It’s Time for Disney’s California Adventure Food and Wine Festival 2023!
Kevin and I had the opportunity to go to the opening day of Disneyland’s Food and Wine festival 2023 and we were both so excited. However, I was also anxious. A whole festival surrounding food is still scary to me and gives me some anxiety. So while I will be sharing the foods Kevin and I tried at this festival and letting you know how we liked them, I did also want to take this time to share a little bit about how my recovery journey is going with healing my relationship with food and share some tips on how I am working on continuing to heal.
Personal Struggles
Sometimes I struggle with eating in public and around others. So as much as some people want to just assume people in larger bodies are going around to all of these food festivals and events to just “stuff their face”…let’s back up just a bit. Assuming people in larger bodies are bigger because all they do is stuff their faces with food is a very harsh and inaccurate assumption to make. The reality is, we never know what anyone is going through, and that includes people in larger bodies. My problem at this festival was not, how do I not eat everything in sight, it was, am I going to allow myself to eat anything. This is still something I struggle with and what I wanted to talk about in this post. If you want some tips on how I handle eating foods around the holidays and at festivals, you can check out this post HERE.
Let’s Talk Binge Eating Disorder
I felt talking about this topic of not wanting to eat is so important because it is definitely not talked about enough. I think so few people talking about this is why others want to make so many assumptions. So many people struggle with binge eating disorder, BED. Binge Eating Disorder is an intense restriction of food followed by an intense binge because you have been restricting for so long and the body is beyond hungry. As you can see, it goes way deeper than just stuffing your face with food. For me, I have restricted food all of my life in hopes of becoming smaller. I have been told to eat less, stop eating, and put the fork down more times than I can count. All that does is create more shame around food and eating and more restrictions. Which then leads to, you guessed it, more binges. On top of that, a lot of people who struggle with BED also struggle with eating in front of other people for fear they are constantly being judged.
Here comes the struggle
So put me into a food and wine festival where I am surrounded by food and people…it can be difficult. But I want to be able to enjoy festivals, eat in front of people, and not restrict myself because I am so nervous I will eat too much or get shamed. I want to heal my relationship with food and continue to live my life doing the things I love. How am I working on this?
3 tips for overcoming eating at holidays, festivals, and large gatherings and how I am working on this.
Tip 1 – Remind myself that it is ok to eat.
Just this simple reminder of telling myself that food is not bad and that I am not bad for eating is a huge mental shift that has been helping me. Even if I have my own weight goals, even if I am struggling with my body, I am still allowed to eat.
Tip 2 – Bring some safe foods.
My therapist told me about this and it has been a game changer. I thought bringing my own food to Disneyland, or to events, was taking me right back to my old eating disorder ways. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Bringing your own “safe foods” literally means that if/when you feel too uncomfortable or unsafe to eat the foods available, you still have something you can eat. This helps so you do not go into complete restriction mode and has helped me not completely binge later on because I starved myself all day. Safe foods can be a PBJ sandwich, a bag of pretzels, fruit, a protein bar…anything so that you can just get some food into your body. Keeping safe foods with me has helped me to not completely restrict myself while I am out of the house.
Tip 3 – Stop worrying about what others might be doing or thinking and focus on YOU.
I think this is the hardest tip, but one that is so important. Again, being in a larger body I constantly think I am being watched and judged for everything I am putting into my mouth. Like because of the size of my body, I am not allowed to eat or enjoy food. (Hello years of dieting and society telling you that when you are fat all you should be doing is trying to lose weight). What I tell myself is, to look around at all of these people eating and enjoying their time. I can do this too. I am allowed to do this too. If someone doesn’t like it, that is their problem, not mine. You cannot control what others think or say, so let’s stop trying. If we can focus more on what we are doing and what we are working on, then the opinion of others really doesn’t matter. If we can truly focus on ourselves then we are more in tune with our body and can listen to what it is telling us. We can build trust with ourselves again and actually be able to listen to our hunger cues, stop eating when we feel full or satisfied and truly be in the moment and enjoy the foods we are eating.
I hope these tips were helpful and can also help you feel more confident to continue living your life and healing at the same time.
OK, now let’s get into the fun.
*quick tips and disclaimers before we get started specifically about food and wine 2023.
- all foods mentioned were tried over several days
- if we did not like something we threw it away or gave it to a friend
- we had friends with us to try these foods with us
- bring baggies or containers with you so you can save leftovers for later
- we only tried what sounded good to us! It’s ok not to have it all BUT it’s also ok to have it all!
The foods we tried at Disneylands Food and Wine Festival 2023
Available at Avocado Time
Available at Avocado Time
Available at Peppers Cali-Ente
Available at Nuts About Cheese
Available at Nuts About Cheese
Available at Uncork California
Available at Berry Patch
Available at Berry Patch
Available at I Heart Artichokes
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