode 225 - How to Practice Mindfulness (When It Feels Like It’s Not Working Like It Should)  

RESOURCES:

Sign up to The Body You’ll Love Living In - and claim your exclusive Mindful Christmas Eating Bonus:

Instagram: @lifeeditwithalix 

You have said it before and you are very likely going to say it again this year. I am not going overboard at Christmas this year. But then it happens.

The mince pies, the late night grazing, and those sod it moments that turn into those full three weeks of guilt and discomfort and a growing panic about what January is going to bring. And you think it's a discipline problem. But what if I told you that Christmas is not the problem, it just highlights the cracks.

And this is exactly what we're talking about today in the first part of this two episode series.

This week it's all about what's really going on when that Christmas overeating happens and how this year you have still got time to turn it around and lean into something more mindful. Welcome to the Busy Woman's Guide to well Being, the podcast women who are done with the hustle and are ready to feel at home in their own skin.

I'm your host, Alix Life, therapeutic and fitness coach for busy women who want to do less, live more, and feel good from the inside out.

Every week I'm going to help you to cut through the noise, challenge the shoulds, and find new ways to live and move that actually feel like you Foreign welcome back.

And I know, I know it's only the middle of November and I'm already going on about Christmas, but hear me out because this is actually the perfect time to start thinking about your approach this year to that festive period and how you can create a more mindful strategy for this year so that you get to enjoy the goodies, but you're not spending the entire time bouncing between eating that 300 calorie salad for lunch so you can save yourself for later, and then raiding an entire box of celebrations in the evening even though you promised yourself you wouldn't touch them yet.

And of course then being wracked with all the guilt and dealing with that sense of doom, that growing sense of doom around how much you're gonna have to cut back in January, what hard work it's going to be once January hits. So let's agree straight away, we're not doing that this year. We're gonna do something different and we're gonna create something much more mindful.

And I've actually turned this into a two part series because today I want to talk about what's really going on when you're getting sucked into the chaos with Christmas food.

And then in the next episode we're going to talk about how to start creating more of the freedom and mindfulness around Food that you'd love to have just a little heads up as well. I've got something coming up at the start of December which is going to help with exactly this.

It's a mini group coaching experience that's going to help you to manage those Christmas cravings much better this year. But I will reveal all a little bit later on. I'm gonna tell you exactly what's coming up for you towards the end of the episode.

But for now I wanna get into this because this is an area that I've really, really worked on myself because in years gone by, I have definitely had, let's just say, a dysfunctional relationship with food around the holidays, to put it mildly. And that was Christmas and that was also any holidays that I'd go on in the summer, for example.

So if I went on a 10 day, all inclusive, my God, it was a free for all. And I think that you, a lot of you will probably relate to this pattern.

Maybe it's something that's happened to you before, maybe it's something that you are currently experiencing for yourself.

And what would really happen for me was that in the lead up to that holiday, whether it's Christmas or a summer holiday or whatever, I'd go into restriction mode. I'd be very aware that that holiday was coming up. I wanted to look and feel my best.

So I would diet, I'd restrict, I would work on losing as much weight as I possibly could before the holiday. And yeah, it was partly because I wanted to feel good on the beach or feel good in my Christmas dress or whatever that was.

But there was also that element of if I can lose some weight now, it means I can relax so much more on holiday because I'm not going to be worried about coming back and being half a stone heavier than I am now because I will just go back up to where I was before and then I can restrict again, I can go back to my diets and I can lose that weight, right? But it almost gave me a sense of freedom.

It wasn't real freedom, but it gave me a sense of freedom because it made me feel like I could go for it, I could make the most of it.

I was giving myself this wiggle room that meant I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and I wouldn't have to worry about it so much on holiday. So that was very much the mindset that I would go into that holiday season with beforehand.

So November, for example, would be a period of restriction. Maybe you're in the middle of that, right?

Now, maybe you've been saying to yourself, well, if I just lose a few pounds now, then I can let go at Christmas. It's this, this, this sort of negotiation you do with yourself, isn't it?

And the problem with Christmas, of course, is that it lasts for really quite a long time.

Because, yes, we tell ourselves, and I used to tell myself, well, I'll keep this going until just a few days before Christmas, and then I can let loose a little bit.

