SALT LAKE CITY — The holidays come with a lot to celebrate, and sometimes that means an abundance of food. If you feel overwhelmed with food during this time of year, you're not alone.

But while it may feel like a struggle, I think the holiday season is a fantastic opportunity to build confidence when it comes to food. This time of year can provide plenty of experiences to respect your intuition and remind you that there will be delicious food to eat again later.

To build positive experiences with food during the holidays, it’s essential to let go of the diet mentality and any plans to restrict yourself at the beginning of next year. If you know that a diet is around the corner, you're more likely to attempt eating more (perhaps past the point of being full) right now.

But here's the thing: If you know you can have delicious food any day of the year, it'll be much easier to stop eating when you are full. You won’t feel compelled to overdo it during the holidays in preparation for an upcoming diet.

This may feel impossible, but I assure you it can happen. Here are three tips to help you with this practice:

Approach holiday meals like any other meal

While they may include everyday foods, seeing holiday meals as different than regular meals might mean you choose to eat differently, losing sight of listening to hunger or fullness levels.

Aim to keep your meal patterns predictable and rhythmic and you’ll avoid reckless and impulsive behaviors around food. And remember, undereating actually creates the primal drive to overeat, so starving yourself to “save calories” will always backfire.

Visualize the situation ahead of time

If you have an event that is making you feel worried or anxious, visualize how you’d like it to go ahead of time. How do you want to feel? What do you want to do? What memories do you want to make? What feels most important to you about this particular situation? These visualizations can allow you to be proactive rather than reactive. They could help you feel in charge of yourself, your mindset and your experiences.

Don’t neglect your self-care

The holiday season usually brings more responsibilities, making it more likely than other times of the year to put your own needs on the back burner. This can easily lead to exhaustion and burnout — not how you should spend the holidays.

Taking care of yourself improves how you feel physically and mentally, making it easier to stay level-headed about decisions and reactions — including those with food. Adequate and consistent nutrition, sleep, physical activity you enjoy doing, healthy boundaries with friends and family, and a work/life balance are some examples of self-care.

I encourage you to make commitments to yourself in each of these areas. Write them on your calendar if that helps.

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Remember, taking care of yourself isn’t selfish, it’s essential.

As you focus on making memories and celebrating what the holidays mean to you, food will fall into its proper place. You can feel great about food and you deserve to live a life — and enjoy celebrations — without overthinking your food choices.

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