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My Decision to Live More Mindfully (and 8 Tips for Mindful Eating)

I’ve been giving thought to what I’d like to see for myself in the New Year. As we kick off 2020, I’m feeling really good about the intention I set for myself for the coming year which is (drum roll please…) MINDFUL LIVING.

There’s a lot of buzz around mindfulness and as I’ve been teaching more and more about it to my intuitive eating clients, I realize that sometimes I run through my days without being as mindful as I’d like. So, I’ve made a commitment to myself to utilize the strategies that I teach my clients as part of my self-care plan.

Let’s Explore Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a Buddhist concept defined as “an awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

Mindful living, therefore, is paying full attention and being fully present to each and everything you do, from taking your morning shower, to sending your kids off to school, to driving to work and cooking dinner. There is so much to learn when you pay full attention to the tasks you take on every day.

Mindful Eating

When applied to food or nutrition, mindful eating is “using mindfulness to reach a state of full attention to your experiences, cravings, and physical cues when eating.”

Mindful Eating Day is tomorrow, January 4th. It’s a great time to begin the practice of mindful eating to improve your eating experiences.

Learning to eat mindfully takes time, patience, and consistency. The more mindful you become, the more benefits you will experience. Some of the pros of mindful eating includes easier digestion, reduced stress or anxiety around food, and increased enjoyment of meals.

You can start to become a mindful eater by implementing a few of the following practices into your eating routine. Start small by eating one mindful meal a day. Once you settle into a rhythm, you can begin to eat all of your meals mindfully.

8 Tips for Practicing Mindful Eating

1. Eat slowly and intentionally
2. Avoid distractions while eating (i.e. cell phones, television, computer, etc.)
3. Take small bites and chew your food thoroughly

4. Pay attention to and listen for your body’s hunger cues
5. Eat to the point of comfortable fullness
6. Notice the tastes, textures, smells, and flavors of the food you eat
7. Pay attention to how food makes you feel before, during and after a meal
8. Appreciate the food that you are eating

Is Mindful Eating the Same as Intuitive Eating?

No, it’s not.

In my practice, I encourage my clients to practice mindful eating as part of their journey to becoming an intuitive eater.

It should be noted that while intuitive eating shares certain values with mindful eating, they are different concepts. Mindful eating is about being present at the table in a non-judgmental way. Intuitive eating is a self-care feeding model that helps reacquaint people with their inner body wisdom and discover what satisfaction and fullness feel like individually. The emphasis is on rejecting diet culture and honoring health and taste buds together through gentle nutrition.

It’s possible to engage in mindful eating and not be an intuitive eater, but intuitive eating isn’t really possible without some mindfulness.

Will You Join Me?

As I move into more mindful living this year, I’m excited to see what comes. Will you join me in this venture? Let me know!

Support is Available

If you need support to reclaim your birthright of being an intuitive and mindful eater, click here to schedule a complementary chat with me.

Intuitive Eating is Your “Factory-Installed” Mode

More times than not, a client will sit opposite me (in my office or on video chat) when the light bulb goes on! The light bulb that I’m referring to is the fact that being an intuitive eater came along with their body when they were born. It’s “factory installed” but unfortunately over the years, it became faulty. Today I’d like to explore the reasons why.

Well-Meaning Parents

By no means am I looking to blame your parents. Most parents are well-meaning, although I do recognize that this is not the case all the time. But in most instances, parents want their children to eat well and grow well, and they believe the latter is determined by the former. So, as a baby, if you pushed away breast or bottle as a sign to mom that you had enough, but she felt that you didn’t, she would encourage you to nurse a little longer or drink a little more from the bottle.

As a toddler, when you were more interested in playing than eating, perhaps your mom forced you to sit at the table until you had x amount of bites, or she’d run after you with a forkful of food. In each of these instances (and others that I’m sure you can share), you are getting the message at a young age that you cannot trust what your body is telling you. Mom must be right after all. It’s no surprise then that now, as an adult, you continue to have mistrust in your body’s signals.

