INTUITIVE EATING

The discussion on intuitive eating continues this month. Just to reiterate, intuitive eating can be defined as “an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind and body.” It is incredibly important for you to begin to trust yourself and your body to make the right choices for you when it comes to health and food. Your health care team can provide advice, but it is up to you to decide exactly what is going to work for you for long-term weight maintenance. Here are some further principles to getting you back on track with intuitive eating:

Respect your fullness. Pay attention to your body during meals, it will give you internal cues that will help you determine when you are satisfied. Sometimes it’s helpful to take a break during your meals to see exactly how full you’re feeling and if the food is still tasting as good as it was when you first started. Observe, Observe, Observe!

Discover the satisfaction factor. Other cultures do a good job of promoting pleasure in their pursuit of healthy living. As Americans often tend to overlook the power and pleasure of eating to truly nourish our bodies. Providing your body with what it wants is a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied with less; finding the balance between giving your body what it wants and what it needs takes a little bit of thought but is very rewarding.

Honor your feelings without using food.  Find ways to comfort, nurture, distract and resolve your emotions. We all experience different emotions throughout life; we all have different triggers and different ways of dealing with the stress. The bottom line is that food is not a cure for emotional stressors, it may provide short-term comfort but eventually you will be stuck dealing with feelings of guilt from overeating on top of the original emotions that led you there in the first place.

This discussion will continue next month. You can find more information about this topic as well as find books/CDs if you are interested at www.intuitiveeating.com.