How to Practice Intuitive Eating: Halloween Edition
Fall is officially here! With the spooky season upon us, most people are giddy thinking about pumpkin spice, cozy weather, haunted houses, costumes, and decorations.
However, if you’re trying to heal from a disordered relationship with food and your body, Halloween can pose unique challenges that can feel like a real scare.
Attending fall parties, being exposed to trick-or-treat candy, and facing seasonal foods and spontaneous treats can induce anxious thoughts, uncomfortable feelings, and urges to use unhealthy coping behaviors.
With this Halloween edition of how to practice intuitive eating, you’ll be better equipped to approach Halloween with a flexible plan and embrace this season!
Halloween: Trigger or Treat?
Candy, warm October dishes, and fall desserts are known to be fear foods that can cause stress and anxiety.
Maybe you’re overwhelmed with worry that a caramel apple or pumpkin pie at the fall festival will result in weight gain or that the candy overload from your college dorm event will lead you to binge and lose control altogether.
Feelings of guilt and thoughts about food and your body can consume you during a time that’s really supposed to be filled with making memories.
Halloween most definitely can be a trigger, but you can take steps in your recovery to create new positive experiences this year and for years to come that do feel like a treat!
Without expectations or judgement, do your best to lean into this month with curiosity, and see what it has to offer you in learning more about yourself and your own recovery. Your first Halloween in recovery will look different than your second or third; hang in there!
Learning how to navigate holidays is an important part of the recovery process because ultimately, the fall season and Halloween are a part of life!
How to Practice Intuitive Eating: Halloween Edition
Aligned with the intuitive eating principles, these Halloween tips for how to practice intuitive eating highlight the importance of rejecting the diet mentality, honoring your body, and finding satisfaction with both the food and the experiences.
Most importantly, it’s best to make a plan with your own therapist or treatment team based on YOUR unique goals, needs, and circumstances. Everyone has different areas they’re working on, and what might be suitable for one person might not be for another.
Eat Regular Meals and Snacks Throughout the Day
It might be enticing to skip meals, “save up calories” or stick to “clean foods” in order to compensate for the Halloween food and candy later on, but guaranteed, this will only backfire and keep you confined to the eating disorder.
Being in a deprived state once you show up at the Halloween party will disrupt your ability to easily tune into your hunger, fullness, and satisfaction cues. Physically and mentally restricting yourself can induce the “last supper effect” where your body will scream for ALL the food NOW when food is finally made available.
When your body senses scarcity and restricted access to foods, its only solution is to force you to feed it in ways that feel impulsive and chaotic. It’s trying to meet its physical and psychological needs now in case it doesn’t get the chance to be fed again.
Throughout the day, regularly nourish yourself with proper meals and snacks according to your own personal cues and cravings. This will empower you to feel connected with your body and be in a more balanced mindset around food.
View Halloween Candy as Neutral
A green smoothie to “off-set” the “indulgent” Halloween foods you might eat in the evening is not “good” and eating candy is not “bad.”
Food has no moral value and all foods serve a purpose, yes even Halloween candy. Food is just food.
Notice your thoughts as Halloween approaches. Is there black-and-white thinking going on? Simply thinking of candy as a forbidden food can keep the war going between food and your body and drive disordered behaviors.
Practice shifting your mindset to view foods through a neutral lens. This takes away any preconceived thoughts, ideas, or judgements that usually perpetuate the restrict-binge cycle.
When you’re stuck in the diet mentality, everything seems to focus on the food. By taking food off the pedestal you can better recognize that food really is just a small part of Halloween. Over time recovery frees up more brain space so that you can be present in the rest of the fun!
Give Yourself Permission to Eat the Foods You Want
The key to enjoying all foods as a normal part of life is to call a truce and give yourself full permission to eat the foods you desire, without hidden agendas of future restriction or compensation.
This Halloween, ask yourself, What do I actually want? What sounds good to me? Allowing yourself to freely eat the foods you want will inherently remove the intense pull and power food has on you.
Normalize eating candy or your favorite Halloween treat by incorporating these foods year-round so they don’t feel so rare to you. Doing so will prove to your mind and your body that you can eat a snickers bar, or your favorite gooey cornbread whenever you want.
When you establish trust with your body and eat these foods on a regular basis, it’s easier to honor your fullness and recognize when you’re satisfied and have had enough.
Focus on Satisfaction and Enjoyment
Food is so much more than hunger and fullness. Food is pleasurable, nostalgic, tradition, and culture. When you approach Halloween through an intuitive eating lens, you can experience the food, feel satisfied from what you ate, and appreciate the overall big picture of Halloween.
When you let go of rules, you often discover what really suits your taste buds too. Maybe you binged last year on Halloween candy, but this year when truly tasting the food in a calm environment without judgement, you might find that you don’t like a certain food as much as you thought.
We eat for many reasons, and instead of bouncing to extremes, you can live in the grey, honoring hunger and fullness while also taking into account and fulfilling pleasure, satisfaction, and enjoyment.
Instead of worrying about “eating perfectly,” foster self-compassion and focus on being in the moment. Perfect eating doesn’t exist. Making memories with a healthy mindset around food is the best thing you can do for yourself this Halloween!
Feeling Spooked About Halloween in Recovery?
During this time utilize your support system from people who make you feel understood and cared for, and have some established coping strategies in your back pocket.
Most importantly, take care of yourself. It’s always good to challenge yourself, but if it feels too hard to take on this year, it’s perfectly fine to stay home or make small plans with trusted friends and family.
If you are in search of a therapist who specializes in eating disorders, disordered eating, and healing your relationship with your body, please feel free to visit my website or email me to see if working together might be a good fit for you. My office is based in Salado, Texas, and I can provide virtual therapy services across the state of Texas.
Good on therapy? Great! I also have a weekly newsletter called Sunday Soothies you might be interested in signing up for. If you ever get a case of the Sunday Scaries, cozy up with your inbox every Sunday morning and soothe your way into your week! Join the Soothie Crew here.
