Tag Archive for: balance

How to Meal Plan from an Intuitive Lens

After years of dieting, many of my clients resist meal planning. And I totally get it. They’ve made the decision to stop dieting and learn to eat intuitively, and planning meals just reminds them of their dieting days. But is there a way to meal plan through an Intuitive Eating lens? Yes, there is.

First, let’s understand the benefits of meal planning. There are many.

Benefits of Meal Planning

  1. It saves time and stress.

Let’s face it, when you come home at the end of a long day tired, hungry, and stressed, the last thing you want to think about is “what am I making for dinner?”

By knowing in advance what you are going to prepare, and having the ingredients on hand, you cut out the stress and the time trying to figure it out. Take it from me, a working mom who needs to feed her family, the only way to get a balanced meal on the table is to think ahead and plan.

  1. It avoids unnecessary food waste.

When you plan meals ahead of time, this ensures that the ingredients you bought in the grocery store has a purpose – no need to worry about items in your fridge going to waste! This is great on your wallet and the environment

  1. It helps maintain a balanced diet.

With meal planning, you can be sure that you are having a balance of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats since you have thought about what you are making well in advance, as opposed to throwing together whatever you can and as fast as possible when you come home ravenous!

  1. It saves money.

Having planned meals or snacks prevents you from spending money on buying take-out, running through the drive-through, or picking up last minute to-go meals at the convenience store. Many of my clients are amazed at how much money they save when they start planning meals in advance and stop buying out because “I don’t have any food at home.”

Meal planning also allows you to buy food and ingredients in bulk, which can be another great way to save money.

But the question remains, is meal planning  the same as dieting?

Meal Planning is NOT Dieting When…

  • …There is flexibility.

If you’ve put together a menu for the day and for some reason, you aren’t able to prepare or eat what is on the menu (say for example the food spoiled), and you are cool about it and say to yourself “okay, what else do I have that I can eat”, that is meal planning through an intuitive lens. However, if you break out in hives and a sweat because you couldn’t follow the menu you planned for the day, this is dieting!

  • …There are foods on your menus that you like and enjoy versus foods you “should be eating”.

Meal planning that is dieting forces you to think about eating and the foods you eat in a very “black and white” way. For example, these are the foods I can eat because they are healthy, and these are the foods I can’t eat because they are unhealthy”.

Meal planning from an intuitive lens allows you to eat foods you enjoy and that satisfies you versus restricting those foods or limiting them.

  • …There are options.

Meal planning that is dieting is very rigid and structured with not a lot of opportunity to explore new dishes or experiment with foods because “they aren’t on your meal plan”.

Meal planning through an intuitive lens allows you have to options and variety in your meals because you’re listening to what your body wants versus only thinking about what your body “should” need or want.

 

In summary, there are many benefits to meal planning! If you find that planning meals is very rigid and isn’t giving you any room for options or alternatives, you are still dieting, and your diet mentality is running the show.

 

If, however, you are meal planning with the mindset of being prepared, this allows you to be flexible and adjust to whatever situation may come up (i.e., not enough ingredients, you forget an ingredient, food spoiled etc). This, my friend, is meal planning through an intuitive lens.

Let’s dive deeper and start the meal planning process. Come join me at 12:15 pm EST in my Facebook Group for a LIVE training on How to Meal Plan through an Intuitive Lens.

Finding Balance with Intuitive Eating

I recently had a client share her success story.  Let’s call her Jessica. Jessica was at a barbecue when chocolate ice cream and homemade chocolate chip cookies were being served. She thought that maybe she would overeat on these desserts because that’s what she’s always done in the past. So she took a small piece of each on her plate.  She ate a few spoonfuls of the ice cream, then a few bites of the cookie, and something that has never happened to her before happened…

She didn’t feel the need to eat more! She was shocked.

She was able to savor each bite using her mindful eating techniques and felt satisfied after only a few bites.

How did she do this you ask?

By using the intuitive eating strategies that I am teaching her, she is learning to move away from the all or nothing way of thinking.  She didn’t feel guilty for indulging in a food she wanted.  She has made peace with food and has reaped the benefits, which is showing up in so many ways in her life.

Had she found herself in this scenario a few months ago before we began working together, the outcome would have been different. The all or nothing thinking is part of a diet mentality and usually leads to overeating, followed by guilt, unhappiness, dieting, restriction, overeating etc.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Intuitive eating is tuning into what your body wants, even if it’s ice cream or a cookie, and giving it what it wants.  If you listen to your body, you won’t feel the need to overeat and have guilt afterwards.  Your body will be happy it can enjoy the foods it wants.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I get myself to this point?”  The answer is to change your mindset.  You have to step away from the diet mentality of restricting certain foods or entire food groups.

The way to make peace with food is to give yourself unconditional permission to eat what you want. I know, this sounds like an opportunity to eat uncontrollably. And to be honest with you, some people use it as an excuse to do just that. However, that’s not how this process works.

Changing your mindset does not happen overnight. Those who work through the process with the support, encouragement, positive attitude and patience are the ones who will experience what Jessica did. The intuitive eating process can help you transform your relationship with food, where you end the battle with food and your body and achieve great pleasure in eating once again.

Here are 2 steps you can take today to become and intuitive eater and change your mindset:

  1. Commit to saying goodbye to the dieting mindset! It is time to recognize that you can have your cake and eat it too. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can find a balance that works for you!
  2. Start tuning in and listening to your body. Your body gives you signals when it starts to get hungry and full. Tune into these signals to know when and what you should feed your body.  You’ll learn to eat what your body craves without overeating.

I am here to help you embark on this journey and break out of the dieting mindset.

If you’d like further individualized support, just fill out this form at the link below and I’ll share how I can support you on your journey:

 www.TalkWithBonnie.com.

How to Change Your Attitude Towards Exercise

Avatar of woman exercisingMary sat across from me in my office. I was reviewing her nutritional history and noticed she answered the question of whether she exercises as “it depends”. I asked her what it depends on. Mary explained that it depends on whether she is dieting or not. If she is on a diet, she is also exercising. If she is not on a diet, she is not exercising.

 

Does this sound like you?

 

For many chronic dieters, exercising goes hand in hand with dieting. You start a diet and you start an exercise plan. You go off the diet and out goes the exercise plan.

 

Why is that?

 

The answer to that question lies in why you are exercising in the first place. For most people struggling with their weight, they exercise to burn calories so they will lose weight. Or, they feel guilty after having eaten the piece of birthday cake so they want to “burn it off” through exercise.

 

It’s time to change the way you think and feel about exercise. Yes, exercise can help you to shed excess weight and maintain a new healthy weight. I am a firm believer in exercise. But not when exercise is solely used for this purpose.

 

Let’s start to think about how exercise makes you FEEL. Consider these factors:

 

Stress Level: are you better able to handle the stress you have in your life without getting overwhelmed?

 

Energy Level: Are you walking around with more pep in your step? Do you have more energy to power you through your day?

 

General Sense of Well-Being: Do you look at your life with an overall more positive attitude?

 

Feeling of Empowerment: Do you feel you can do what you set your mind to do? Do you feel more empowered to accomplish your goals, having an “I can” attitude?

 

Sleep: Are you enjoying a better night sleep, and waking up each morning feeling refreshed?

 

When you start to notice how exercise makes you feel and how it impacts these other areas of your life, you will come to appreciate exercise not for the calorie burn but for the positive affects you experience. It will then be much easier to incorporate exercise, activity or any body movement as part of your daily living without its sole connection to losing weight.

 

Time to take action: Please share with me how exercise makes your FEEL.