Erin Gonzalez utilizes the months at the end of the year to discuss with her clients how they’d like to navigate their holiday season.
Gonzalez is a certified Intuitive Eating counselor and registered dietitian nutritionist. Through her private practice, Erin Gonzalez Nutrition, she offers general nutrition information as well as supports recovery from disordered eating.
Gonzalez provided the reminder that the holidays are really no different than any other day of eating. “It’s food that we can eat every day of the year if we wanted to. So there’s really nothing special about the foods that we have at holidays other than we’ve given them so much power to be special.”
Maddi Volk said she has struggled with disordered eating for about 10 years. She said it wasn’t until last February when she really realized there was an issue. To learn more about balanced eating, she spent time in a eating disorder treatment center in Florida. Upon her return, however, Volk said she stopped eating altogether, and at that point, her therapist recommended Gonzalez.
“That’s really where Erin came in,” Volk said. “She’s taught me — is teaching me about how to make food safe and not the enemy.”
The Intuitive Eating approach was founded by two dietitians: Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. Gonzalez explained the framework of the 10 principles serves to cultivate a positive relationship with food and the body.
“It’s really more about reflective learning than it is about that negative self-talk that then just drives us deeper down into self-loathing and not taking care of ourselves, because then we’re just beating ourselves up,” she said.
Gonzalez did note that an instance when she does not initially recommend Intuitive Eating is when someone struggling with an eating disorder is not yet in recovery or getting help.
Volk said it’s been helpful to have made preparations prior to the holidays, stating her first conversation with Gonzalez about the topic was a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.
Because it can be more difficult for her to enjoy a meal outside of her home environment, she said creating an action plan regarding conversations and potential situations has been very helpful. Volk also keeps affirmation cards from Gonzalez on her phone to reference as needed. She encourages those struggling with disordered eating to connect with an advocate and remember they aren’t alone.
Gonzalez said a stressor individuals may face is handling the conversations others may have involving food. If the dialogue turns toward dieting or bashing food — or even themselves in relation to food and their bodies — it can be exhausting for individuals to hear those harmful viewpoints.
Volk said she has received comments about weight loss that, while initially made her feel really good, later left her feeling badly, as though they had seen her as she had seen herself.
“It really just makes you feel like they only care about your body and not your health,” she said.
Conversations about boundaries are important, Volk said, and depending on comfort levels, it may be beneficial to have a trusted loved one reinforce boundaries on someone’s behalf.
Gonzalez offers this healthy outlook: View the holiday meal as simply having more varieties of food to choose from. Instead of skipping out on eating prior to the main meal and then bingeing, she encourages eating normally throughout the day.
She added that it’s normal to sometimes overeat and undereat. She gave an example of grandma making a certain dish just one time of the year and perhaps she’s the only one who can get it right.
Gonzalez explained it’s a choice to determine a desired holiday eating experience, and it can include choosing to feel a little uncomfortable after a larger meal. She said that to avoid a favorite food creates a fear of eating it.
“At the end of the day, it’s one day of eating,” Gonzalez said. “Nothing catastrophic is going to happen from it unless we’re allergic to it.”
Above all, Gonzalez emphasizes the importance of self-compassion and non-judgmental awareness.
“That’s part of the framework is helping people know that recovery and healing your relationship with food and normalizing it is not a linear process.”
Gonzalez again encourages grace. “If you go outside of what feels comfortable for you, then you have another eating decision coming up again soon, and you get to focus on taking care of your body and feeling good at that time, too. There’s no reason to feel guilt around food.”