How to Eat Intuitively at a Wedding: 5 Tips to Avoid Overeating

1. Nourish yourself consistently before the event

You’re going to want to eat before the wedding.

Diet culture tells us to “save up” our calories for all the eating we’re inevitably going to do later. But if you intentionally go into a special event starving, you’re basically setting yourself up to overeat.

When you let yourself get ravenous, your body enters into survival-mode eating. It becomes much harder to slow down, enjoy the food, or actually be present.

So I ate normally that day. We had a big brunch in the morning, and I ate until I was satisfied even though I knew there would be plenty of food later. By the time cocktail hour rolled around, I was definitely hungry—but I wasn’t ravenous since I didn’t starve myself in preparation for the wedding food (that would basically lead to a planned binge).

2. You don’t have to earn your food

You don’t have to exercise in a last-ditch effort to burn extra calories before putting on a formal outfit.

Reality check: your body is probably going to look the same either way.

If movement would feel good that day, cool. But you don’t have to earn the food you’re going to eat at a special event.

3. Practice forward thinking

If you know there’s a cocktail hour and a sit-down dinner, it can be helpful to think ahead a little.

By cocktail hour, I was really hungry.

I knew I wanted to enjoy dinner, so I intentionally stopped eating at cocktail hour before I was fully satisfied to leave some room.

That doesn’t have to be disordered. Intuitive eating doesn’t mean blindly following every body cue in the moment. You can also use logic and think about what’s coming next.

4. Incorporate fun foods into everyday eating

If you regularly leave special events thinking, Why did I eat so much? Why am I so stuffed? it’s worth looking at how much permission you have around fun foods in your everyday life.

Foods you love—or foods you previously considered “off limits”—need to be allowed outside of special occasions, too.

That helps take them off the pedestal and teaches your brain: We can have this again.

At the wedding, there was really good mac and cheese and homemade cake. I enjoyed both. But I didn’t feel like I had to eat as much as possible just because they were there.

I know I can have fun, satisfying food again tomorrow.

5. Practice discernment

One of my favorite things about becoming an intuitive eater is that your ability to practice discernment grows.

Just because something is wedding food or special-occasion food doesn’t necessarily mean it’s that good.

You’re allowed to actually taste your food and ask yourself, Do I like this? Is this satisfying me? Do I want more of it?

You don’t have to automatically eat something just because it’s there or because it’s something you don’t usually have.

That, to me, is one of the coolest skills that develops with intuitive eating: being able to enjoy food without feeling like you have to take advantage of every opportunity to eat it.

You can enjoy the wedding, enjoy the food, and trust that you’ll get to have satisfying eating experiences again tomorrow.