But the truth is, it always kicks in soon that you start, you know, me and my husband go on this Christmas shopping day, for example, early December, we'll take a day off work, go, do, you know, Christmas shopping. We'll get stuff for the kids, we'll do stocking presents, all those kind of things.

And that straight away would be, well, it's Christmas shopping day, so of course I'm going to go and have that Christmas mince pie. Of course I'm going to go and have that sugary coffee that I wouldn't normally have. And that would almost be the start of it.

And then gradually it would add up, you start going on social events, you start having the food in the house, all of that thing starts happening, people start bringing things into work. And so before you know it, you're like that kid at Christmas. You can't wait.

You can't wait until a few days before Christmas because suddenly it's all around you and suddenly all of the restriction that you've been doing just wants to unravel. And so that would definitely happen. For me, by mid December, I was in it, I was on it.

I was throwing caution to the wind, and there would still be like two weeks to go until Christmas. And yet here I am on it.

So by Boxing Day, probably even before Boxing Day, if we're honest, you're already feeling a bit crap, you're feeling a bit sluggish, you're feeling bloated, you're feeling tired, and you kind of want to slow down. You keep telling yourself, right, I've just got to eat really healthy for the next day.

But you just, once you're in the zone, it's almost like you don't know how to. You can't help yourself. And that definitely is where I would find myself. And so I would end up just saying, do you know what?

Sod it, leave it until January. I'll sort it out in January. And you start making those promises to yourself that January hits. We're gonna sort this out.

We're gonna get ourselves back under control again. And Honestly, January's miserable enough as it is. None of us really wanna be doing that in January.

We want to be hunkering down and looking after ourselves and all of those things. We don't want to be dieting and going to the gym five times a week. We just don't want to at that time of year.

So that is the pattern that I would definitely go through. Now, you might be saying yes, yes, yes all the way with me, or there might be a slightly milder version of it going on for you.

But I think that we've all been there and maybe, like I say, you're there at the moment. And the thing is that we, we enjoy this freedom.

I used to really enjoy the freedom of it, but I also didn't enjoy the freedom of it because there was also that underlying unease that was happening around how I was treating my body, around the fact that I was eating a lot of the time, even when I wasn't feeling hungry, unease around how I was overdoing it, unease about how I was going to have to pay for it in January. And it becomes a double edged sword.

We think we're going to love it, but actually underneath it, we're not feeling so great about ourselves and we're not feeling so great about what we're doing. And also we're not feeling physically great.

We're feeling sluggish because of the amount of food and sugar and all those kind of things that we're eating. And probably not exercising as much as normal either, particularly if it's wet and we're not getting outside.

So it's a really common pattern and I'm sure that you might see yourself in that as well. And the thing that surprised me the most when I made changes to this was that the changes didn't happen because I suddenly decided to use willpower.

It didn't happen because I suddenly decided to add a few healthy eating strategies around Christmas. They happened as a byproduct of me addressing my entire relationship around food.

So once I started to do that, I almost didn't have to think about what I was going to do at Christmas because all of a sudden that became so much easier because I allowed myself greater freedom the rest of the year.

And then what happened was when it came to Christmas or a holiday, there was no longer that sense of I've got to make the most of it because this is not gonna last for long.

Like I said before, that idea that you might as well just go for it, make the most of it, because you know what's coming on the other side, there's this almost this panic. If I don't have it now, I'm not gonna get it again for six months. And so we really overdo it.

But once I address that relationship with food, once I address that relationship with my body a bit more, the panic and the drive to overdo it just wasn't there so much. And don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting here saying I eat completely as normal over Christmas. I don't. I eat more. I eat more sugar, I indulge more.

I'll sit there in the afternoon and eat a piece of Christmas cake and 10 chocolates. Absolutely, I do that. But it's a much, much, much milder version of what I used to do.

It's a version that feels so much better and that doesn't feel like it needs a dressing. In January, Yeah, sure, in January, I'm going to go back to what I would normally do. I'm going to be a bit more mindful about things.

All of that is going to happen. But the panic is not there anymore, because I haven't just gone hell for leather for the entirety of Christmas.

And this is the key, really, to what I want to talk about today. Because what happens at Christmas essentially becomes an exaggerated version of our entire relationship and pattern around food.

It becomes a microcosm. And if this is something you're struggling with at Christmas, it's not because Christmas is the problem. And it's not because you are the problem.

You don't have enough willpower.

