food Archives - Diet Free Radiant Me | Intuitive Eating | Emotional Eating

Intuitive Eating and National Nutrition Month Collide

It’s interesting when people hear that I’m a registered dietitian nutritionist, yet I don’t promote diets. This is something many people don’t understand since most people are influenced by society’s message that to “manage” their weight, they have to diet and “control” their food intake.

No, it’s not about control, it’s about “taking charge”. By saying NO to diets, you are saying YES to putting yourself back in the driver’s seat and making your own food choices. Because you know what? You know how to do that. I realize that maybe you think you don’t, since you’ve been dieting for so long. But given the chance, you will step up to the plate.

I’ve said it may times – intuitive eating is not “see it, want it, eat it”. With intuitive eating, we pause to determine if we are hungry or not, to think about how eating that food made you feel last time you ate it (sluggish, tired, energized, blood sugar spike/crash etc) and then use that information to make an informed food and eating decision.

Is nutrition important? Yes, of course it is. But choosing foods that are nutrient-rich or nutrient-poor does not make you a better or worse person.

There is a way to balance both, and to have full satisfaction when doing so.

National Nutrition Month – Eat Right, Bite by Bite

This year’s theme has the following message: “Good nutrition doesn’t have to be restrictive or overwhelming. Small goals and changes can have a cumulative healthful effect, and every little bit (or bite!) of nutrition is a step in the right direction.”

When working with clients, I stress one small change at a time.

Here’s a road map to guide you this National Nutrition Month:

Week One: Just focus on eating a variety of foods every day. Now that you’re not dieting any longer, there’s no more eliminating major food groups or particular foods. Consider what you’d like to eat from each food group as you build a satisfying meal. Then, sit and savor every bite.

Week Two: Plan meals ahead if you are a busy person (like me!) and you want to be sure you have food in the house to prepare meals for the week. Meal planning is not dieting as long as you keep it flexible. I like to say that “planning is smart living”. Without planning ahead what I will make for dinner, my family likely wouldn’t sit down to a balanced meal each evening.

Week Three: Experiment with new tastes, textures and flavors of foods. Look for new recipes and get the family involved. Plan to enjoy a few family meals together each week. It doesn’t have to be dinner if schedules don’t match. Think out of the box and enjoy breakfast together. For lots of delicious recipes and Intuitive Eating Wisdom, check out my new book – Enjoying Food Peace: Recipes and Intuitive Eating Wisdom to Nourish Your Body and Mind.

Week Four: Need more support? Have specific medical nutrition needs such as diabetes, prediabetes, high cholesterol and GI issues? Contact me to learn how we can intertwine intuitive eating with nutrition therapy in a weight-neutral way.

Happy National Nutrition Month to you!!

8 Benefits of Intuitive Eating (and 3 Ways to Commit)

The other day I was giving thought to this past year and the work that I’ve done with my clients. I often like to reflect at the end of the year about what I accomplished in my work, how I’ve helped clients improve their health, and the impact I’ve made on the lives of people who are finally trusting their bodies again.

Not everyone can say that they love going to work every day. I remember sitting on the beach when on vacation a few summers ago with 2 of my close friends and their husbands. We were talking about how we were leaving the next day and going back to work. My friends were complaining about having to return to work. I remained silent. They asked me why I wasn’t complaining too, and I simply said, “I love what I do”.

It wasn’t always this way. Back in 2011 I had grown to “hate” my work. I was creating meal plans upon meal plans and really got no joy in it. Why? Because most of these clients that I was creating meal plans for really knew how to eat to nourish their bodies and improve their health.

So, what were they coming to me for, you may think?

Weight loss!

They wanted to me to put some form of magic meal plan together that would help them lose the weight they so desperately wanted to lose. And you know what? If they followed the meal plan, it worked. They lost the weight. But they also learned nothing. All they learned is how to be a good “listener’ and “follower” of when to eat, what to eat and how much to eat that someone else (me) assumed was right for them.

You may wonder “what is wrong with that, they lost the weight, didn’t they?”