The Diet Industry

You decided that it was time to lose weight and you followed a diet because that is the cultural paradigm on how to “manage” your weight. But with each diet you followed, you lost further trust in your own body’s signals. You ate when, how much and what the diet told you to, regardless of whether you were hungry or not. You played by the rules, but with each diet game you played, you moved further and further away from your “factory installed mode” of eating.

Quick story: I have a friend who was on a diet. We were out together and at 11 am she pulled out a bar to eat. She said, “I’m not hungry now, but this diet I’m on says I must eat every 2-3 hours, so I am”. That sounded so wrong to me, but it wasn’t my place to say anything to her.

Have you found yourself in this type of situation too?

The Thin Ideal

It’s very likely that you’ve been effected by society’s messages of the thin ideal, the concept of the ideal body of a woman being thin and slender. That to be worthy in this world, you need to possess a thin body. This concept has led to many disordered eating patterns and eating disorders in young girls and women of all ages.

If you’ve been striving to achieve this body, then more than likely you’ve been ignoring your “factory installed” mode of being intuitive and eating when hungry and stopping when comfortably full.

Resetting to Factory Installed Mode

When the light bulb goes on for my clients, their immediate thought is “we need to come with an instruction manual”, but then they follow that with “wait, we do, It’s inborn.

Yep!

So how do you get back to the way you were born?

Step 1: Say NO to Diets – Recognize that diets don’t work long term. Sure, maybe you lost a few pounds (or more than a few) when you were “strict” and “following” the diet. But it wasn’t sustainable and for the majority of people, it never will be.

Step 2: Tune Inward, Not Outward – Decide today that you will no longer base your eating on external sources, whether that be a diet, a health coach or a guru you find on the internet. If you stop and listen to the signals your body gives you, you will become acquainted with them again. Do know, however, that it takes time. If you’ve been dieting for decades, those signals have likely silenced. Be patient. You’ll be glad you did.

Step 3: Reject the Thin Ideal – As hard as this step might be, come to terms that your genetic blueprint probably isn’t for that thin body you’ve been chasing after all these years. Give up the chase, work on respecting your body wherever it is now, and allow nature to take its course. Only your body knows what shape, size and weight is natural for it, so take the pressure off your body (and yourself) and enjoy the life you are living.

I have many resources that can help you as we move into 2020. Schedule a complementary call with me and let’s restore your body to it’s “factory installed mode” of intuitive eating.

Overcoming Your Fear of Bread

Food fear, it’s a real thing. If you’ve been on and off diets over the years, losing and gaining the same weight repeatedly, you probably have some food fear. And this fear is driven by diet culture messages. Most restrictive weight loss diets ban bread, or severely restrict bread. This sets you up to believing that if you eat bread, you’re going to gain weight.

I recently met a lovely woman at a party. I didn’t know her, she’s my friend’s friend but we got along quickly, almost as if we knew each other for years. Where do you think the conversation went?

“Oh, I hear you’re a nutritionist. I’ve recently lost 20 pounds. I’m trying so hard not to gain it back, and to lose even more weight.”

This conversation is not new to me. Oftentimes, when I am introduced to someone and they ask what I do for a living, they move right into telling me how they eat, what they eat, what they don’t eat and the different diets they’ve tried.

I don’t want to be rude, but I am really done with having every social conversation revolve around diets do’s and don’ts.

Anyway, back to this woman. She was asking my advice on some lunch ideas because she’s getting tired of salad and tuna (can you relate?). I suggested a sandwich of some kind, using whole wheat pita bread, tortilla or a really nice stone ground bread. Her reaction?

“Oh, no I don’t eat bread. I’m afraid of bread. I don’t want to regain the weight.”

I really felt sorry for her. And if this is your reaction too, I am so sorry. No one should be afraid of any food. Here’s what I shared with her , and what I’m sharing with you…

No one food has the power to make you fat or skinny!

That’s right, diet culture has caused you to believe that if you eat bread, you will gain weight and that is absolutely false! Whole grain breads are rich in nutrients such as thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, folate, iron, magnesium and dietary fiber to name a few. You will not gain weight by eating any one singular food. When you incorporate bread into an overall healthy well-balanced eating regimen, you will provide your body with the nutrients you need for good health.