It's because your entire relationship and pattern around food has been conditioned into a state of restriction, into a state of vigilance or hyper vigilance around what you're eating and when you're eating and how much of it you're eating.

And all of those things and tracking your calories and weighing yourself, all of those things are playing into this, are playing into what's going to happen at Christmas. What almost feels inevitable at Christmas, except it feels even worse at this time of year. You know, we normally have it at the weekend, don't we?

It's that classic. You good all week, and then at the weekend you just let go and you eat all the things. And then Monday you're gonna start again.

This becomes a much bigger version of that, but it's even worse because it happens for three weeks, four weeks, it goes on and on and on. And then, of course, on top of that, you're surrounded by everybody else who's doing it, who has the same Attitude.

Maybe there's this soda atmosphere where everyone's just going for it. The food is all around you, it's at work, it's at home, it's at social occasions, it's everywhere. You almost can't avoid it.

You're not in your us routine as well. And we all know that once we're out of routine, that definitely makes food harder to deal with.

So the, the usual routine is completely out the window. And of course, we're just, we're feeling more relaxed, we're feeling less vigilant.

So like I say, it becomes this, this exaggeration, this microcosm of your entire relationship around food, except worse because of all of these other conditions around it and because of how long it lasts. And so then, of course, what happens is you blame yourself for lo control around Christmas and you think it's because there's too much food around.

And I just have a complete inability to say, no, I don't have any control around it. But I really want you to hear this.

For most of us, what happens at Christmas, it's literally a normal, natural nervous system response to the restriction that we've been imposing or trying to impose for the rest of the year. It's almost inevitable that this is going to happen.

If we try and restrict, if we continue to have this dysfunctional relationship with food for the rest of the year, this is where it's going to come out. This is where the cracks are going to really show. And yes, this counts.

Even if you feel that you've not necessarily been successful with the restriction, if you've had ups and downs with that, because you might be sitting here saying, well, yeah, okay, maybe, but then I've been trying to do that all year, but I haven't really been doing great at it doesn't matter.

Because regardless of whether that feels it's been successful or not, you've still been living in a state where you've been very vigilant all the time, where you've been judging and watching everything that you eat, either feeling good because you've had a good day or feeling guilty because you've had a bad day. You've been living in a state where your relationship with your body is not that great.

And you've also been living in a state where you've conditioned yourself out of connection with your body. You know, your hunger and fullness signals, for example, are blunted because you have tried to override them so many times.

You've tried to ignore them so many times. And so what then happens is that Christmas is not some blip, some anomaly.

It is simply highlighting where your relationship with food and your body really is. And the festive season just removes all of the usual routines and rules.

And your body is going to respond to that perceived freedom by just going over the top. Now the thing is, as we're fast approaching the festive season, we're not going to suddenly fix everything.

We're not going to suddenly fix your relationship with your body and food by Christmas. That's not going to happen.

But there are some things that you can be starting to think about now that are going to maybe help you to hold yourself in a calmer place this year. And I'm going to give you some more stuff to think about next week as well.

So this week is a couple of maybe more practical tips that you can do right now to prep yourself and to be thinking ahead. And then next week we're going to address a little bit more of the maybe relationship side of things that you can start working on now.

But for today, what I want do to to do is really empower you with a couple of practical three practical things you can start to do right now that are going to help you this year, that are going to help you get more mindful. So rather than getting into this place where you just know it's inevitable this is what's going to happen.

I'm just going to surrender myself to that and let it happen and then sort it out in the new year. I almost want you to be saying, actually I don't want to do it that way this year.

And here are the things that I'm gonna do and they're super simple, I promise you. But there's three things. The first one, try and avoid the pressure to restrict more than usual in the run up to Christmas.

Now I get it because like I said before, that used to be exactly me. November was restriction month. Maybe it's why I don't like November very much.

I've always got this feeling of, I love October, it's my birthday month. I love December because it's Christmas month. November, meh, not so much. Don't love it. And I think it's because of that.

I think it's a hangover of all of those years where November became a time of, oh, right, come on, get focused. You've got like four or five weeks to sort this out, to lose this weight. So I get it. I get it.

Because you think if I restrict now, I give myself space to let go without worrying about putting a few Pounds on. But all we're doing when we restrict right now is we're setting ourselves up for an even bigger rebound once Christmas gets going.

