How to eat chocolate without guilt (at Easter and all year round)

It’s Easter! There’s going to be some chocolate around! And for some people this can feel really stressful and guilt inducing.

In this blog post I’m giving you 5 tips to help you eat without guilt this Easter (and all year around).

I must admit that in the past I would feel really guilty around this time of year especially with all the chocolate around!

I was often on diets or trying to cut back on “naughty” foods. Having chocolate everywhere felt like torture.  I was trying so hard not to eat the chocolate that it often backfired and made me want to eat it more.

I would always cave in, often having a full on binge and would end up feeling horrible – super guilty, ashamed and feeling like I’d failed - over and over again.

The tips I’m sharing with you today have helped me completely change my relationship with foods that are traditionally seen as “bad” or “unhealthy” and has meant that I actually crave these foods less than I used to.

Tip #1 Avoid Food Labels.

It’s very easy to use labels to categorise food, because we are taught from an early age that food broadly fits into two camps: good or bad.

Healthy or unhealthy.

Clean vs Toxic.

We see labelling in marketing: guilty pleasures, or temptations and treats.

These kinds of labels moralise food, but really there is no need to categorise food like this.

Yes it’s absolutely true that some food has more nutrients than others, there’s no denying that! But the truth is, there is no need to demonise food, especially when you acknowledge that food can serve different purposes.

Sure, there are times when I want a salad or a stir fry, when my body craves the veggies, but other times I want something sweet and a few squares of chocolate is what I need. Food is for both nourishment and enjoyment.

When we take away food labels, it’s no longer “naughty” to eat chocolate at easter. If food isn’t naughty, you are less likely to feel bad or guilty when you eat it.

Tip #2 – Let go of rigid food rules

Do you have rules around food? Perhaps around the time of day you eat, or never eating sugar, or avoiding carbs?

It might be that an innocent attempt at “healthy” eating has led to rules around what you eat, how much you eat and when you eat.

So if you’ve got a rule that you should never eat sugar, it can be stressful when you break those rules. Especially if you are trying to eating a certain way for your health.

You might try at first to relax your rules and then do away with them all together.

Tip #3 Tune in

When we have lots of food rules, and we break them, sometimes there’s a tendency to think “oh sod it”… so what started as – oh I’ll just have four squares of chocolate, leads to eating a whole family sized bar.

One thing I’ve found that really helps is to try and tune into your body. Listen to your body’s wants and needs – both on the hunger side but also on the fullness side.

We’re able to eat the whole family sized bar because we drown out our body’s signals. We’re used to ignoring hunger, but equally we get used to ignoring fullness.

I encourage you to start thinking about how food makes you feel, tuning into hunger and fullness, thinking about how much energy you have after you eat…

Tip #4 Don’t save calories

You might be tempted to “save” calories for the chocolate you’re going to eat over Easter.  Maybe you skip breakfast or lunch to “save up”.

The problem is, when you restrict food this can backfire and actually cause more intense cravings.

If your hunger is extreme, you’re more likely to eat quickly, which leads to overeating and then even more guilt.

It’s also harder to listen in to hunger cues and know when you’re done with that chocolate. And let’s face it, shovelling food down your throat probably means you’re not savouring the chocolate anyway.

You’re much better off eating normally and only feeling pleasantly hungry when it comes to being around chocolate.

#5 Enjoy the chocolate, mindfully

When you do eat the chocolate, I encourage you to do so mindfully. Savour it, enjoy it, make it last! The more you can savour it, the more enjoyable an experience it is. Tune into the taste and texture…

The slower you eat, the more able you are to tun into your body and your fullness cues, so it’s an all round #win.

I hope that you found these tips helpful – let me know in the comments, which one was most helpful.

And if you are ready to give up your food rules and find your true health, without restriction, then check out my (free) food freedom masterclass to find out how.