What does this look like in real life?

Perhaps that means having whole grain toast with scrambled eggs for breakfast, a stuffed whole wheat pita with chicken and avocado for lunch and a whole grain Quesadilla filled with beans and veggies for dinner.

Diets are not sustainable for life. Avoiding bread for life is not a realistic expectation for most people. I know, you don’t even want to avoid bread. You do enjoy it, but the fear holds you back.

Making Peace with Bread

The first step to making peace with bread is to eat bread. So, decide when and how you want to reintroduce bread into your eating life. Then sit down and mindfully enjoy, savoring the taste and texture of your meal.

Then do it again the next day, and the day after that. You will see that nothing changed, you didn’t miraculously gain 5 pounds over night.

The more you expose yourself to bread, eating it mindfully and will full attention, the less fear you will have over it.

Bon Appetit! Let me know what types of bread are your favorite.

And if you need help making peace with other foods, just head on over to www.TalkWithBonnie.com and schedule a complementary call.

You and Your Candy Stash This Halloween

Are you dreading it??? I mean really dreading it. I’m talking about Halloween! All the candy around the house – whether it’s to give out to the neighborhood kids or that your kids bring home from trick or treating – can cause you feelings of anxiety and food worry.

These uneasy feelings are reinforced by your limiting belief of “I can’t control myself around candy”. Then promises that as soon as Halloween is over, you won’t eat any candy again.

Let this year be different. If you’ve been working on your intuitive eating journey, then you know that the key to making peace with food is to provide yourself unconditional permission to eat. Remind yourself that it’s not “now or never”. That thinking is part of the diet mentality. Know that you can have candy whenever you want it, so there’s no need to bury your head in the chocolate-filled pumpkin bucket on Halloween.

But what about your kids? Are you wondering if you should allow them free reign over their stash?

According to Ellyn Satter, registered dietitian, family therapist and the creator of the Division of Responsibility in Feeding (sDOR), the answer is yes. “Your child will learn to manage sweets and to keep them in proportion to the other food he eats if you matter-of-factly include them in family meals and snacks.”

This concept is part of the Division of Responsibility (sDOR) in Feeding. “Children who have regular access to sweets and other forbidden foods eat them moderately. Children who don’t have regular access load up on them when they aren’t even hungry.”

I’ve seen this happen in my own home, and in the home of the clients I work with. I help parents restore the DOR in their home to end mealtime battles. Learn more here.

Halloween Action Plan

The key is to help you kids learn how to manage their candy loot. This requires you to interfere as little as possible. Here’s how:

Kids come home from trick or treating. They dump their bags on the table and sort through their candy. Let them eat as much as they want and do the same the next day. Then have your child put the candy away and after that, you include it as part of the structure of meals and snacks. Allocate a few pieces as dessert with a meal and allow them to eat what they want at snack time. Pair it with a cup of milk, yogurt or fruit.

What’s important is that candy and other sweet treats don’t get elevated to a higher power. Over time, you will find that your child just might happen to eat a few bites and go off to play.

Happy Halloween!

If you want to learn more about how to end mealtime battles with your kids, check out this page.

5 Tips to Eat Slower

In today’s fast paced society, it’s only natural that we rush around trying to get everything done before the day is over. You rush to work, school, and everywhere else you must go. You probably even rush through lunch to get back to your busy day at work.

While moving fast may be a necessity for your work and overall lifestyle, eating fast is not the best for your health and body and can quickly lead to bypassing your comfortable fullness signals.

Think back to your last meal… did you inhale it or take the time to enjoy every bite? How long do you think it took you to finish your meal? If it’s less than 20 minutes, then keep reading.

If you feel like you’re the only person who does this, you’re not! Most people devour their meals in about 5 -7 minutes flat. They put a forkful of food in their mouths and, before they even swallow, the next forkful is ready to go. Do you find yourself doing this too?

