Identify What Is Stressful About Halloween Candy
You can start by identifying what is stressful about the food or eating environment. Is it stressful because you have a restrictive mindset around candy? Where does your restriction come from? Is this restriction serving you? How can you enjoy the Halloween season without stress, guilt, or shame? If you’re fighting with yourself internally, know that doing the opposite of what your disordered voice wants to do is usually a step in the right direction.
Allow Yourself To Have Candy Throughout The Year
Eating candy shouldn’t be reserved solely for the holidays. Research shows that being exposed to one’s favorite foods more often leads to lower consumption of those foods. Therefore, if you keep candy (or any fear food) in your home, you are less likely to binge on it. This takes the control away from the food and brings you back to your own intuition so that you can stay present in the moment instead of obsessing over the food.
An extreme example of this is the Minnesota Starvation Study in which participants underwent a period of semi-starvation, and, consequently, experienced obsessive food thoughts, food dreams, and binge eating. This study shows what happens psychologically when someone isn’t eating enough, but similar behaviors can result from even slight food restriction and dieting. If you don’t give yourself permission to enjoy Halloween candy, you are more likely to have constant thoughts about sweets and binge on sweets in the future.
