 Hello and welcome back. Now in today's video I'm going to share a few ideas to help you or someone that you care for or work with to get through the festive period if you are struggling with or recovering from an eating disorder. Now this can be a really difficult time of year for everybody in terms of food, in terms of sticking with our usual routine, in terms of over-indulging or just slipping from usual habits and this is massively exemplified for those of us with an eating disorder. Not least because there's lots and lots of different kinds of foods around, we might have different choices than usual, there might be different pressures on us socially and but also we might be struggling with our mental health more broadly because this is a time of year that many many people find harder than usual when it comes to their mental health so it's a bit of a melting pot where things do have the potential to go a little bit wrong if we don't plan. So my first tip here is to plan ahead and actually have a look at the festive period and be thinking about what are you planning to eat and when and with whom. You don't have to plan in minute detail if that's not where you are in your recovery at the moment but it does really help to have quite a good idea of roughly what you're planning to eat and when and with whom. That can help you to kind of build the core of what's going on and can give you a good basis from which to work and that doesn't mean to say you're never going to stray from that but it gives you a good solid foundation and it will also help you to work out what are likely to be the flash points or the triggers for when things might be more difficult or might go wrong. It will also help you to identify if there are for example any meals in there that are difficult either because of the food itself or the social situation in which you're planning to be eating that needs extra preparation and care taken ahead. So that's number one, let's plan ahead. Number two is also plan ahead for what's going to happen after meals. This is particularly important for larger or more stressful meals. What can happen unfortunately around Christmas time is that we might eat more than we feel comfortable eating whether because we're enjoying the food and we kind of lose sight of ourselves for a moment and the demons kind of disappear for a while or because we feel pressured into it by family or friends or a social situation where we feel that we can't eat in quite the way we would normally want to. When we eat more than we feel comfortable with even if that is objectively a normal and healthy amount of food or is the same as everyone else, that can be a time when we are really vulnerable to things like purging or self-harm or also just kind of falling into a really negative cycle of self-hatred and doubt and that kind of thing. So the time directly following a meal, the kind of half hour or hour after a meal is a really important time. So think about how that time is going to be spent. Ideally it shouldn't be spent alone in an ideal world it will be spent doing something that you enjoy with people around you that you enjoy being with. It can be anything that you like listening to music, going for a walk, doing some colouring, watching a film. It really doesn't matter but the key thing here is to plan ahead and think what's going to happen post meal. This is particularly important on Christmas Day. A lot of people that I talk to say they find that Christmas meal which is often so big and so long is then followed by people kind of you know falling asleep around the telly and not really a lot going on and then you're left with these feelings of guilt and shame over what you're eating and that can be a really difficult time. So plan ahead, what are you going to do after Christmas lunch? I'm going to be walking with my dogs and my children out in the mud and whether it's rain, snow, whatever we're going to go for a walk. That's how I'm going to manage, how are you going to manage? Number three is over the festive period, don't make excuses for yourself. So another thing that can happen is that if we have got ourselves into a relatively healthy eating routine then during the Christmas period we might find ourselves slipping because we might say oh well actually I had a handful of chocolates earlier so I don't need to have lunch. You need to stick with your diet plan with your normal food and if you have eaten a little bit of extra things just that's something that's quite normal over the festive period and if it's going to make you feel very uncomfortable you're actually better off trying not to eat those additional things rather than skipping out meals and snacks which you should normally have. It's not okay to start skipping meals on the basis of additional calories consumed through less healthy foods and irregular times because before you know it you can find yourself falling into a spiral where you're just eating just a few very high calorie things and you lose the ability to engage with those normal meals that you've perhaps worked really really hard to get back on the agenda. Number four is ask for support. So it's okay to ask those around you friends or family who are going to be with you at various different mealtimes if they can help you. So that might look different ways. It might be literally that you want them to kind of you know be with you during a meal to help you feel better, to help you feel more supported. You might want them with you after the meal. You might also ask for support from people who are perhaps preparing meals for different occasions. So you might give them a bit of a heads up about what your dietary preferences are, what are the things you can and can't manage at the moment. You might even ask if you can bring your own food with you. It really depends where you are in your recovery and what you feel comfortable with at the moment. But one thing I would say is that if you share with friends, with family, with if you share with them what's happening with you, what you find difficult and what would be helpful for them to do to support you. You will often be surprised by quite how helpful people will be. So talk to them, ask for their help and let them help you. And number five is just don't push yourself so hard that you might fall. So it can be very difficult at Christmas not to get carried away with all the different things that are going on. And we might feel like we've got to do everything, join in with every meal, join in with every, every single thing that's going on. And that can be really mentally and physically tiring for us and it can really burn out our resilience and can make it very difficult for us to manage. And what can sometimes happen is that we're managing, we're managing, we're managing, we're managing and then we crash. So actually plan ahead a little bit, build in those rest times, think about how can I eat in a way that's sustainable and that will make me feel okay. And just try to think of Christmas as a period where you're going to do your very best to enjoy what you can. But actually this is a small part of a longer sustainable recovery and you don't want to jeopardize the hard work that you've already done and the good times that are ahead just for a period of a week or two when things are really very strange for everyone food-wise. I hope there are some ideas there that might help you or might help someone that you care for or are working with. If you've got other suggestions, leave them in the comment below. Also let me know if you have other topics you'd like me to cover in future videos. If you liked it give it a thumbs up and if you want to hear more from me then please subscribe and you'll get notified of future videos. Good luck, I hope you have a great festive season and that you are able to enjoy it as best you can. Bye.