Downside of Eating Fast

When you eat fast, it becomes difficult to savor your meals. You’re not able to truly listen to your body and engage in mindful eating. Slowing down as you eat will allow you to really taste every bite and get the most satisfaction out of the meal as possible.

Eating quickly also prevents you from eating until you are comfortably satisfied because you don’t pay attention to your inner fullness signals. Instead, you’ll eat until the food is gone.

It takes your brain 20 minutes to realize that your stomach is full, so if you clean your plate in record time, you likely miss that fullness cue, leading you to reach for more food. By the time the fullness signals kicks in, you are now uncomfortably full, having eaten more than your body physically needed. You are likely also experiencing bloat, heartburn and other uncomfortable GI symptoms (in addition to the emotional side effects of guilt and shame).

5 Tips to Help You Slow Down Your Eating:

1. Allocate a certain amount of time to sit down and eat your meal. Allow your body to guide when you begin your meal, but when you do sit down to your meal, make sure you have enough time to sit, eat slowly and savor. This doesn’t only apply to dinner, it applies to breakfast and lunch too!

2. Put your fork and knife down between bites. You might be thinking “who does this”? Unfortunately, not too many people, unless you are among the growing number of people who are learning to eat mindfully. This means completely putting the fork down on your plate until you’re done chewing what’s in your mouth. Then pick up the fork and take your next bite. This allows you to focus on the deliciousness of the food in your mouth rather than focusing on the next bite.

3. Eat without distractions (meaning no T.V. or phone). We all know how difficult this one can be. I suggest making your kitchen/dining room an electronic-free zone! If your phone is in another room, then you are not tempted to look at it when you hear that notification. Make sure the kids know too that mealtime is not tech time.

4. Use your non-dominant hand to hold the fork. This is a simple way to help you slow down. Since your non-dominant hand is usually weaker, you’ll have to pick up smaller forkfuls and really concentrate to keep food from spilling over.

5. Eat with someone else. Ask a family member or friend to help you reach your goal of slowing down at meals! You can engage in meaningful conversations between bites and, before you know it, you’ll realize you are engaging in many of the tips stated above.

Challenge yourself

Set the timer on your phone and see how long it normally takes you to finish a meal. It might be 5 minutes and you might think that stretching it out to 20 is impossible. It’s not! Continue to use the tips above every time you sit to eat to help lengthen your meal minute-by-minute. Before long, you will be eating slower and using your inner fullness signals to guide you when to stop. And, you’ll enjoy your meal a whole lot better.

If you’d like to explore how I can help you on your intuitive eating journey, just reach out to me at www.TalkWithBonnie.com .

Managing the Cold and Flu Season on Your Intuitive Eating Journey

Now that fall is upon us, so is cold and flu season… Do you ever worry about what will happen the first time you get sick while on your intuitive eating journey? Do you worry that you’ll find it hard to listen to your body and may fall back into old habits?

Unfortunately, it can be harder for you to eat intuitively while you’re sick, but that doesn’t mean you have to fall back into old habits.

Let me tell you a lesson I learned a few years ago about a time I was sick and how it affected my intuitive eating journey.

I don’t usually get sick so when I do, it really throws me for a loop.

I woke up one morning from a difficult night sleep with a sore throat, coughing, and achy body. I went into the kitchen to prepare my breakfast. What I realized as I tuned into my hunger signals was that I wasn’t really feeling hungry. I stopped to think about this. The last time I ate was dinner the night before, and I am usually hungry in the morning. Yet, I just wasn’t feeling it that morning.

I could have left the kitchen and said I’m not going to eat because I don’t feel any hunger. But that’s not what I did. I changed up my breakfast a bit by having a smaller breakfast of “sick-friendly” foods, which included a small bowl of pastina and a cup of tea.

A few hours later, I sensed a gentle hunger, but still not typical of my usual hunger mid-day. Yet, I realized that it’s been some time since I’ve eaten, and it’s very important to keep my energy levels up with proper fuel. And so again, I tweaked what my usual lunch would be, and had a smaller lunch with another cup of tea.