Yes, at first. But months or years later, that weight came back. Okay, not for all these people. But for a large majority of the chronic dieters that I saw in my office back then, this was the outcome.

You know why? Because…

Following a meal plan that someone else creates for you takes you further away from listening to your own body. You and your body become strangers. ~Bonnie R. Giller

And I didn’t want to continue to cause this harm for people. That’s when I decided to learn about intuitive eating and become a certified intuitive eating counselor. I am so thankful that I got to a low point in my business back then, so that I can have the positive impact on people’s lives that I have today.

8 Benefits of Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating helps you to become friends with your body again.

Intuitive eating helps you to trust that you, yes YOU, can decide for yourself when to eat, how much to eat, and what to eat.

Intuitive eating brings peace around food, allowing food to be a non-issue in your life.

Intuitive eating helps you eat without feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment or regret.

Intuitive eating brings you pleasure and satisfaction in your meals.

Intuitive eating shows respect to your body.

Intuitive eating allows you to live your life to the fullest!

Intuitive eating helps you regain WholeBody Trust™, which encompasses 3 pillars: Mind Trust, Hunger Trust and Food Trust™.

If you haven’t yet ventured into learning intuitive eating, what is holding you back?

3 Ways to Commit to Your Intuitive Eating Journey

Declare Yourself Diet-Free: Decide that you are giving up dieting forever and declare it. Scream it at the top of your lungs. Hear yourself say the words. If you want to, tell a trusted friend or loved one that you have made this important decision, so you can change your future.

Dump All Diet Paraphernalia: Go through your house and get rid of all the diet books and other items that reek of dieting. Seriously, doing this will show yourself that you mean business. If you hold on to even one diet, you are not fully committed to this journey.

Decide to Ask for Support: Realize that you don’t need to do this alone. Asking for support takes courage and shows strength. Think about the other areas of your life that you have gotten support – tutoring at school, physical therapy for a broken leg, therapy to help your marriage etc. And, if you’re not one to have ever asked for support in the past, maybe this is the time to start.

Every day when I wake up, I am thankful for the work I get to do with my wonderful clients and the women in my Intuitive Eating Mastery Circle™. I would love to help you too. If you feel so inclined as to explore how you can learn to have WholeBody Trust™ through Intuitive Eating, contact me here.

I’ve Already Tried Intuitive Eating, and It Didn’t Work

I’ve heard it many times! Women who are skeptical about intuitive eating. They tell me they’ve tried it and it didn’t work. But did they really try it?

Or, were they just treating it like another diet?

You likely know by now that there are no rules in intuitive eating. As a matter of fact, one of the first things I do with my clients is help them kick all those diet food rules to the curb. However, it’s possible that, unbeknownst to you, you have created rules around intuitive eating.

I must eat ONLY when I am hungry.

I must ALWAYS stop eating when I am satisfied, and not full.

I must ALWAYS feel my feelings.

I must ALWAYS eat at the table without distraction.

And, you think:

If I don’t do these things all the time and do them perfectly, then I have failed at intuitive eating.

This sounds like a diet to me, with a long set of rules (oh, there are a lot more, I just kept it to these 4 for now!).

This is the Intuitive Eating Diet!

I don’t blame you. Many times, women (and of course some men) tell me they are ready to give up dieting and work towards intuitive eating. And to them, that means eating when hungry and stopping when full. They ask me to teach them how to do this again, because they haven’t heard their signals in a long time.

That is all well and good, and I am happy to help these women reacquaint themselves with their inner signals. The issue is that we cannot start at this point of hunger and fullness, because then it becomes the “Hunger-Fullness Diet”, aka The Intuitive Eating Diet.

So, where do you need to start?

At Step One – Shift Your Mindset

Shifting your mindset means moving away from the dieter’s mentality. And, this takes time, especially if you’ve been dieting for MANY years. And, that’s okay! There is no rush! Gift yourself with the time and patience to understand how your mindset got to where it is today and to learn the strategies you need to make this shift.

