The one thing that you should never sacrifice is your health and well-being. Check out The Westport Apartments in Norfolk, Virginia latest roster of recipes, recommendations, and more that can enhance your lifestyle and make you feel unstoppable! In this blog, we will discuss the buzzword, intuitive eating.
When it comes to what foods to put into your body, intuitive eating focuses on internal cues, as opposed to hard-set diet rules. Rather than concentrating on the number on the scale, you’ll fixate your efforts on your relationship with food, body image, and other health-enhancing behaviors. Now, when it comes to internal cues, you’ll have to work on getting back in touch with feelings, like hunger, fullness, cravings, and so on. These very cues will help you chip away at the dieting rules that we’ve all come to dislike, such as what and when to eat and how much of it you should be eating.
Although we were all born as intuitive eaters, many of us lose the practice over the years. So, simply rewind the tape and think of how you ate as a child. For example, one day you’d only want fruit, while the next you’d enjoy pasta with a heaping tablespoon of butter. In retrospect, however, you were still managing to incorporate a variety of foods into your diet to support healthy nourishment and growth.
Unfortunately, as we age, we’re introduced to an assortment of dieting rules. We’re forced to clean the plate even if we’re full or push it away when we’re still hungry. We’re told to eat certain foods and to limit others. We’re also conditioned to believe certain bodies are more valued than others. When all these factors work together simultaneously, we find ourselves farther away from using internal cues and listening to our bodies. This can lead to a host of negative behaviors, i.e. restricting, binging, or obsessing about food is harmful and unproductive ways.
With all of this being said, the benefits of intuitive eating include:
• Lower triglycerides
• Less emotional and/or disordered eating
• Higher self-esteem
• Better body image
• More satisfaction with life
• Increased optimism and well-being
• Pro-active coping skills
You’re also negating certain behaviors associated with dieting with intuitive eating, including:
• Food and body preoccupation
• Weight cycling (i.e. yo-yo’ing)
• Weight stigma and discrimination
• Focusing on weight versus sustainable health
• Eating disorders
• Low self-esteem