The lesson I am sharing with you here is this.

While I encourage you to tune into your inner hunger signals as your guide to eating, there are times when those hunger signals might be blunted.

And, one of those times is during illness. Therefore, even if you don’t hear and feel the hunger signals like you normally do, it’s still so important to eat so you can properly nourish your body.

The best option when you’re sick and don’t feel or hear your hunger signals, is to choose healthful “sick-friendly” foods. These types of foods are easy on the stomach (and in my case, easy on my throat). But do keep in mind while you are eating that this might be one situation where you just don’t hear those hunger signals as sharp as when you are feeling well. And that’s okay!

The most important thing to remember is that when you’re sick, your body needs nourishment to feel better, which is why it’s necessary for you to eat, even if you have trouble hearing your hunger signals.

If you are on your intuitive eating journey and struggling with this journey while you are sick, please reach out to me. I can help you navigate this hurdle and continue on your intuitive eating journey.

Email me at Bonnie@DietFreeRadiantMe.com to learn how to navigate intuitive eating through all that life throws your way.

Food Deprivation Leads to Rebound Eating

Overindulging in a food item that you restrict is common if you are a chronic dieter. It actually makes a ton of sense that you’d have intense cravings for a food you won’t allow yourself to have.

When you restrict a food(s) that you really want to eat, at some point the deprivation becomes so great that the backlash is what we call rebound eating.

Rebound Eating in Action

You start your diet on Monday and promise yourself you will not eat any chocolate. After all, you’ve been enjoying chocolate almost nightly and find it difficult to stop at just a few squares.

Your friend from out of town comes to visit and brings you a box of chocolates. You thank her and think to yourself “I’m not going to eat this; I’m being really good on my diet”. So, you put the box of chocolates away in the cabinet, high up on a shelf.

The next day, your partner spots the chocolate, opens the box and enjoys a piece. He puts the box away, but now you know it’s open. You are feeling a little anxious, you want a piece but at the same time you don’t want because you’ve been “so good”.

As it turns out, because you’ve been “so good”, you decide you deserve to have a piece of chocolate, almost like a reward for being good on your diet. You take the box down, open it up and pop one into your mouth.

You realize you didn’t really taste it; you ate it too quickly. You decide “I’ll just have one more”.

And then, the inner critic voice starts to show up. “Oh darn, I blew it. Why can’t I just keep to my diet. I’m just going to finish what’s there, there are only 4 left, and then I promise I won’t have chocolate again! My diet starts tomorrow!!”

Once you finish the chocolate, you plop down on the couch and feel miserable. You feel so guilty for eating the chocolate, so disappointed in yourself and decide as a punishment, you will skip dinner. The only problem is, you then find yourself bingeing into the evening.

The above example is one way the backlash can happen when you deprive yourself of a food you love.

It’s important to know that eating doesn’t have to be this difficult. Learning to eat to honor your body and your health while enjoying all foods (including chocolate) is part of being an intuitive eater.

It’s time to make peace with food.

Are you ready?

Click here to schedule a time to chat about how you can change your relationship with food.

4 Triggers to a Challenging Food Day (and Strategies to Try)

You’ve been traveling along your intuitive eating journey and making progress. You remember that it’s not about perfection, instead it’s about learning and growing. You have done great work in rejecting the diet mentality and recognizing the diet culture messages that swarm all around you.

So why does food feel so difficult today? Why are you feeling blah in your body today?

The answer might very well lie in one of 4 triggers that I see often when working with clients.

Mindless eating

Do you find yourself eating without full attention to what or how much you are eating? This is mindless eating. You may go through your day not even realizing that you picked on the cake on the counter, ate from the chocolate bowl on your bosses’ desk, or popped several grapes in your mouth each time you passed through the kitchen.

When you engage in mindless eating, you are not eating to satisfy a physical hunger and at some point, you feel it in your body. Perhaps you feel sluggish, bloated, or tired. Then you blame the food and vow to be “good” the rest of the day (or tomorrow!).

