Tag Archive for: food peace

3 Reasons to Say Yes to Intuitive Eating

Every week I receive dozens of phone calls asking me for a meal plan to help them lose weight. Most of my clients have tried the most popular diets on the market with little success. Instead of giving them another meal plan with strict rules to follow, I will instead point them in the direction of Intuitive Eating.

 

Intuitive Eating is not a weight loss program. Unlike diets, the focus is not on weight loss. It’s on creating a healthy relationship with food as you work towards regaining trust in yourself and food choices. Intuitive Eating is the opposite of a diet. You will not follow a set of rules set forth by a money-making corporation but instead, you will learn to listen to your body’s natural hunger and fullness signals.

 

Your relationship with your body is affected by many years of dieting. Marketing campaigns are centered around the theory that everyone needs to look a certain way. However, everyone’s body is different, and we aren’t all going to look the same.

 

Intuitive Eating embraces that idea that everyone is different and that all bodies aren’t meant to look the same. That is why Intuitive Eating does not come with a set of rules and instead, focuses on restoring your relationship with your body.

 

Losing weight may make you happy short term. But when you gain that weight back, you are the opposite of happy. You can find inner peace and restore your relationship with food and your body through Intuitive Eating.

 

Here are 3 reasons to say yes to Intuitive Eating:

 

1. You are in charge

 

After years of dieting, you aren’t listening to your hunger and fullness signals as a guide to your eating, you’ve been listening to external rules. Intuitive Eating reminds you that you are in charge of your food choices and your body. You have the inner wisdom to know when you are hungry and when you are full, when you should start eating and when to stop.

 

2. You will live life guilt-free

 

Every diet has a list of restrictions with the food you can and cannot eat. But what if you happen to want to eat a food that’s on the “avoid” list? You can deny your desire for only so long. So, you indulge, and the guilty feelings and harsh self-talk start. With Intuitive Eating, you learn to enjoy the foods you love without guilt, and without the worry of overeating.

 

3. You will restore trust in yourself 

 

Marketing campaigns for diets want you to think that everything you have done before you start their diet was wrong. Diets will make you think that you have been choosing the “wrong” foods for years or doing the incorrect workout regimen. However, you are in charge of your body and what it needs. The diets have stripped you of trust. But Intuitive Eating can help you regain that trust!

 

WholeBody Trust: Intuitive Eating for a Peaceful Life Program is now open. Click here to learn more!

3 Reasons Why Dieting Will Never Bring You Food Freedom

I was once someone who followed the latest fad diets. From carbohydrate restriction to counting calories, I have tried so many “guaranteed weight loss” trends. Even though I did lose some weight on these diets, I always gained it back. While these diets all had different regimens, one thing they all had in common is that I was miserable when I was on them.

 

Dieting is a way of life for many people. You probably know someone who is always bringing their own food to parties and constantly trying to “slim down,” you may even be one of those people. Perhaps you are reading this after breaking your current diet and you are desperate to find another way. Or you are reading this, and you are at your goal weight, having lost the weight by starving yourself, drinking shakes, or eating “clean” but tasteless food.

 

Dieting is no way to live. Although the diet industry wants you to believe that their “program” is a “way of life”, it’s just not peaceful and is filled with worry about whether you will gain the weight back, or whether there will be food you can eat wherever you go. I know I was tired of that life. And my clients were too.

 

Intuitive Eating is a journey that helps you listen to your body’s inner wisdom that you were born with regarding hunger, fullness and satisfaction around food and eating. This approach to eating will help to bring you mind and body peace.

 

Here are 3 reasons why dieting will never bring you the food freedom you desire:

 

  1. Diets Are Always Centered Around Food

 

Most diets will make you track everything that goes into your mouth. Food will constantly be on your mind. You will be thinking, what did I eat yesterday? What did I eat before? What am I eating now? It’s exhausting. Food should not be the center of your day; food should not encompass your entire brain. There is so much more to life that you can be doing than thinking about food all the time.

