5 Habits for Intuitive Eating.
Developing habits to support a healthy lifestyle removes Decision Fatigue.
Decision Fatigue can lead to emotional eating. By learning to eat intuitively we can start listening to our bodies and realise if we are biologically hungry or there are other issues to deal with.
Here are my top 5 habits to support your Intuitive Eating journey.
1. Eat When you are hungry
Have you ever felt hunger but have refused to eat because:
- It isn’t time
- You don’t deserve to
- What is available isn’t ‘carb-free’ – (or is against whatever rule you are currently following)
Ignoring your hunger signals can lead to you losing touch with your body and only hearing extreme hunger.
Eating when you are extremely hungry can trigger overeating. Overeating can lead to feelings that you can’t be trusted around food.
Your body needs to know it consistently has access to food.
When you next feel hunger but tell yourself you can’t eat, for whatever reason, think back to the last time you ate. Was it enough? Have you been extra busy and need to refuel your energy? Or are you feeling an emotion that needs to be dealt with – without food?
2. Stop listening to the food police
Stop listening to the negative internal chatter you tell yourself like you are being ‘good’ for eating minimal calories or ‘bad’ for eating a piece of cake.
The diet rebel inside you that self sabotages, hitting the ‘fuck-it’ button and consuming that whole packet of biscuits, stop listening.
Smile and change the subject when well-meaning friends and family question you or give advice based on diet rules they have learned over the years or based on plans they follow.
Instead cultivate a relationship with your inner nurturer, the voice that observes but doesn’t judge, the voice that understands that it is normal to eat for emotional reasons but thinks let’s take a look at WHY and try to get to the bottom of this.
3. Move for 30 minutes a day
Does the word exercise feel like a chore? Another ‘to-do’ on the list.
Maybe your ‘to-do’ list is long and you would love to have the TIME to exercise.
However you feel I prefer the word MOVEMENT as it is so important to move our bodies. It is important for:
- Flexibility
- Mindset
- Increasing immune function
- Reducing stress
The list of benefits goes on and on. Whether you get involved in an organised exercise class or activity, go for a walk in nature or put some extra effort into your housework, make a habit of moving your body for 30 minutes a day (or even 3 x 10 minutes) and see how it increases your wellbeing.
4. Add nutritious food (you enjoy) to your daily meals
The last Intuitive Eating principle to learn is Gentle Nutrition. This is because any food suggestions during the process can easily become a rule and then another ‘diet’.
We all have different levels of diet mentality that need to be healed and spending some time learning that no food is banned is time well spent.
However we also need to explore which foods make us feel full of energy and protect our health.
In my coaching programs I encourage my clients to experiment by adding nutritious foods to their daily life rather than eliminating what are deemed as less healthy.
Satisfaction is an important part of Intuitive Eating.
5. Ditch the DIET tools.
Stop stepping on the scales.
These are a false idols.
Depending on what you last ate, when you last exercised, where you are in your monthly cycle, these (to name but a few reasons) can all have a massive effect on the number that appears on the scale. This in turn can have a massive effect on your emotional wellbeing and how you care for yourself for the rest of the day.
While you’re at it, ditch calorie trackers as they are not accurate to the number of calories your body actually absorbs and if you use a step counter or activity tracker in an unhealthy way, i.e, you use it as a way to reward yourself with food, ditch those too!!
YOU DO NOT NEED TO EARN YOUR FOOD!! 🙂
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I hope you are excited to find a way to stop yo-yo dieting and ditch restrictive diets FOREVER!
If you would like to chat with me about your unique menopause transition, book a Wild Well-Being call and come away inspired and motivated to begin your journey to optimal health.
Don’t forget to come and join my Facebook community, Natural Menopause Solutions for motivation, tips, challenges, and more!
Have a good week