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A friend of mine once asked a 6-year-old girl what she wanted to be when she grew up.
"A person with really long arms," the child answered.
"Why?" my friend asked.
"So I can reach across the table and eat all the chocolate chip cookies before my brother gets any."
"So, when you are 25, do you think you will still want all the chocolate chip cookies?"
"Yes," the girl said.
"Do you think that adults want the same things they did when they were children?"
"Absolutely."
When I heard this story, I thought about my friend Minnie who, when I started teaching her to eat intuitively, bought six packages of Sara Lee brownies and ate them all, even though she didn't really like brownies. Why, I then asked, did she choose to gorge on something that didn't even thrill her?
"Because," she said, "I wasn't allowed to eat them when I was a kid, and now that I can eat what I want, I'm making up for lost time."
Makes sense. But only if you believe that you are still that same kid.
Only if you believe that you can make up for deprivation in the past by eating everything you want now.
Which brings us to the holiday season, when the child you used to be is in full command, ordering you to give her all the things she wasn't allowed to eat — fruitcake or Sara Lee brownies or sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles or anything else she wants. And while we are eating, we will feel free, which we never truly felt as children because the big people were lording it over us, telling us what to do.
The truth that we didn't want to admit back then is that kids do need adults to set limits, to say, "No, honey, you'll be sick if you eat the whole plate of cookies and then drink three glasses of eggnog." During the holidays, if we make decisions about what to eat based on the desires of the children we were, we get lost and dazed and fatter. It's as if we are possessed by so many desires, memories, and needs from the past that we can't figure out what the adult in us truly wants right then.
Mention the word Christmas or Hanukkah and a panoply of childhood images floods your mind: the food, the family gatherings, the beliefs about what needs to happen to make this a successful holiday. And then of course, there is the current stress — the hours of shopping, cooking, traveling — as you try to make this holiday fit your picture of the perfect celebration. But because nothing in the present moment can actually be perfect, you collapse on the bed exhausted and turn to butter cookies with colored sprinkles for comfort.
Although I realize I am treading on sacred ground here — no one wants to admit that they don't love the holidays as much as they are supposed to — I'd like to express two thoughts that could make you feel less calorically uncomfortable this season.
