How many times have you followed the latest diet plan only to eventually fall victim to failure? If so, then you may be more successful with intuitive eating, a less restrictive way to eat and lose weight. Intuitive eating is not a diet at all, but instead learning to figure out what your body actually hungers for and giving it what it needs.
Eating in this fashion gives you more freedom for long-term results for dropping the pounds compared to regular dieting. The reason is you stop calorie counting with the set number of calories a day allowed by that new diet and limited foods, eliminating the stress that comes with it. “Being good” in regard to those calories also means you can be eating foods that don’t appeal to you much just because they are lower-calorie or you are still hungry at the end of each dieting day. The longer that you keep denying yourself the foods that your body craves, the more chances that you may binge later.
Though this style of eating may not work for everyone, training how you think of food can be a more realistic way to gain better control over what you eat. Basically, eat what you want and only when you are hungry without waiting until you are starving is the rationale behind this method.
Your first thought may be loading up on favorite treats like ice cream or cakes, but after a while those same treats won’t taste the same or tempt you in the same way as before. Believe it or not, you soon will crave healthy food. This doesn’t mean that you will be weaned off of junk food and empty calories, but not think about them in the same way or need them as much.
I had a friend that had a job in a candy factory that allowed the employees to eat as many chocolate candies as they wished. At first, she gained some weight because the chocolates were too delicious to resist. However, the initial appeal soon turned into disgust of chocolate candies as well as other chocolate related baked goods. To this day, she avoids chocolates.
Understand how your body feels as you eat your meal is the first step. Try pausing and examine how full you feel halfway through finishing what is on the plate, after eating three quarters to the entire plate to determine what your particular response to hunger feels like.
At the same time, the experience of eating is another principle of intuitive eating that can help give you more control with the foods you eat. For instance, you may typically rush to eat just to fit in your workload. Yet, the environment in which you eat your meal can make a big difference. Success with eating this way relies on pleasure and visual presentation as well as relaxation. After all, you will eat more slowly in the process over eating too quickly and consuming more calories.
Tuning into the biological needs of your body can give you new insight into what foods can satisfy it without deprivation. Making wiser food choices that still tastes good matters in how we think about food. Though it may take some doing to maintain a healthy balance that is right for your body, this method can teach better control over what goes into your mouth.
