tweak your intuitive eating

"You can
feel better about
yourself.
You can feel loved,
accepted,
and vital
—and you can
improve your health—
regardless of whether you lose weight."
- Linda Bacon,
author of Health at Every Size

Hurley and Bosie wanna be
Uma Thurman's eye wranglers!

This approach...
is less about dieting
and more about
lifestyle change that
emphasizes
intuitive eating: listening to hunger signals,
eating when you're hungry,
choosing nutritious food over junk.

It encourages exercise,
but for its emotional and physical benefits,
not as a way to lose weight.
It advocates tossing out
the bathroom scale
and loving your body
no matter
what it weighs.
- NAAFA on Linda Bacon's Health at Every Size approach

Be careful with "intuitive eating".
Our intuitions are effected by our biology.

If you're full of
yeast,
mucous,
inflammation,
food allergies
and you have intestines full of undigested food
(as most of us do),
your intuitions will not be "clean".

You will crave
more sugar,
more refined white flour,
more processed crap
and other unwholesome foods.

Believe me.
I know.
I'm still not cleaned-out intestinally.

If I eat too many pretzels
or
pasta
or
white bread
or
sugar
I immediately suffer the consequences.

I feel fatigued.
I get itchy and rashy.
My blood sugar spikes and drops.
I'm uncontrollably hungry.
I crave junk
and I'm generally uncomfortable.

I'm sure Linda Bacon covers this in her book
Health at Every Size.

I just needed to see it in writing for myself.

I feel better when I eat better.
I feel more energetic and clear-headed when I avoid excess carbs.
Starchy foods,
processed foods,
sugary foods,
make me feel sluggish, foggy and irritable.

"Have you ever eaten something
- a bowl of ice cream,
a piece of cheese,
an orange -
and felt hungrier than before?"
- Dr. Levine on Food Addiction

Yet,
(click here for the science of it),
we tend to crave the foods we're allergic to.

"You can become
'maladapted'
to the foods you crave
and are addicted to.
Then you feel sick ...
Any craved food can be
an addictive
hidden
allergic food."
- Dr. Robbins from Allergy Center

In light of this information
and the undeniable evidence of my own lived experience,
I know I have to be careful with intuitive eating.
Eating pretzels one night tends to lead my craving pretzels the next day.
Eating cereal for dessert one night leads to wanting more and more cereal the next day.
So, if I DO allow myself a starchy treat, I need to be cautious about my intuition to reach for more.

Good news: it gets easier to get off the unhealthy craving cycle once you've done it a few times.

I know that eating "clean" will make the cravings go away.
I know that snacking on raw peppers or celery will satisfy me and make it easier to avoid the pretzels or rice cakes or cereal or whatever I'm eating too much of.

Today my mother and I will be going to our favorite Asian Buffet for lunch.
I've gotten used to avoiding rice and noodles.
I may even avoid the sushi rolls because the rice is just too starchy.

But I had to LEARN to do that.
I had to really fight the urge to eat rice and pasta.
I had to fill up on lean protein and vegetables a few Fridays in a row
to get me off of the carbs-for-lunch cycle.

It worked.
I actually crave the protein rather than the carbs.

My intuitions are better - 'better' meaning more in line with my goals.

*Lisa's VLOG for Ocotber 9, 2008*
Yes, I'm trying my hand at vlogging (video blogging).
Leave me a comment. Let me know how I did!
:-)
click here or click below