Intuitive Eating Brings Freedom From Food Worry – Part 2

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By: Bonnie R. Giller, MS, RD, CDN, CDE

Continued from part 1 of this article…..

healthychoiceAs an alternative of the diet mentality, Intuitive Eating encourages you to challenge your negative thoughts about food. Instead of labeling food as good or bad or declaring yourself as having a good day or a bad day with regard to calories consumed, this approach tells you it is okay to eat. Unhealthy labels and negative perceptions of food result in viewing food as an adversary that is no longer to be trusted. Perceiving food as negative is an unhealthy approach to maintaining health. Food is the fuel for your body, it’s what keeps you healthy and you cannot live without it.

Furthermore, as long as you are attuned to the signs of your body and are able to recognize your triggers, Intuitive Eating encourages you to go ahead and eat that piece of chocolate cake. The philosophy behind this is that if you restrict yourself from moderate indulgences, you end up developing feelings of deprivation and intense cravings. Resentment builds as a result of these feelings and you end up overindulging and overeating. Therefore, it is better to engage in these simple pleasures in moderation.

Honoring your hunger, respecting your fullness and discovering the satisfaction factor are additional principles focused on physiological eating triggers and the overall experience of eating. Honoring your hunger and respecting your fullness require you to tune into the signs of your body by rating your hunger and satiety on numerical scales. By scaling your hunger and fullness, you are then directed by physiological cues as to when to start and stop eating. Discovering the satisfaction factor involves tuning into the enjoyment of food through environmental, social, psychological and sensory aspects.

Intuitive Eating encourages respecting your body and honoring your health. With these principles you learn to modify your self-perception to a more realistic view, and recognize that your genetic makeup plays a key role in your body shape and composition. Honoring your health encourages a consistent progression to improved health by guiding you to healthy meal options.

saladplateIntuitive Eating fosters making peace with food and ditching labeling food as good or bad. This approach helps to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind and body. The benefits of this approach are achieved through exploring how you got to where you are today, as well as providing nutrition education and support.

Learning and practicing Intuitive Eating will not only keep you healthy throughout the year, but will also put you on the path to improved health and wellness for the rest of your life. You’ll experience increased energy levels, weight loss or maintenance, and an overall sense of peace with food. You will finally be able to stop making New Year’s Resolutions.

– Bonnie R. Giller helps chronic dieters break free of the pain of dieting and get the healthy body they love. She does this by creating a tailored solution that combines three essential ingredients: a healthy non-diet mindset, nutrition education and caring support. She utilizes the principles of intuitive eating, which is eating based on your internal signals of hunger and satiety versus situations or emotions. The result is they lose weight, keep it off without dieting and live a healthy life of guilt-free eating. Bonnie is a Registered Dietitian (R.D.), Certified Dietitian-Nutritionist (CDN) and Certified Diabetes Educator (C.D.E.). She is also a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor. Bonnie is the author of an e-book titled 5 Steps to a Body You Love without Dieting. Get your copy Free and learn more about Intuitive Eating at brghealth.com.