This is more than just knowing what diet food rules never worked for you. This is delving into your belief system. Really challenging yourself to understand what beliefs you’re holding onto that might be causing you to self-sabotage….over and over again.

These beliefs were born from messages you were given years ago. You’ve assumed them to be true, and they have been driving your actions all these years from your subconscious mind. Once you can change those beliefs, you will see and feel the mindset shift that is so key for your intuitive eating journey.

Is this difficult to do?

You may think so. And, you may say it’s just easier to go on a diet (even though diets have never worked for you, and you’re pretty sure they never will). But it’s safer. If this is the case, can you now understand why saying “I’ve Already Tried Intuitive Eating, and It Didn’t Work” doesn’t hold any water?

If you are ready to do the deeper inner work necessary to change your relationship with food and your body, just head on over to http://TalkWithBonnie.com and let’s set up a time to speak.

Have you been on the ‘Intuitive Eating Diet’? Comment below!

When Eating is a Non-Issue and Food Decisions Just Happen

When you want to get into a routine and build something new into your life, one way to do so is to schedule and plan. As a chronic dieter, this was (or maybe still is) also true for you when it comes to eating for weight loss (a.k.a. dieting).

You schedule the number of meals you’ll eat that day based on when the plan tells you to, and you restructure your life around that plan. You find that you’re constantly thinking about what you’re supposed to be eating next, will you be eating it “on time” and if you didn’t pack it with you, will you be able to find something comparable. You find the only thing you are thinking about is food.

I want you to remember a time where you weren’t worrying about your weight or your food. You lived your life and when you were hungry you ate, you stopped when you were full and you weren’t frantically wondering if a food fell into your plan if you wanted to have it. For many of you trying to get back to this memory, it might take you all the way back to your childhood days—and that’s OK.

When you were younger and there’s less to worry about, that carefree attitude translated easier to food. Eating was just something you did in between all the other fun things you did each day. And you enjoyed every bite you took.

This is intuitive eating at its finest….when

…..Eating is a Non-Issue and Food Decisions Just Happen

Now that you are older and have been influenced by the diet culture that surrounds you, well, it hasn’t been so easy for you to return to the way you were born.

I know you have this deep desire to become an intuitive eater again. I know this because I have spoken to hundreds of you wishing it were easier. I know how easy it is to fall back into diet mentality, and I also know how important support is for you on this journey.

Free Training

Join me tomorrow, Thursday September 7 at 8 pm EST for a Facebook Live training where I will discuss how you can make intuitive eating second nature again.

I’m going live in my private Facebook group, so if you aren’t yet a member of our group, click here now to join us for free.

Here’s what you’ll learn during our Facebook Live training:

The #1 reason you struggle with implementing the intuitive eating principles
What it really takes to make intuitive eating a part of your being
How you can be at peace with food and yourself so you can enjoy life to the fullest

Oh, and if you are not on Facebook and want to watch the replay, just send me an email to Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com and I’ll send you the recording.

How Do You Handle Food-Related Stress?

Food is supposed to be enjoyed. Yet, when speaking with so many clients, and potential clients, they tell me that food is stressful. All aspects of food, whether its deciding what to eat, shopping and preparing food for meals, or even the thought of going out to eat food.

Stress, stress, stress!

Do you feel the same way?

If you have had a difficult relationship with food for some time now, then you can probably relate.

I know you probably want food to be a non-issue in your life. And you know what? It can be.

Let’s first start with 3 strategies that you can put into place immediately to help you minimize the stress around food.

Strategy #1: Set up your environment for success.

While I’m all about teaching you how to be intuitive in your eating (of course…I teach intuitive eating!), I am also very practical. It is important to be mindful of your eating and one way to do that is to reduce your external eating cues. That means put all food away after you’ve eaten and don’t leave food on the counters or table. If food is left out, it can very easily lead to mindless munching which then leads to feelings of guilt and frustration for eating when you weren’t hungry.

Strategy #2: Seek assistance from your family members.

Food shopping and meal prep doesn’t have to just be your responsibility. Get everyone involved in the menu planning. Even better, assign everyone a night to prepare the dinner. This way the whole family is involved, the kids will more likely eat what they help to prepare, and you get quality family time too.

