When facing holiday feasts causes anxiety

In her private practice, Maude Martinez sees many clients have guilty thoughts on New Year's Eve. The guilt starts even before the holidays. People anticipate this period a lot. They are very afraid of losing control, they are afraid of eating too much, of gaining weight.

To avoid this feeling of loss of control, Maude Martinez advises them to fight against the idea of ​​fasting or eating lightly before family feasts. You must not arrive hungry for Christmas dinnershe summarizes.

When you arrive hungry, it's difficult to take your time, to taste, to enjoy the moment. We just want to eat as quickly as possible. Our body is as if in a state of alert.

Maude Martinez suggests eating regularly beforehand, without skipping meals, by including snacks. In this context, we arrive at the meal, we are calm. We are hungry, but we are no longer able to enjoy the moment.

At Christmas, many people also feel like they have to try all the foods, without listening to their hunger signals, because some, like turkey or log for dessert, only come back once a year.

This contributes to the fact that we want to eat a lot of them. We have a bit of the impression that this is the last opportunity that we will be able to eat it before next year.illustrates Maude Martinez.

To eliminate this sense of urgency, she recommends cooking these traditional dishes more often, just to treat yourself.

Having difficulty stopping eating pie or pig's foot stew is a sign that you really like this food. Maybe it would be a good idea to have them at other times of the year to less create this fear of lack.

Down with diets

In her office, Maude Martinez reassures her clients, reminding them that it is rare to gain weight during the holiday season.

You don't have to worry about weight gain. If there is one, most of the time it is quite minimal. The weight tends to return to the initial point anyway. Because most of the time, we return to our pre-holiday habits.

She warns against diets and food rules. This is what will cause even more loss of control. And restricting yourself is not something that generally helps your body image.

The best tip is to focus on something else. If we are less comfortable in our body, the best thing is to try to do activities that make us feel good in our body or that make us think less about it: seeing the people we love, practicing hobbies that we enjoy, putting emphasis on something other than weight and appearance…

If concerns about body image are overwhelming or long-standing, she suggests consulting a health professional or even a nutrition expert.