Intuitive eating

Intuitive eating is a philosophy of listening to your body ques to dictate when and what to eat. It has been around for as long as diets have been around. It challenges the idea of having to “go on a diet” and having to judge yourself or food police eating. 

While this sounds like a great relief to hear with so many people getting on diet wagons all the time and experimenting with their food and body, this approach would be very similar to someone on a diet. 

For the first part, we really need to reduce and remove all interference patterns that dictate our physical body signals. For example, you could be a smoker and the nicotine in your system actually suppresses hunger. If you are going to intuit eating, your body will not be eating very much at all and going hungry and eventually malnourished. So the distortion that smoking creates needs to be “cleared” for your system to give you correct body signals in the first place. This would apply to any interference pattern like medications, dehydration, sleep times etc… many factors to consider.

Secondly, if you have been brought up with food beliefs and tastes, that can impede true body signals. If you have grown up with spicy food, your palate will crave that. It may not be a bad thing, but if you were raised eating donuts, you may crave sweets. Cravings and your belief systems are not listening to what the body needs – it’s listening to what the body wants. That is why, differentiating the two can be very tricky if there are so many filters that pre - exist and dictate your system. You just become a victim to the program, rather than understanding how you can clear your distortions and start with a clean slate.

The next step then is to investigate how you would go about creating a clean slate, that will eventually lead to successfully getting clear signals from your body which you can rely on and respect, as then “body knows best” would be on target. 

Many a time we are not able to see our own blind spots (hence the term!) so to be objective, get an assessment done and go see a health professional who understands your goals and needs. This will get you started on the right track and when you really start discovering what your body has to say, you may be surprised! 

I am passionate to get the word out there as I was exactly in the same boat. As a born vegetarian, for over 40 years that’s the life I knew and grew up in; but my body was telling me something else entirely. It took time to knock down my own belief systems on what is right, and finally, I took the leap and started to introduce meats into my diet. After 4 years of changing my food habits, I can say I am more nourished and where I need to be with my health. This was my personal journey and everyone will have a different path and experience. Mine was to start eating meat. Someone else’s will be to give up smoking.. what ever it is, it takes courage to listen and learn and change. Don’t just follow another “non-diet” intuitive plan just because it sounds good.