Diet trends such as Keto, Paleo, and Flexitarian diets, intuitive eating takes on a unique approach. The process of letting one's intuition dictate what and when to eat means learning to trust the body. These are the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating:
Reject the Diet Mentality
Intuitive eating is built around the concept of rejecting diets, which is also the first principal of the concept. Physical hunger is naturally a signal that the body needs the be replenished without a person feeling guilty.
The idea is to go beyond a temporary diet to lose weight and focuses more on long-term health. Dietitian Willow Jarosh, a certified intuitive eating counselor, said that society puts a 'whole lot of pressure put on us on a daily basis' by dictating that people need to look a certain way just to be accepted. 'Rejecting diet mentality is an ongoing lifetime habit, and any eating plan or diet that is focused on weight loss is at odds with that.'
Honor Your Hunger
The body needs to be adequately replenished to have enough energy for the day. Eating the moment you feel hungry is better than letting yourself reach excessive hunger, which will only lead to overeating.
Make Peace with Food
Permitting yourself to eat is the first step to deal with emotional hunger. Food is mean to be enjoyed and not a source of guilt. The mindset of having a list of forbidden food may lead to uncontrollable cravings.
Challenge the Food Police
The food police is a mindset categorizing food into good versus bad. Usually, the mind will say 'good job' after eating something healthy and then have self-condemning thoughts after eating fast food. Challenging the inner critic and accepting all food is a critical step during intuitive eating.
Discover the Satisfaction Factor
Learning to enjoy every meal may lead you to discover that you don't need too much food to be satisfied. Eating what you want is a form of pleasure and gives you control to decide when you've had enough or too much.
Feel Your Fullness
This process may take time because it means trusting your own body to decide when it is full while eating. This can be achieved by observing when the body is comfortably full or pausing once in a while during eating to decide to keep eating or to stop.
Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness
Emotional eating is a problem many of us experience, which follows many negative thoughts and harmful eating habits. Instead, we have to accept that food will not fix our feelings or solve our problems. Dealing with these issues means facing the source of our emotions so that food and eating can be associated with being kind to oneself.
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Respect Your Body
We have to accept that our bodies are unique instead of criticizing ourselves. Recognizing one's own beauty is crucial for overall well-being.
Movement-Feel the Difference
Instead of forcing yourself to work out just to lose weight, a healthier perspective is to focus on movement that makes you feel alive and energized.
Honor Your Health-Gentle Nutrition
Honor your health by eating what tastes good and food that makes you feel good. What we eat consistently determines our long-term health. It's better to strive for progress instead of perfection.
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