1. Bring Your Slender Self to the Table
Connect with your ideal weight self and the happy feelings associated with it to inform your eating throughout this holiday month.
Relax, close your eyes and visualize yourself having the body you want. It is already in you, afterall. See yourself going through your day: work, home life, hobbies, relationships, . . . being at your best weight. What are you wearing? What are you feeling? Joy, gratitude, personal power, pride, self-assurance…? Be here now.
Stand up and walk with this feeling of being in your best body. Adjust your posture and your carriage. Notice your body language and movement quality. Turn up the volume on the feeling of being here. Turn it up so high that your heart might burst from elation and gratitude. Feel that it is true.
What clothing do you have or can you buy that promotes you feeling this way? This holiday season, wear clothing that fits well, you feel fabulous in and represents the authentic and slim you. Especially for a holiday party or event when you will be eating, put something on that will show off your best features and give you the image of yourself that you enjoy.
Wear these clothes, this body language, this knowledge of who you really are, this victorious feeling of having your ideal weight body with you to the table.
Before you eat, connect with your ideal body self. If you forget about your ideal body self being right here, let your clothes remind you. You could even wear a symbol such as a prominent ring to flash the message to your brain and your heart and bring you back.
Now, how do you eat, being your authentic and proud self in your ideal weight body? Present, tuned-in to yourself, honoring the signals of your body . . . ? Perhaps, more slowly and purposefully for the sake of utmost pleasure like a connoisseur?
2. Be a Connoisseur
You can have a culinary extravaganza and finish feeling a just right fullness.
Have you ever gone wine tasting? It’s about being a connoisseur. The wino guzzles, not for pleasure, but to go numb and not be here. The dieter restricts and doesn’t get to have it. But, as a connoisseur, you get to have a quality experience with worthwhile food! The idea is to be so present that you expand your experience and receive every iota of pleasure so you are happy to stop at enough. As one client said, “I don’t need a lot to experience abundance.”
So look at your food, appreciate the colors and shapes of nature’s art work. Smell your food to know its secrets. Receive the flavors as they announce themselves. Linger over the ending notes to see what will be the next most wonderful bite to follow. Choose and curate each bite. You might choose to taste just the potato. Now, a mushroom and parsley with the potato. Now, just the sauce to see what it’s all about.
Notice your enthusiasm and how bright the flavors are when you start so you can notice the difference as you’re getting full. The goal is pleasure, so when you are no longer receiving utmost true, pure pleasure, probably around when your tummy is full, you can stop. You can take some home and eat it later when you’re hungry and it will be pleasurable again.
Every time you walk away feeling you’ve had a feast and landed at a just right fullness, praise yourself and feel your happiness over it to anchor that this is what you do.