Intuitive Eating – Lose Weight While Loving Your Body

Want to learn how to eat intuitively for weight loss? Here’s the perfect way to love and change your body by trusting it.

Let’s chat about intuitive eating.

This is the perfect way to love and change your body by trusting it.

Let me guess – you are tired of the yo-yo dieting cycle and weight loss books that contradict each other?

Me too.

That’s part of the reason why I have never gone on a “diet” per se, but always opted to eat intuitively.

Intuitive eating is based on listening to your body so it can guide you in making food choices.

The term is often associated with a 1995 book by the same name, but the concepts are much older and widespread.

Studies show that following your inner cues and TRUSTING YOUR BODY’S SIGNALS can enhance your mental and physical health.

It is an approach to food and health that teaches you to pay attention to your natural hunger and fullness signals and has nothing to do with diets, specific meal plans or discipline.

However, the process can be confusing if you’re unsure about where to begin.

So in this post we will be separate fact from fiction when it comes to intuitive eating.

Intuitive eating may be the strategy you need to teach you how to love your body and your food.

Myths about Intuitive Eating:

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 1 – Avoid extremes.

There’s a difference between enjoying your food and eating anything you want without regard for the consequences.

When you give up strict diets, you’ll need to invent your own guidelines.

Flexibility in your food choices is healthy; eating a variety of foods is healthy.

Focusing on enjoying your food is healthy.

Stressing about your food is not healthy.

With intuitive eating, you:

• Eat when you’re hungry
• Stop eating when you’re satisfied
• Eat things that make you feel good
• Move your body
• Trust yourself

Intuitive eating means giving your body the nutrients and energy along with the pleasure, satisfaction and care it needs to thrive and be well day in and day out to cultivate trust and respect with your mind and body again.

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 2  – Clarify your goals.

The desire to lose weight can make you lose sight of other important objectives.

Intuitive eating encourages you to think about your body being strong and fit rather than just a smaller size.

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 3 – Do your research.

While your body possesses great wisdom, it can use a little help.

After all, you probably don’t instinctively recognize and avoid cookies containing trans fats.

Use medical studies and product labels to guide you in making informed choices.

Knowledge is power.

Research foods and their power.

You get to define what healthy eating means for you.

We must avoid the temptation of “food as a source of cheap, nutrient-devoid entertainment” and instead make conscious, deliberate and wise choice about what it is we mindfully incorporate into our living matrix. Nora T. Gedgaudas

Recognize True Hunger:

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 4 – Rate your symptoms.

Eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full is a basic principle of intuitive eating.

However, it may be difficult after years of dieting.

Increase your awareness by assigning a number from one to ten, based on whether you’re peckish or ravenous.

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 5 – Fuel up.

It’s easier to resist junk food when you’re slightly full.

Carry nutritious snacks around with you.

Use an online calculator to figure out how many calories you need each day to meet your basic needs.

Eating is a form of self-respect.

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 6 – Slow down.

It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register that you’ve eaten enough.

Pause during meals to avoid becoming stuffed.

If only you start eating healthy food, you will be pleasantly surprised how easy it is to lose weight. Subodh Gupta

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 7 – Stay hydrated.

Thirst is often mistaken for hunger.

Before you head for the refrigerator, drink a glass of water to see if your cravings will disappear.

Drinking water is essential to a healthy lifestyle.

Water is the best natural remedy.

Drink you way to better health.

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 8 – Examine your feelings.

Your emotions can also make you vulnerable to overeating.

Find alternatives to comforting yourself with cheesecake.

Go for a walk when you’re bored and call a friend when you’ve had a rough day at the office.

Some truths:

Emotional eating doesn’t heal emotional issues,

Do not reward yourself with food. You’re not a dog.

Food is fuel, not therapy.

You absolutely can make peace with food.

Other Truths about Intuitive Eating:

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 9 – Exercise regularly.

An active lifestyle helps you to connect with your body.

Make your workouts fun by varying your routine and inviting family and friends along to join you.

Today is your day to start afresh, to eat right, to train hard, to live healthy and to be proud.

Exercise not only changes your body, it changes your mind, your attitude and your mood.

The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen.

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 10 – Learn to cook.

You’ll look forward to eating your vegetables and other fiber-rich foods if you learn how to prepare them.

Watch food channels on TV and browse online for quick and easy recipes.

No-one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 11 – Be patient.

It takes time to change your eating habits.

That’s especially true if you’ve been losing weight and putting it back on over the years.

Give yourself credit for taking the first steps toward restoring balance.

Have patience with all things but first of all with yourself.

It’s normal to not eat “perfectly” all the time. It is normal to make some mistakes along the way.

Patience is not passive; on the contrary it is concentrated strength. Bruce Lee

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 12 – Honor your body.

Intuitive eating involves your attitude as well as your menu.

Appreciate your body and its capabilities.

Focus on your positive features instead of dwelling on your ankles or thighs.

Don’t let your mind bully your mind.

The problem has never been with your body.

The problem is what you think of it and what you think of yourself.

Love your body and teach your mind to respect it.

Your body hears everything your mind says about it.

Eat like you love yourself. Move like you love yourself. Speak like you love yourself. Act like you love yourself. Love yourself. Tara Stiles

You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful. Amy Bloom

INTUITIVE EATING

TIP 13 – Think long term.

Work towards changes you can sustain instead of crash diets that you’ll probably abandon within a few weeks.

The choices you make today can help you live longer and lower your risk for diabetes and other serious conditions.

Embrace and love your body.

It’s the most amazing thing you will ever own.

Life is too short to be unkind to yourself.

Each individual woman’s body demands to be accepted on its own terms.

All in all, you can create a more positive body image and eat the foods you love without feeling any guilt by eating intuitively.

Through this tool of intuitive eating, we can unlearn diet-culture. We can get back to a place of body trust and turning inward. Haley Goodrich

I have to be honest:

Intuitive eating is more fun than any restrictive diet and helps you to develop healthy habits that you can practice for the rest of your life.

My personal goal is to fall in love with everything I am and everything I always have been.

In life, you will need to challenge your mind as much as you challenge your body in life and that is fine because you can do it.

You are strong, you are beautiful and you are enough.

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. Mahatma Gandhi

If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred. Walt Whitman

• Before You Go…

   

  – See my EVERYTHING PAGE and grab a free gift > HERE

  – Get instant access to EVERY COURSE I’ve ever created > HERE

  – Listen to my INSPIRING LIFE PODCAST on Spotify or via Apple Podcasts.

  – Or for biz owners, listen to LIFE COACH FOR BIZ MOMS Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Frances Vidakovic

I’m Frances Vidakovic – a mindset & action coach for quietly ambitious women who want to stop overthinking and finally take aligned action on their goals. Wake up, do what matters, and savour it all, without sacrificing their sanity or soul.