Strategy #3. Start to use meditation and visualization. Meditation can be a powerful tool to help keep your mind clear and stress-free. You can use meditation as a way to visualize yourself being stress-free around food and, by visualizing that, you can start to believe it will happen too.

These strategies are a good place to get started and you can use them as a way to figure out what works best for you.

But I have more!

Come join my 3-Day Challenge – Managing Food-Related Stress.

It starts TODAY, August 30^th and runs through Friday September 1 and is happening in my Private Facebook Group.

Download your free e-Book “How to Manage Food-Related Stress” (which we are using throughout the challenge) as a tool to teach you ways to manage your stress around food.

Head over to our Private Facebook Group to see what Day One of the challenge entails!

See you there!

3 Steps to Stop Emotional Eating NOW

“Why do you eat?”

It seems like a simple enough question. But is it?

This is a question I ask all my clients in our first session. As I am learning about their weight history, diet history, challenges and struggles, I stop and ask them “why do you eat?”

They pause, look at me and say, “that’s a great question”.

There is a myriad of reasons why you eat. Yes, it might be from hunger, true biological hunger. But then again, it may not be. Do you know what true biological hunger feels and sounds like? Probably not if you’ve been a dieter and you’ve been eating based on food rules that have been dictated to you, including when and what to eat.

Stop and think about it. Are there reasons other than hunger that you eat?

Perhaps when you are bored? Lying around the house on a rainy day with nothing to do so you find yourself in the kitchen?

Or maybe you had a disagreement with your partner and you feel sad, hurt or lonely?

You remember the last time you were sad and hurt you ate the double chocolate fudge Haagen Daz ice cream and felt so much better.

Or so you thought…

But then, suddenly you felt worse. You now feel guilty, ashamed and disheartened with yourself. “Why did I do that again?” And, you feel physically uncomfortable, bloated, heavy, sluggish, with acid buildup! Oh, and let’s not forget the original feelings of hurt and sadness which is not multiplied by 100!

How long do you want to ride this emotional eating vicious cycle? It’s not fun. There is a way off, but you have to commit to taking action, because it won’t happen by itself.

Here are 3 steps to get your started:

Identify your emotional eating type and trigger Take a long hard look at your eating habits and discover what type of emotional eater you really are. And, what are your particular triggers that lead you to the cookie jar over and over again!

Create customized strategies to manage your emotional triggers. If you don’t tailor your strategies to your specific triggers, you will constantly jump from one strategy to the next, getting nowhere. In addition to customizing your strategies, it is imperative to learn how to actually feel your feelings, and to be okay with that. This is a tough thing to do, yes it is. But you can do it with the right direction and support!

Use food as your ally. Instead of viewing food as your enemy like most chronic dieters and emotional eaters do, take a step back and realize that the right nutrition can actually help you balance your brain chemicals and regulate your blood sugars to best manage your moods, emotions and stop your cravings.

So, how do you implement these 3 steps and get results?

Join me in Total Food Freedom™, a program to help you end emotional eating and enjoy a new relationship with food. Learn what your emotional eating archetype is, what your emotional eating triggers are, and how to customize and tailor the strategies for each trigger. And, learn how proper nutrition can be your secret weapon to ending emotional eating for good.

Enrollment closes Sunday May 21 at midnight Eastern.

Class starts on Monday May 22nd!

Learn more and register here > www.TotalFoodFreedom.com

Please Tell Me What to Eat!

“Can you give me a meal plan WHILE we work on intuitive eating?”

This is a question I hear often from clients who are contemplating starting the intuitive eating journey!

The answer is NO! Giving you a meal plan goes against the core beliefs of intuitive eating which is eating based on YOUR inner body wisdom, not a pre-printed meal plan. Even if this meal plan is “calculated” and customized for you.

Let me explain.

You have been on many diets over the years. Perhaps these were formal diets such as Weight Watchers (you can have x points per day), Jenny Craig (you can only eat our prepackaged meals), Atkins (no carbs!) etc.

