Top Tips for Thanksgiving in Recovery

Thanksgiving is almost upon us! I can’t believe it! We have had a joyous fall filled with family fun days, pumpkin patches, and jumping in all the leaves. Now we are headed into a busy holiday season, starting with Thanksgiving. 

Thanksgiving Day’s roots are in gratitude for our many blessings, but over the years have become more and more focused on the food at the table instead. This can make it a particularly stressful holiday for those recovering from an eating disorder. 

So here are my top tips for navigating Thanksgiving in Recovery! 

1. Create a food plan for Thanksgiving Day and share it with someone! Your food plan should include a plan for eating consistently throughout the day. While it is common for people to “save up” their food for the Thanksgiving meal, this is not helpful for many reasons. Consistent meals and snacks help us fuel our brain and help us regulate our emotions better than we could if we skip meals and snacks. Eating consistently will also help us not show up famished to our Thanksgiving meal and thus lead to feeling uncomfortably full after the meal. 

2. Refocus your attention. If you are feeling overwhelmed by how much emphasis is being placed on food, practice refocusing your attention. Get excited about a local parade, make a gratitude activity for people to participate in, schedule a volunteer activity, lean into all the football that’s being played. This is a great way to de-emphasize the role of food on this holiday.

3. Plan something for AFTER the Thanksgiving meal. For anyone who has hosted Thanksgiving, you know it can be a stretch just to get to the Thanksgiving meal. So it makes sense that there often isn’t something planned for after Thanksgiving. I would encourage you to have something to do after the meal that will keep your mind focused on the activity and less on the desire to engage in eating disorder behaviors. Some things our family likes to do is play a game after dinner. 

4. Give yourself grace. I hope that you have a blessed Thanksgiving and if it’s more difficult than you were thinking, don’t beat yourself up. Give yourself grace and learn from your experience so that next year you feel more prepared. 

We would love to hear your top tips in the comments! 

If you are looking for support in addressing your relationship with food, we’d love to help you! Please contact us here.