Strategy to try: Call yourself out each time you find yourself engaging in mindless eating. Bring yourself back into the present moment and name the behavior. You will find, over time, that you are no longer mindlessly eating.

Distracted eating

Watching TV while you eat dinner? So many people do. This, however, is distracted eating and it prevents you from appreciating your meal, tuning in to your fullness signals and having full satisfaction.

You might tell me that eating while watching TV slows down your eating, and maybe it does. But it is still distracted eating and your body views distraction as stress which triggers the fight or flight response which effects your digestion and absorption of nutrients.

Looking at your cell phone, eating at your desk while working, reading or sending texts, and reading the newspaper, a book or the mail is also distracted eating.

Strategy to try: Make a commitment to yourself that you will not watch TV during dinner. If your spouse wants the TV on, calmly explain to him/her why it’s important to you that the TV be off. Do not bring your phone to the table, and save the reading for after dinner.

Lack of planning

I’ve said many times on my blog, in my videos and in Facebook Lives that planning is not dieting. That is, if you can roll with the punches and be flexible. If planning meals means you put pressure on yourself to “follow” the plan and if you “can’t”you break out in a sweat, then we should talk. That’s still dieting.

Without proper meal planning, you run the risk of grabbing food on the go, popping through the drive through, or maybe even skipping dinner and mindlessly snacking instead.

To me, as a busy working mom, I have to plan meals or my family (and me) won’t have food at the ready. So, think ahead to your week and what you might want to eat for dinners. Make a shopping list so you have the necessary ingredients on hand. Write out your plan if it helps and prep ahead as much as possible.

My freezer is really my best friend. I often cook extra and freeze for a future meal. I always think tonight about what I want to have tomorrow night so that when I get home from work (or my kids get home from school and I’m working late) there is a dinner ready to go.

Strategy to try: Plan a few dinners for the week ahead of time, go shopping to have the ingredients in the house and give thought to what you can prep ahead of time.

Emotional eating

You are human which means you have emotions! And yes, sometimes, you might consciously acknowledge that you’re feeling sad (fill in any emotion here) and a bowl of ice cream would really help you to feel better.

This in my opinion, is not of issue.

But when the first and only way you cope with difficult emotions is to turn to food, then this is an unhealthy behavior that needs to be addressed.

If you are having a challenging food day, give thought if perhaps you are using food to numb, sedate and distract you from some underlying emotions that you’d rather not feel.

Strategy to try: Seek support to help you identify your emotional eating triggers and learn how to customize your strategies to best cope with the emotions without turning to food. For more info on overcoming emotional eating, check this out!

As you look over the above triggers to a challenging food day, which do you resonate with most? Let me know below!

When the Diet Mentality Creeps Back

The diet mentality is sneaky. If you’ve committed to giving up dieting and are working through the process of intuitive eating, I’m so happy for you. But you might have noticed something that’s disturbing – the way the diet mentality and food police show up when you least expect it.

As a person who is no longer dieting, you may not realize that at times, you are actually still dieting. This is called pseudo, or unconscious dieting. You may not think you are dieting, but in actuality, your dieting thoughts translate into dieting behaviors.

Examples of Pseudo Dieting

You mentally track how many calories or carbs you are eating per day.
You make a decision to buy or eat a certain food based on the calories it contains.
You don’t eat past _______ time even if you are hungry.
You feel badly because you ate ___________.
You have a list of 10 or so foods that you feel safe eating without a worry of overeating.
You feel hungry now, but just ate 1 ½ hours ago, so you drink water instead of eating (“how can I be hungry?”)
You only eat carbs in the early part of the day, rarely or never with dinner.
You eat dinner before you go to a wedding.
You eat a light lunch because you ate a larger breakfast.
You avoid gluten, just because.

There may also be certain situations in your life that trigger your diet mentality. These may be new experiences that make you feel uncomfortable, unsure of your place in the world, or bring up uncomfortable emotions.