Or, you were on what I call a “Self-Designed Diet”, meaning you created rules that you told yourself you’d follow. Example:
• I can only eat carbs for lunch, never with dinner.

• I must stop eating by 7 pm every night.

• If I snack, it can only be on a fruit or veggie sticks

You get the picture, right?

Point is, these diets or your own self-designed diets gave you the rules of eating. You followed them like the good girl you are. But these diets don’t take into account what your internal body cues are telling you about when to start eating and when to stop. You eat when, what and how much the diet tells you to.

So, what’s the big deal?
This only “works” for as long as you “follow” it. Then when you have a bad day or an uncomfortable emotion surfaces that you’d just rather not feel, BAM….off the diet you go.

This cycle continues until you realize that you need off this merry-go-round. There is no joy in eating anymore. So, you hear me talking about intuitive eating and you’re like, “wow, this sounds amazing. Let’s do it. But, can you give me a meal plan too?’

I hope you now see why my answer is “no”. Not because I don’t want to help you. But because on the contrary, a meal plan will keep you dieting by telling you when to eat, how much to eat and what to eat. It does not allow you to relearn how to let your body guide your eating decisions.

Having said this, I will also say that at a certain point on the intuitive eating journey when my clients raise their hand and say “YES, the intuitive eater within me has woken up”, then we start talking about nutrition. And guess what? You are now able to make the best choices for yourself with my guidance based on what feels awesome in your body!

Sounds intriguing? Want in on this journey? Just reach out to me at www.TalkWithBonnie.com and let me know you want to Break Free of Dieting for good! I’m here to support you!

How to Treat Yourself without Food

You’ve had a long day. Heck, it’s been a long week. You need a treat. You head to the _______ and get yourself some ______________.

How would you fill in these blanks?

When I pose this question to the women who reach out to me for help with their weight, they fill in the blanks with the words ‘kitchen” and ‘ice cream’. Or, ‘store’ and ‘chocolate’. Or ‘freezer’ and ‘cake’.

Sound familiar?

The first thought that most likely pops into your mind when you are looking for a treat is food! Why is that? Why do you associate a treat with food?

An emotional connection with food is created from the moment we are born and placed on our mom’s chest to bond. And then, as you get older and need comfort, you are given some milk and cookies. Of, if you fall down and hurt yourself, you are consoled with a lollypop. There are numerous examples of how the emotional connection to food continues to be reinforced around you.

But how has this served you now into adulthood? Not very well I’m guessing. It has led to your struggle with emotional eating and your never-ending ride on the yo-yo diet roller coaster.

It’s time to treat yourself with something other than food. It’s time to treat yourself like a queen and to take good care of yourself so you don’t need to find comfort in food.

Let me share a story with you.

The last few months have been very busy and well, quite stressful. So yesterday I decided to treat myself like a queen. One of my dreams has always been to have a personal shopper come into my home and go through my clothes closet with me. Toss what is no good, keep what is, and create new outfits with what I have. Then head to the store with my personal shopper in tow and buy some new clothes.

Well, I didn’t exactly get that full dream….no, a personal shopper did not come to my house. But I did make an appointment with a personal shopper at Lord and Taylor and meet with her yesterday. This is a complementary service for shoppers…I never knew that! She set me up in her exclusive office fitting room and brought me clothes to try on based on what I told her I was looking for.

Wow, what an experience. I felt like a celebrity. This was the best experience ever! I bought some really great new clothes and felt really amazing.

I treated myself like a queen. I felt the stress lift off my shoulders, just like that. Doing something for yourself really feels good! You don’t need food to comfort or console yourself. Taking care of your needs on all levels and nurturing yourself will help you cope with your feelings without turning to food.

Try it…and let me know how it works out for you. If you want to talk, just contact me here!

Your Emotional Health, Self-Talk and Weight Loss

I have many clients that come to me with the frustration of not meeting their weight loss goals. They come to me wondering what they can do to reach their “goals”. I usually sit down with them and go over what they are eating and if they are exercising; the typical conversation I have when a client comes to me for weight loss.

