When do I eat? What do I eat? How much do I eat? These are some of the most common questions I get asked by my patients during nutrition counseling sessions, and well, outside of my counseling sessions too! The world we live in today tries to dictate when, what, and how much people “should” eat, based on a whole lot of reasons, some of which may appear to be well founded in research.
The problem with relying on external influences on your eating decisions is that every single body is different and works differently. There are no two people on this earth who can eat the exact same way and have the exact same health and longevity outcomes. Because of diversity, if you try and ignore your body’s signals and eat based on external rules and regulations your body will, at some point, remind you that you are different from anyone else and rev up the drive to get what it needs.
Would you believe that there was a time in your life when you knew exactly what your body needed?
Yep, that’s right. From the day you were born, your body told your brain when it was hungry and you cried to alert your caregivers you needed to be fed. While being fed, your body told your brain when you had enough and you signaled to your caregiver that you were done eating. Whether it was eight ounces of breastmilk or formula, or just a few sips, you knew exactly how much you needed at any given point.
As you grew up, external influences started getting in the way of noticing and responding to your body’s cues. Having a caregiver decide how much you should eat at a meal by either making it mandatory to clean your plate or withholding second helpings when you asked, picking up on societal cues that thinness is valued and restricting your food intake may help you achieve that, or having role models in your life who disparaged of their larger bodies and dieted in order to change their body size; you likely internalized those messages and started second-guessing your body’s wisdom. That can be an uncomfortable place; spending so much mental energy on wading through the barrage of eating advice out there can physically wear on a person.
The good news is there’s a method that puts YOU back in charge.
It’s called Intuitive Eating. A method developed over 25 years ago by two dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, it is a self-care framework that allows the mind and body to reconnect through the help of 10 principles. It allows you to become your own expert again. I’ll be writing more in-depth posts about these 10 principles in the future, but here’s the list:
· Reject the diet mentality
· Honor your hunger
· Make peace with food
· Challenge the food police
· Feel your fullness
· Discover the satisfaction factor
· Cope with your emotions without using food
· Respect your body
· Exercise-feel the difference
· Honor your health with gentle nutrition
Remember those questions I mentioned earlier? When, what, and how much do I eat? When you learn to eat intuitively you won’t need to rely on anyone else to answer those questions for you. YOU will be able to decide when you want to eat, what you want to eat, and how much you want to eat, understanding that it may be different than how other people answer those questions for themselves.
Here's to being in charge,
Rebecca
Comentários