How to Build an Intuitive Kitchen
For many chronic dieters, the kitchen is a source of pain for a few reasons. First, when you’ve been dieting, chances are you were eating foods you believed you “should” eat, or that you were told to it, and not necessarily foods you wanted to eat.
How many times would you make a meal for your family, only to be eating something different?
What comes to mind for me is Pizza night! The family is eating pizza, but you are eating salmon and salad, not that there’s anything wrong with salmon and salad, of course. Its’ just that you really wanted the pizza (or lasagna, mac and cheese, burgers and fries etc.) but didn’t allow yourself to eat it.
Now that you are on your Intuitive Eating journey, things are different! You’re learning to give yourself unconditional permission to eat, but the problem is, you don’t really know what to eat.
The Importance of Bringing Intuitive Eating into the Kitchen
A big part of the Intuitive Eating journey is to have new experiences with food as you rebuild trust in yourself and the food choices you make.
1. Bringing Intuitive Eating into the kitchen gives you the opportunity to heal your relationship with food and continue to learn and grow using curiosity, self-discovery, and self-compassion. It also allows you to break free from the diet culture rules and reframe thoughts around food and meal preparation.
For example, instead of the kitchen being a place of fear with lots of unsatisfying meals, boring meal prep, and only “safe” ingredients”, the kitchen can now be a place for exploration, experimentation, and satisfaction!
2. By bringing all ingredients into the kitchen again, you learn to neutralize them as you create new and exciting dishes. In this way, you learn what your true food preferences are (which are often lost while dieting), and you may just discover something new that you enjoy too!
3. Being intuitive in the kitchen while cooking allows you to be more present moment to moment with the cooking process and can enhance satisfaction when you sit down to eat your creation.
How to Build an Intuitive Kitchen
As an Intuitive Eater, you trust that when you walk into the kitchen, you will have what you need to put together a satisfying meal. One of principles of Intuitive Eating is Discover the Satisfaction Factor. To do this, you explore all the sensual qualities of food to learn your true food preferences. Yet, it’s hard to do this if your pantry is not stocked with a variety of ingredients.
Stocking Your Kitchen
Stocking your kitchen with a variety of foods in the pantry, freezer, and fridge allows you to have the security and comfort of knowing that a tasty, satisfying meal is always available within arm’s reach.
A well-stocked kitchen causes less stress around food; meals can be created easily with what is available in the kitchen.
- No rigid meal plan necessary
- No long cooking times
- No stress or panic about ingredients or items running out
One of my goals is to have a variety of (and enough) ingredients to create a great “throw together” nourishing meal at any time, and to be able to open my cookbook and make a recipe that I desire in that moment without having to run out for an ingredient.
Here are some ideas to get you started in stocking your kitchen:
Pantry
- Pasta, all kinds and shapes
- Grains, such as barley, quinoa, and rice
- Oats and oatmeal
- Canned tuna, salmon, sardines
- Canned beans
- Canned tomatoes and tomato sauces
- Flour
- Oils
- Vinegars
- Dried fruits
- Nuts and nut butters
- Spices and dried herbs
- Tortilla chips
- Sweeteners
- Onions and garlic
- Potatoes
Refrigerator
- Eggs
- Milk
- Yogurt
- Cheese
- Orange juice
- Lemons and limes
- Condiments such as salad dressing, mayonnaise etc.
Freezer
- Frozen meals
- Frozen fruits
- Frozen vegetables
- Veggie burgers
- Frozen French fries or tater tots
- Bread
- Ice cream
Add to this list as you think about what types of foods you can’t wait to try.
Get Creative
Now that you have your kitchen stocked, what do you want to cook? That’s often a hard question for chronic dieters as they are allowing all foods back into their lives.
Take some time to ask yourself “what do I really want to eat.” Then, pull out a recipe and your ingredients and take the time to enjoy every step of the cooking process. As you are dicing the tomatoes, take in the sweet aroma, listen as the onions and peppers as they are sizzling in the pan, and try to use every one of your senses to get the most enjoyment! This will further enhance the pleasure when you finally eat what you’ve created.
Need inspiration? Check out my cookbook: Enjoying Food Peace: Intuitive Eating Wisdom to Nourish Your Body and Mind. There are over 150 recipes that will help you bring the satisfaction and pleasure back into eating.