 

Diets bring food obsession and worry, not food freedom.

 

  1. Diets Cause You to Feel Guilty

 

Every diet has a list of restrictions with the food you can and cannot eat. But what if you happen to want to eat food that’s on the “avoid” list? Well, what usually happens when you are told you cannot have something? Yep, you want it more. You can deny your desire for only so long. So, you indulge, and the guilty feelings and harsh self-talk start.

 

Diets bring food guilt, not food freedom.

 

  1. Diets Cause You to Lose Trust in Yourself

 

Diets make you believe that you have been choosing the “wrong” foods for years and they cause you to blame yourself when you don’t lose weight. Last I checked, you are the owner of your body, your inner signals, and thoughts. You know your body better than anyone or anything. You alone should be in charge of what food you eat, not the diet.

 

Diets bring loss of self-trust, not food freedom.

 

I know now badly you want to be free of dieting, and you want to be free to have food present in your life with ease.

 

Pop your name and email in the boxes below to Break the Spell of Diets in 3 Days. Then, check your inbox for your Day 1 experience.

 

3 Steps to Making Peace with Food

Do you find yourself constantly at war with your food? Are you ready to throw in the towel and finally make peace with food but not sure where to start?

The key to ending the battle with food is by giving yourself unconditional permission to eat.

This concept may seem totally unreachable for you if you’ve been dieting for years. I bet that for as long as you can remember, you’ve been telling yourself what foods you “can” and “cannot” eat, labeling foods as “good” or “bad”, “healthy” or “unhealthy” and depriving yourself from the joy of eating.

Once the deprivation gets to a point where you can’t handle it anymore, you finally “give in” to your forbidden food and eat with much intensity—leaving you feeling shame and guilt.

By granting yourself unconditional permission to eat, these thoughts, feelings and actions can go away! But how do you start?

3 Steps to Making Peace with Food

(1) Create an inventory of foods. Make a list of foods that you consider your “forbidden” foods, or foods you often restrict. Rank them from scariest to least scary.

(2) Plan a time to try. After creating your list, try incorporating at least one of the foods into your eating world. For best results, try the food in a calm environment and at a time when you are not at a level of primal hunger.

(3) Make note of how you feel. Take notes on your experience!

Before you begin eating, make note of—how does the food look on the plate? How does the food smell? What do you think it will taste like? Does the appearance meet your expectation?

While you’re eating—how does the food taste? Do you find yourself enjoying it like you normally do? Does it meet your expectations? What surprises you about the food?

After the meal, reflect on your overall experience—how do you feel now? Was the experience as “scary” as you thought? Do you think you could try another food at another time? What do you think of the food now?

 

I know this isn’t so easy. Please reach out here if you’d like me to support you through the food peace process.

 

 

 

4 Ways to Incorporate Gentle Nutrition

After years of dieting you may feel like your life is ruled by food. The dieting mindset has taught you that food is meant to be consumed under strict guidelines without enjoyment. However, you probably realize now that this is just not true!

 

Remember back to when you were a child, there were so many exciting things to experience every day, and meals and snacks were just a part of the routine.  Day-to-day life was not driven by whether or not you ate the “right” or “wrong” foods.

 

When you focus too much on eating and dieting, food begins to control your life rather than being a part of your day.  You find yourself cancelling your lunch date with your friends because you’re afraid there will be nothing on the menu that you “can” eat. Following food rules to hopefully lose weight removes the pleasurable experiences from your life.

 

The good news is that when you finally give up dieting you do not need to follow external food rules anymore. When you start the intuitive eating journey  you learn how to eat based on your body’s hunger and fullness cues. And, when you rely on your body’s signals, you enjoy each and every eating experience.

 

The concept of “Gentle Nutrition” can be confusing for you. In truth, if you are still dismantling diet culture messages that have flooded your mind, you may not be ready to learn how to incorporate nutrition into your journey in a gentle way. And that’s okay. Your time will come. But if you are ready, then here are some gentle ways for you to do so from a lens of self-care!

