It’s that time of year again, the 4th of July. While not everyone in the states celebrates the 4th of July, even those who don’t may find themselves around tons of food and alcohol.
You may be in your head at this moment, overthinking your current weight or what people think about your weight. Not feeling comfortable in your bathing suit. Fearing how you will handle the food situation because you KNOW there is going to be a ton of food you love that is “shouldn’t” eat. You may find yourself flooded with all of these uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
Plus, these feelings often start days before the actual event occurs, in this case, the 4th of July weekend. When this happens, you may wind up suffering for a week, instead of maybe suffering for one day, or better yet, not suffering at all. But a brain used to binge eating struggles to believe that it is possible to enjoy the weekend without overeating and thus, worry sets in.
Often worrying about and trying to predict how you will handle the weekend is part of the problem and leads to overeating.
What if though, the weekend does go smoothly AND you still suffered all week worrying about it?
Was the worrying and suffering what made it go smoothly?
Was it necessary?
No, it isn’t.
It doesn’t help to worry about the unknown future or how you will handle it. That is not to say you can’t think, dream, and create a plan of action to get where you want to go.
Plans, goals, and routines can be extremely helpful when we don’t overthink them. The future will come, whether you worry about it or not.
What helps is becoming aware of the present moment and yourself in the moment. And that is tip #1 for how to not binge this 4th of July.
DON’T Create Worry Days Before The Event
You have a choice to sit and overthink OR to take a deep breath and come back to the present moment.
The easiest way to do this is to let go of all of the stories and simply look at the facts, without judgment.
- There will be food – some of which may create feelings of guilt or shame when you think about them
- It will most likely be hot and you will be in ‘less’ clothing.
- The food isn’t going anywhere and you can eat it throughout the day when hungry
- You are not bad nor good for the foods you choose to eat, nothing is off-limits
- You don’t have to skip meals or hoard calories to get away with eating anything on the 4th of July. You also don’t have to go overexercise to burn 1,000 calories either. This is not your last chance to indulge before going back to “clean eating”
- Last, but not least, you don’t have to hate yourself for thinking about, wanting, having, or enjoying any food you truly enjoy. If though, you find you don’t enjoy it but eat it anyway, I want to gently nudge you to slow down and practice the pause.
Those are just a few facts that may ring true for you and you may have thought of others that are more specific to you, and your situation.
There is a lot going on and you aren’t crazy for feeling the need to overthink food. The world around you is filled with diet culture, and opinions on what to eat, and then there is your own, personalized diet mentality. This brings me to tip #2.
DO Be Mindful of Diet Culture
This week leading up to July 4th, every grocery store in the USA has some kind of Red, White, and Blue color branding, often in their bakery section and around their alcohol and BBQ-style foods. As a reminder that it is the 4th of July weekend, so stock up on the “mandatory” foods. All of the frosting on the freshly baked goods is focused on grabbing your attention, they scream, look at me!
The companies that make these foods also do this, they toss out holiday-themed special wrapping paper, to make it feel more special and like “this is only once a year.” When really, under that pretty wrapper is the same cookie you can get all year long.
The companies that make these foods also do this, they toss out holiday-themed special wrapping paper, to make it feel more special and remind you “this is only once a year.” When really, under that pretty wrapper is the same cookie you can get all year long.
Why am I telling you all of this? Because it is important to be aware of diet culture and your own diet mentality when it pops up. Both play a factor in the creation and deconstruction of eating habits such as binge eating.
Food will be there, it may be a long day in the sun. You don’t have to stuff yourself, it will be there in a few hours when you get hungry. If you are following a diet that asks you to cut out entire food groups and the thought of doing so makes you want to go eat that entire food group, don’t cut out that food group. This is a perfect segway into our third tip.
Food will be there, it may be a long day in the sun. You don’t have to stuff yourself, it will be there in a few hours when you get hungry. If you are following a diet that asks you to cut out entire food groups and the thought of doing so makes you want to go eat that entire food group, don’t cut out that food group. This is a perfect segway into our third tip.
DON’T Restrict Yourself
Your brain may want you to think that saving calories for later so you can “eat what you want” is a good idea. I am here to tell you that it isn’t, not if you suffer from an eating disorder of any kind. Restrictions around food perpetuate an eating disorder. Why? Because eating disorders have very little to do with food and a lot to do with coping mechanisms, learned behaviors, and habits.
While it may be tempting to skip breakfast, not eat until the BBQ, or just give up at breakfast because “why even try,” I challenge you to practice taking another breath. When the focus is on food and not liking your body and you can experience the feelings associated with this focus, that is a sign that you may be stuck in a self-hate inner monologue. That brings us to our 4th and last tip of the day.
DO Practice Self-Love
Self-love isn’t about being selfish, meditating, or doing anything, although you can if you want to. Self-love is more about creating a peaceful space within. You don’t need anything outside of you to do that, just time and the willingness to let your mind settle.
I can remember being about 12 or so and my mom PMSing and saying “at least you can get away from me.” That always resonated with me, we can’t get away from ourselves. We can’t manually turn off our brains which is why you may find yourself reaching for food when you want to numb yourself from your current thoughts or feelings.
What does this have to do with self-love? You can’t escape your own mind but you can create anything you want with your mind. You can choose to create misery or happiness. When the internal conversation is one of love, the feeling matches that. When though, it is one of hate, judgment, or comparison, then the feelings usually match those things you are focusing on. If you focus on hating your body and telling yourself no one will love you at this size, how does that feel physically compared to loving yourself unconditionally?
I believe that your life, anyone’s life can and will change for the better when we start to approach it from a place of self-love. Don’t believe me, give it a try. As Michael Neil says “can’t hurt, might help.”
To sum up, don’t worry all week long, do be mindful of diet culture and diet mentality, don’t restrict yourself, and practice self-love.
In the end, it’s really just another weekend that we humans turned into a holiday years ago. Over the decades that holiday is now more about food and alcohol to most than independence. So go have fun but remember, this isn’t your last chance to indulge.
We each have 52 Mondays and weekends in a year, and hopefully, years upon years and years of your life left to live. Notice that you may be telling yourself a lie that this is your last chance before the food is “off-limits.” Consider though, that this is just a thought that you continue to take seriously and that if you didn’t take it so seriously and act on it, then there would be one less reason to binge eat.
I hope you have a fun and safe 4th of July weekend.
XO- Meaghan