But their eating pattern isn’t the only thing we discuss.

My clients and I may also discuss how they feel about themselves after not reaching their “goals”. Where is their mindset at? How are they feeling on their journey to a healthier lifestyle?

Often they might see not reaching their weight loss goal as a failure and a reflection of who they are as a person. They may then develop a negative internal monologue with themselves that tends to only perpetuate weight gain or the inability to lose weight.

Does this resonate with you?

Bullying yourself is not the way to long lasting weight loss, nor is it part of a healthy lifestyle.

Many times the roadblocks in the journey to weight loss are not a lack of nutrition education or even support, but rather they are barriers you put up in your own psyche that prevents you from moving forward.

Your emotional health is key to your physical health, and talking yourself down will not lead to success.

How many times have you eaten what you consider “poorly” or not in keeping with your “diet plan” throughout the first half of the day, and your inner voice starts bullying you saying, “You can’t even make it a few hours without eating unhealthy” or “Can’t you stick to anything? You’re such a failure! You’ll never lose weight!” The disappoint that accompanies these thoughts almost always leads to more unhealthy choices throughout the rest of the day.

Instead of criticizing yourself, be your own cheerleader.

The day is not ruined if you chose to eat a bagel for breakfast instead of oatmeal. Tell yourself it is OK and move on.

There are so many more things to the day than what you eat.

Food should only be a part of your life, not what controls it.

The more you can shift your mind from the negative to focusing on all the great things about what you do in a day, the more success you will have with living a healthy lifestyle.

Support from others is great and is a key piece in a healthy mindset (and intuitive eating), but the support you give yourself is equally if not more important. After all, you are on this journey for you and nobody else, and while weight loss is great, achieving happiness and a sense of peace with the way you maintain a healthy lifestyle is even better.

Intuitive eating can help you change your mindset and help you overcome body bashing. You will develop a better relationship with food and no longer have feelings of remorse or anger if you go off your “diet plan”.

If you would like to learn more about intuitive eating and how it can help you, contact me here.

Do You Feed Your Emotions?

One of the things that come up often in my work with my clients is how they deal with their emotions. We all experience different emotions throughout a given day. Those emotions can be sadness, happiness, stress, anxiety, boredom or many others. It is totally normal to experience these emotions from time to time, but how you cope with them is key.

So let me ask you a question: How do you handle your emotions?

Do you look for support from someone close to you?

Do you journal how you are feeling and use one of your coping mechanisms to help you get through it?

Or, do you reach for food?

Do you find yourself reaching into the food cabinets when these emotions arise? How do you feel after you eat your “go-to” mood fixer food?

As an emotional eater you use food as a way to solve your problems, so you think. But in reality, food will not make these problems go away. They will certainly distract you for a time but once you stop eating, the problem and your feelings will still be there. You sadness, anxiety, boredom or stress, will still need to be addressed. But now, there is likely some added guilt and physical discomfort from overeating.

Does this sound like you?

If it does, know you are not alone.

Here are 4 steps you can take today to move away from emotional eating:

Acknowledge when you turn to food to comfort your emotions. Are you choosing foods to help numb your emotion? What emotions are you feeling in that moment? Take a moment to breathe and think about what you are doing. Journal what comes up for you.

Stop and listen to your body before turning to food. What are you truly feeling? If you can honestly say you are hungry, then by all means you should eat….a well-balanced power snack or meal. But if you are being true to yourself and really want to help yourself, you won’t automatically say “I’m hungry”. Instead, you will think about what you are feeling and how you can comfort yourself without turning to food.

Seek support from a loved one or counselor. Talking through your emotions instead of eating through them is an amazing feeling.

Journal things that you enjoy doing that can distract your during your emotional times. Take a walk, do a puzzle, read a book, etc. Figure out what works best for you.

Let’s dig even deeper into how to end emotional eating.

Join me on Thursday, October 13^th for a free live training called A Simple (and Delicious) Way to End Emotional Eating.

Click here to learn more and to register.

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