 

4 Tips to Incorporate Gentle Nutrition

 

1. Start Your Day with Breakfast

When you wake up in the morning, your body calls for fuel. If you ignore this call, you will likely overeat later in the day. Instead of focusing on food as a tool for weight loss, focus on it as a tool for fueling your body to get your day started. As a past dieter, you likely skipped breakfast because you either claimed you weren’t hungry or that it caused you to eat more throughout the day. On the contrary, when you skip breakfast, you set yourself up to be overly hungry which then leads to overeating. Enjoy a hearty nutritious breakfast such as oatmeal with fruit and nuts or a veggie omelet in a whole grain tortilla.  You will see how much energy you have to start your day and will find you are not “starving” by lunchtime.

 

2. Be Prepared – Bring Healthy Snacks with You

If you approach mealtime feeling ravenous, you may eat beyond comfortable fullness to the point that you feel stuffed and sick. When you begin to feel the first signals of hunger, the only way to answer that call is to eat, which you can only do if you have food with you. This is the reason why I always carry some snacks when I leave the house and I recommend you do too. Having snacks on hand will prevent you from making a trip to the vending machine and can even save you some money.

 

3. Be Creative with Produce

If you’ve been a dieter, you have probably had your fill of fruits and veggies. Maybe so much so that you avoid them at this point (“carrot sticks, no thanks!”) Do a quick audit of the food you eat in a day. If you’re falling short on produce, then you are falling short on valuable nutrients and antioxidants for good health. Instead of reluctantly adding steamed broccoli to your menu, get creative. Make a spinach lasagna, stuffed peppers or a roasted eggplant salad.

 

For more recipes and intuitive eating wisdom, check out this resource!

 

4. Approach Your Meal with Positivity

By making food a positive force in your life, you will end that unhappy relationship you’ve had with food and be on the road to optimal health and wellness. Approach each meal as an opportunity to show respect to your body. Keeping the intuitive eating principles (https://dietfreeradiantme.com/intuitive-eating-for-adults/) top of mind will ensure you have full satisfaction in your meals.

 

What is one food rule you might still be holding onto that is preventing you from enjoying gentle nutrition for your health.

 

Why I Wrote My Book, Enjoying Food Peace (Coming Soon)

For years I’ve been helping clients and patients make the changes necessary to live a healthier life. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, it’s an amazing feeling to hear from a client how I’ve impacted them in a positive way.

 

Yes, I make a difference and I help people. Man, this feels good.

 

But one day it occurred to me. While many of my clients were making lifelong changes, there was a group of individuals who were struggling. After digging deeper, I realized why.

 

These wonderful and caring individuals were not at peace with food or their bodies. They were striving to live up to society’s standards of the “thin ideal” and would do anything to achieve this unreasonable goal, all the while being miserable. They were eating foods that they thought they should eat, and not foods they loved. And, if they ate something they loved, they often felt guilty afterwards telling themselves “now I’m going to gain weight.”

 

If you’re here reading my blog, I imagine you resonate with what I’m talking about. Food is not something to be feared, food is to be enjoyed. Yet, too many people in this world are brainwashed to believe that there are “good-for-you” foods and “bad-for-you” foods and it wreaks havoc on their lives.

 

Labeling Food

Good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, legal/illegal etc. It doesn’t matter what label you give food, just the fact that you put a label on a food is elevating some foods and demonizing others.

 

Of course, there are some foods that are more nutrient-rich than others, I don’t argue that. But there is a purpose for all foods. Some foods fuel you and some foods give you great taste pleasure. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

 

Making Peace with Food

I’ve been in private practice for over 30 years! I’ve seen a lot of people lose weight and regain that weight plus more through some form of dieting. It was time for them to stop relying on what others told them to eat and start to eat what they truly wanted.

 

So, for the last 8 years I’ve helped chronic dieters and emotional eaters make peace with food through my Intuitive Eating Program. Once the food fear was gone, they were able to enjoy all types of foods made in all types of ways from all types of cuisine. They truly recaptured the pleasures of eating.

