INTUITIVE EATING

This month will be the first in a three-month series on the principles of intuitive eating.  Intuitive eating can be defined as “an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind and body.” Children are born with a keen sense of intuitive eating; as we grow up we are de-sensitized to our internal cues for hunger and   eating becomes more driven by external cues including money, emotions and weight.  Here are some of the principles to getting you back on track with intuitive eating:

1. Reject the diet mentality. Throw out the books and ads that offer you a false hope of losing weight quickly. It is important for you to realize that sustainable weight loss is lost slowly and is achieved & maintained by making permanent life style changes; including incorporating intuitive eating patterns into your life.
2. Honor your hunger. When you are truly physically hungry, you should provide your body with fuel. If you let yourself get overly hungry, you are setting the stage for overeating (a primal survival technique) and poor food choices. At first, it may be difficult for you to decipher between physical and mental or emotional hunger, but this is a skill that can be learned with close monitoring and regular meal patterns.
3. Make peace with food. Make a truce with food! If you tell yourself that you can or can’t have a certain food, that can often lead to intense cravings and increase the likelihood for bingeing. Find a balance between providing your body with the nutrients it needs and still enjoying your foods.
4. Challenge the food police.  It is important that you recognize there are no “good” or “bad” foods. The Food Police are rules that you may have learned during previous diet attempts; they often   provoke negative thoughts and feelings of guilt.  Instead, focus on having a positive mental dialect with yourself.  It is essential that you take a look at the “whole picture” when deciding where there are areas for improvement when it comes to your eating patterns.

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.