Diets are really boring and limiting. It is true that they can help you lose weight around the waist, but the weight loss process will stop the moment you stop complying with that same diet and go back to the way of living that caused you to gain weight, such as eating fatty food, snacks, etc. but also spending weekends inactive on the couch, watching TV, playing video games or playing games of chance online (even though that can make you earn some extra money, though) on casinos at topcasinoexpert.com/country/sri-lanka/. Also, diets are quite restrictive because you have to oblige to certain rules, like when you eat and what you eat. When you are on a diet, it is very possible that you starved yourself and did not eat what you liked. Intuitive eating may be the best solution for you.
Two licensed dietitians, Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, developed intuitive eating, which was initially released in 1995 as a book of the same name. Intuitive eating is a self-care dietary strategy that is based on research and validated by clinical experience, as stated by the authors. It is founded on 10 principles, but in this post, we will skip over them and go straight to the heart of the matter.
So, what is intuitive eating anyway?
Let’s Explain Intuitive Eating
In fact, the explanation is so simple that it is strange why so few people knew about it. Intuitive eating means that you eat what you want to eat. No counting calories and monitoring the amount of what you ate. In that sense, this is an anti-diet. If you are an intuitive eater, your first thought is probably to overeat and keep ordering pizzas and drinking cokes because those not-so-nutritious foods are exactly what you crave most often. And you will probably eat such food at first. You will allow yourself to eat everything that you have been avoiding until now. However, you will soon notice that this food does not feel good for you, that after you eat it, you are sluggish and swollen, that it will even start to bother you, and you will slowly stop eating only fast food by yourself.
The craving for fast food is so great because that type of food is ‘forbidden fruit’ – what we should not eat is what we eat the most. With intuitive eating, you will break those beliefs that you can or cannot eat something into pieces. When everything is allowed to you and when you do not limit yourself with typical diet rules, over time you will start to ‘listen’ to your body.
How Do You Start Listening to Your Body With the Help of Intuitive Eating?
When you go with the intuitive food regime, then you rely on yourself for what you will eat, not on some menu out there. Your body very often knows what it needs, you just need to learn to listen to it. What is, essentially, craving? If you have a strong desire for certain foods, there is probably a reason for that desire.
Also, another thing that is very good about intuitive eating is that over time you will start to listen to your body when it has had enough food. It is possible that you are so out of tune with your own body that you are unable to recognize when you should stop eating. Instead, you eat until you have eaten everything you have cooked or everything you put on your plate because you have been taught to do so since childhood – either because you had strict parents or as a child or you were often faced with food shortages so you ate everything in front of you to keep from starving.
With intuitive eating, you will learn one more thing and that is that hunger is not a bad thing. Dieting is mostly about ignoring your hunger pangs and eating less to reduce your caloric intake. Hunger is just a sign that your body needs ‘fuel’. However, when you are hungry, you often just want to stuff something into yourself, anything at all. And so you make bad decisions about nutrition because you choose the fastest way to stop being hungry, which is often fast food. That is why it is important to always have something with you that will at least fool your hunger until you can cook something. Carry almonds, peanuts, or various other nuts with you that you will be able to snack on instead of immediately ordering something from, say, McDonald’s. Of course, it is okay to eat a burger or whatever you feel like eating, but only if you are sure that you will not feel guilty after eating that food.
Conclusion
Intuitive eating is precisely related to that freedom from guilt and a guilty conscience.
Choose foods that you really enjoy eating and eat only as much as is enough for you. Then you will always be satisfied, and over time you will notice that you will more often turn to foods that make you feel better in your body and that will make you feel lighter and not sluggish after a meal.