 

Enjoying Food Peace Was Born

I wanted this peace for people all over the world that were struggling with their food. So, I decided to write a cookbook called, Enjoying Food Peace: Recipes and Intuitive Eating Wisdom to Nourish Your Body and Mind.

 

Get a sneak peek here!

 

This book is not just for chronic dieters looking for food peace. It’s also for people who are obsessed with “eating healthy” to the point where they have cut out major food groups or nutrients and have just a small selection of foods they feel safe eating. It’s a segue back to balanced eating.

 

Enjoying Food Peace is also for everyone who enjoys a good meal.

 

It’s taken me 6 years to write this book! I put together an amazing team of nutrition interns who helped test the recipes. We met every Tuesday in my test kitchen to taste the foods that were prepared that week. Then we would evaluate and critique. “It needs a little more of that, a little less of this, ah, it’s perfect!”

 

The Wisdoms

After completing the recipes and putting together the book, I felt I wanted to add more. One night it came to me…write a chapter introducing intuitive eating and share some “Intuitive Eating Wisdoms” throughout the book. So, that’s exactly what I did! Not only will the recipes nourish your body, but the wisdoms will nourish your mind.

 

The creative genius and photographer behind the design of the book and the color photos you’ll see inside is my amazing assistant Samantha Baturin. This book would not be coming to life if it wasn’t for Samantha! I am forever grateful to her!!

 

Enjoying Food Peace provides the reader with over 150 tasty recipes and Intuitive Eating Wisdom to eat what you love, without a side of guilt.

 

I hope you’re as excited as I am for March 20th launch day! Keep your eyes peeled so you can get your copy!

 

In the meantime, here’s a sneak peek at what’s inside Enjoying Food Peace (free recipe included!).

 

 

How the Power of Your Self-Talk Can Help You “Just Do It”!

Guest blog Post by Anonymous

How do you know when it’s the right time? What sign do you get? What feeling do you have when you absolutely know without a shadow of a doubt that THIS is the right time?

 

Sure, there’s fear!

 

Fear of the unknown, “what will be, how will I manage?”

 

Fear of capability, “can I do it? Do I have enough confidence in myself do be able to survive?”

 

Fear of loneliness. “What happens when it’s only just me?”

 

Fear of the talk. “What will people say? Are they feeling sorry for me, shushing when I walk in the room? Are they staring at me? Will they pity me?”

 

I am broken. I am sad. I am angry at myself for letting it go this long. For not facing my fears. For not having the confidence in myself. For not thinking more of myself. For not feeling deserving.

 

It STOPS right here, right now!

 

Yes, I AM deserving.

 

Yes, I CAN do this.

 

Yes, I WILL have the support of people who love me.

 

Yes, I WILL pick up the pieces.

 

It all starts with ONE decision.

 

Just ONE!

 

Just do it!

 

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This writing can define different things for different people. I won’t divulge what this author was referencing, but I feel that it can relate to you if you are contemplating leaving dieting behind.

 

There’s fear – “will I gain weight?”

 

There’s the unknown – “how will I know what to eat without following a meal plan?”

 

There’s fear of capability – “will I be able to learn to trust my body?”

 

There’s fear of loneliness – “all my friends are dieting, I’ll feel like an outcast!”

 

There’s fear of the talk – “will people speak behind my back, saying how I gained my weight back? Will they pity me?”

 

These are all valid fears! But it’s important to push through these fears if you want to get to the other side and find peace with food and your body…

 

…to live your life to the fullest without the constant thinking and worry about food and your body size.

 

JUST DO IT!

 

Make the decision to say NO to the next diet! Say NO to diet culture! Say NO to chasing the thin ideal.

 

You are deserving, you are worth it, you CAN DO IT!

 

I’m here to support you if you’re ready. Just reach out to me at Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com.

 

Do you resonate with the author of this guest blog post?

 

Share below for support.