Then number two, you're going to think about what you can do right now to add more nourishment into your meals. And this is always a rule that I swear by. I don't swear by restriction.

And what we can cut out, I swear by crowding out the stuff we want to be eating less of. So what are some simple habits that you can start to instill now into your life that you can then continue through the festive period?

It could be something as simple as adding an extra serving of veg to your lunch or your evening meal. It could be committing to having that protein and fibre rich breakfast that's gonna really set you up for the rest of the day.

Doesn't mean it has to boring. If you did a bit of research online now, I bet you would find maybe three breakfasts that are really healthy but taste great.

A lot of overnight oats recipes, for example, taste really good. They're really enjoyable and they're going to give you a great start to the day, really set you up for the rest of the day.

There's lots of different things you can do, but have a think about what you can do right now to add more nourishment to your meals. We're thinking about crowding out some of the stuff we want to be eating less of.

And if you start now, then by the time that that festive period arrives, you have started to create that habit and it is something that you can continue through the festive period and that is going to support you and help you to feel better throughout that time, even when you are eating some of the chocolate and things like that. And then the third thing you can do is start to learn how to be a bit more mindful around food right now. So things as simple as.

And this is something I've been working on actually, because we are a family of fast eaters, I'm actually the slowest. I often finish after my husband and my kids. But I still think I'm quite fast at eating and I know that I need to slow it down.

So I've been working on this myself. So slowing down your eating so you can listen more closely to your hunger and your fullness.

You eat too quickly, you go past that point of fullness but you don't recognize it because it takes a while for that signal to kick into your body. Whereas slowing down is going to help with that.

It's also going to help you to actually digest your food properly so you're not bloated and things like that. So you could do things like that. Taking just a second when you're staring into the fridge and really tuning into what your body wants and needs.

And it's not necessarily about saying no to the thing, but it's about recognizing that the reason that you're at the fridge is not always because you're hungry. It's not always because you want something to eat there. Sometimes you're there for a different reason.

And maybe, just maybe, if you start to get used to listening to that, you can start to do something to address it and just incorporating more opportunities to be more mindful in your day to day life.

It doesn't always have to be directly mindful around food, it's just being more mindful, I. E. Connecting with your body, connecting with what your nervous system needs. Because those things are gonna really help your response to food because your response to food is a nervous system response.

So if you can be more mindful in your day to day life, that would be a great start. Going for a 10 minute walk without your phone. And again, this is something I've done a few times recently. Feels really uncomfortable.

But I wanna play some music, I wanna put a podcast on and you think that that's fine to do that, but it's something that means that you need distracting all the time. You need distracting from your thoughts.

So uncomfortable as it feels, maybe a 10 minute walk every couple of days without your phone could be a really good start for that. Maybe trying a couple of minutes of box breathing or something.

Box breathing by the way, is breathe in for four, hold for four, breathe out for four, hold for four and just repeat that a few times. That's really good for your nervous system. So three things that you can do, really simple things.

But what we're doing here is we're slowing ourselves down a little bit straight away.

We're being a bit more mindful and we're thinking about what are the healthy habits that I can start to create now that I can continue through that festive period. And just an FYI, being more mindful does not mean trying to control. And I think we get this mixed up sometimes around.

We think mindfulness is going to stop us from doing the things, but it's just about being aware of what we're doing and why we're doing it.

And if you want to know more about that, by the way, about how to use mindfulness more successfully, especially if you found it hasn't worked out well for you in the past, go listen to last week's episode, episode 225, because that's all about making it work better. I'll pop the link in the show notes for you as well.

But if you've not listened to that episode yet, that actually would be a really great addition, I think, to this episode and the next one as well. So there's your three little action steps that you can start taking now. And don't make it complicated. Just choose, choose one thing in each category.

Number one, let's not put that pressure on to restrict. Number two, what's one or two simple things that you, you know, that need to be improved in your diet.

And I'm not talking about what can you take away, I'm talking about what you can add. And number three, a couple of ways of being a bit more mindful right now.

Maybe a 10 minute walk every couple of days without your phone and slowing down your eating, for example, and getting used to that, making that a habit. So just choosing a couple of things there that you can, you can be doing.

And the thing is, right now it's not about having unrealistic expectations and thinking that if you just have the right strategies, everything's gonna completely change this Christmas.