Examples of Life Situations that Trigger Diet Mentality

Moving to a new community where you don’t know anyone.
Starting a new job.
Separating from your spouse or getting a divorce.
Becoming a mom for the first time.
Becoming a grandma for the first time.
Losing a loved one.
Getting fired from your job.
Marrying off your first child.
Retiring after decades of working.
Dealing with a troubled family member.

All these situations point to new phases in your life, new experiences or challenging times in which you haven’t yet had to learn coping strategies. So, you fall back into diet mentality and try to control your food, since that’s been so familiar to you for so many years.

Be Gentle with Yourself

When the diet mentality rears it’s ugly head, please be gentle with yourself. If you allow your inner critical voice to bash yourself, telling you that you’ll never “succeed” at intuitive eating, you will harm yourself more than help yourself because this will be your entryway back into the dieting world.

I once had a client who told me that if she gains even ¼ pound, she talks harshly to herself because that’ll get her to “be better”.

On the contrary, this type of talk causes you to feel beat up, abused and running right back onto the diet treadmill.

Instead, remind yourself that you are doing the best you can at this very moment. And, the fact that you have recognized the sneaky diet mentality is actually a WIN! The more you call out these diet-y thoughts, the sooner you will continue to recognize them before they do damage and be able to shoo them away.

Support and Guidance

In order to handle these curve balls that life throws your way, it’s important to have support! That support can come in any variety of ways from an accountability partner, online support group or a private coach.

End of Summer Special on Intuitive Eating Support

Take advantage of my End of Summer Special and grab 50-75% off my most popular intuitive eating programs. Choose one or both, whatever feels right for you.

Check it out here. But hurry, this offer expires on Monday, September 2, 2019 at midnight Eastern.

Another Look into My Intuitive Eating Journey

I know I’ve made the right decision to give up dieting! It was a tough decision, trust me! Having dieted for many years, the thought of not tracking my food anymore was frightening.

The Backstory

I didn’t think I was dieting, I truly didn’t. I just chose healthy, wholesome foods. I ate three meals per day, 1-2 snacks, I measured everything I ate, and I kept a log of all I consumed daily. And this kept me in a nice, slim body that I was proud of.

But you know what?

I wasn’t always eating the foods I wanted. There were many times when I wanted that pizza, mac and cheese, ice cream or cookie and I just did not allow myself to have it.

That’s when I knew I was dieting. While I wasn’t on any formally named diet, I had lots of rules for myself and would be upset if I broke a rule.

It was this moment when I realized this, that I decided to stop dieting in all it’s sneaky forms and really learn to embrace intuitive eating.

The Present

Through my journey back to intuitive eating, I was able to reclaim body trust. My journey wasn’t a straight path, as would be expected. Every twist and turn brought me a new lesson learned and personal growth.

I just returned from vacation. Actually, I took 2 vacations this summer and, on each vacation, my husband and I ate out every evening. During our hectic schedules all year, we rarely eat out. So, this was a special treat.

I didn’t fret about what would be on the menu. I was confident that if I arrived at the restaurant in a “just hungry” state, versus ravenous, I would give myself the space I needed to listen to what my body was telling me. As I looked over the menu, I had no expectations and no worries. I merely allowed my body to guide my choices as I read the menu options.

The Result

Being able to trust my body has allowed me to relax around food and to no longer worry how eating a food will affect my body or my weight. It has allowed me to enjoy a variety of eating experiences with family and friends and not be the “one” everyone always says “oh, look how “good” she is!”.

The Effects on my Body
It is not possible to know what will happen to your body when you embrace intuitive eating. The key is to allow your body to do whatever nature intends it to do. If you come into this journey having suppressed your weight for years through dieting, then it is possible that your body will bounce back and regain some weight to what is more in line with your genetic blueprint.

I know this might be a tough pill to swallow. I’ve been there. I’ve acknowledged that for years, I suppressed my weight through unconscious dieting. Through this journey, my body has returned to what is natural and healthy for me. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about it, it’s my body and I’ve come to accept and respect it for all the hard work it does keeping me alive every day.

Want Support?

I’d love to help you accept and respect your body while reclaiming body trust through intuitive eating. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, book a free call with me and let’s chat.