Healthy Holiday Group Week 2!
Today we talked about two Intuitive Eating principles:
Honoring your Hunger and Making Peace
with Food.
Honoring Your Hunger
“Our need for food
(energy) is so essential and primal that if we are not getting enough energy, our bodies naturally
compensate with powerful biological and psychological mechanisms.”
We need to remember that food and hunger is not the
enemy. It’s our body’s way of telling us
that it is in need of more nutrients so it can function optimally.
Questions to consider:
Do you know what
hunger feels like for you?
How do you feel about
hunger?
Are you listening for
it?
The Hunger Scale:
When you’re
thinking about eating, rate your hunger on the hunger scale with 0= I’m STARVING and 10= “There
were 10 pies at Thanksgiving dinner so I HAD to try one of each and now I’m so
sick I can’t move!” You want to try
and stay between a 3 and 7 at all times.
Tips for Honoring Your Hunger:
Listen for it
Check in often
General guideline-Don’t go more than 5 waking hours without food
Each time you eat ask
yourself:
“Am I hungry?”, “What’s my hunger level?”, “What do I want?”
The Hunger Scale
Are you seeing any
patterns?
Prepare for it
Have food available
to you
What’s your plan?
Making Peace with Food
“Legalizing food
is the critical step in changing your relationship with food”
Making peace with food means giving yourself unconditional permission
to eat any food!
-There are no “good” or “bad” foods
-Eat what you really want. Yes,
what you want….
-Eating without obligatory penance (I’ll eat this now because my ‘diet’
starts tomorrow!)
“When you truly free your food choices,
without any hidden agenda of restricting them in the future, you eliminate the
urgent need to overeat”
Steps to Making Peace with Food
1. Make a list of
what foods you like and love.
2. Put a check by
foods you do eat and circle foods that you love but have been restricting.
3. Give yourself
permission to eat one circled item, then go buy it or order it at a restaurant.
4. Check in with
yourself as you’re eating. Do you still love that food? Does it taste good?
5. Keep enough of
that food around so that you can have it any time you want. If that’s too scary
then go to a restaurant and order food as often as you like.
Continue this process until you TRULY
know you can eat what you want
With the
typical American beginning to diet as young as 5 years old…these are two very difficult
topics for most to adopt. They will take
practice and time but you will feel freedom when you’re able to honor your
hunger and make peace with food.