It's just about being a bit more prepared this year and it's about giving yourself the time and opportunity to make a few changes now, which are gonna have a much bigger impact than simply trying to exert willpower yet again. Leaving it to the last minute and going, well, I'm just gonna willpower my way through it. We all know how that works out.

It doesn't, especially at Christma, that stuff is around you and it is just that much harder to avoid.

So yeah, let's not have unrealistic expectations that suddenly you're eating is going to be amazing for the entire entirety of Christmas and there'll be no guilt. But let's also know that we can make a few tweaks and it can look better for us, it can feel better for us this year.

And I have got something which is going to help with exactly this. It came to me a couple of days ago and I thought, I've got to do this.

I've absolutely got to do this because I know that eating around Christmas is such a flashpoint for so many of us. So what I'm going to be doing is for three days between the 8th and 10th December, get my words out.

The 8th and 10th December I'm going to be running a mini group coaching experience which I've called the Calm and Mindful Christmas Eating Experience.

And throughout this, you're going to get direct access to me where you can ask your specific questions around eating at Christmas, you can address your specific issues and worries around around eating at Christmas. And I'm going to give you some individualized coaching each day to help you to tackle the parts that you find most challenging.

So what we're going to do is we're going to help you to create a much calmer foundation that's going to help you to eat better, tackle the overeating and the guilt, and send you into New Year without dreading that cycle of New Year restriction and dieting.

So like I say, individual access to me and I'm going to really get laser focused on the specific things that you tend to struggle with at this time of year. Now, you can't buy this as a standalone.

This is a special bonus that is open to anybody who joins me inside the body you'll love living in before the end of November.

This is my one to one space where we really address body image, we address food, we address exercise, and we really help you to create a lot more freedom and ease around that so that not only are you going to feel better, but you're going to get better results at the end of it as well. So like I say, this bonus is only open to people who are inside the body you'll love living in.

You need to sign up before the end of November and it's also limited to the next six people that join. The first couple of spots have already gone, but I'm limiting it to a max of 8 because I want to make this as valuable as possible to each person.

So I'm going to keep the group nice and small. If I make it too big, then it's going to get diluted and you are not going to get the time and attention.

So like I said, if you want in, you're gonna have to sign up now. And the great thing about it of course as well is that you buy into the body you'll love living in.

It means you're also going to be getting some one to one coaching through into the New year as well. So it's going to really help you to address your whole relationship around your body, around food and all of those things as well.

You can start your sessions in December or even end of November or you can save them for the New year and just use this, this bonus for now. Just to get you through the festive season and then we get everything else addressed in the.

So use it as you will, but if you want to find out more, if you want to join me for that, just head to lifeeditcoaching.com and then if you go towards the bottom of the the body you'll love living in page, you're going to find the details for that special bonus and you'll be able to sign up. So I'll put the link into the show notes for you as well, but I'd love to have some of you join me for that.

I think it's going to be a really amazing, really focused few days that are going to start really help you to manage this festive season this year and feel good in this festive season. Right, let's get wrapped up. So hopefully what we have covered today has shown you that Christmas eating is not some weird anomaly.

It's just a reaction to and a reflection of that relationship that you have right now with your body and with food. And let's be honest, with most women, it's not the most healthy and functional.

And that means that just employing a bit of willpower, a bit of discipline is not likely to make much of a dent. Because at that time of year, almost the perfect storm for all of our normal patterns and behaviors to just come out and to laugh at us.

It's the perfect environment for those things to just run rampant and run rings around us. So what I'm really asking you to do right now is just pay attention to that.

Pay attention to the thoughts that are starting to come up around this time of year. Pay attention to the things that you're being tempted to do to, to offset what you kind of know is going to come up.

And, and I've given you those three things that you can start to do now because that's the beauty of doing it now. We get to address it in advance. We get to think about what can I do now to improve that situation when it arrives.

Just a little bit of planning, a little bit foresight. But remember as well that this is bigger picture stuff as well.

And if this is a pattern you keep falling into, it is a sign that that whole relationship needs addressing a bit more deeply once the new year hits as well. We're going to talk more about that in Part two next week. So keep an eye out for that.

And with all that said, I'm gonna love you and leave you and I'll see you back here again next time. Thank you as always for joining me.

If this episode has hit home, share it with another woman who needs to hear it and come connect with me on Instagram @lifeeditwithalix for more real talk, mindset shifts and daily inspiration.