“Listen to you your body, it’s smarter than you”
Hmmm...True or False?
Intuitive Eating sounds pretty zen doesn't it. No pressure! Just listen to your body and go with the flow!
Yeh nah. Not from the get go.
Sorry to burst anyone's bubble with respect to intuitive eating, but from my experience you have to earn it a little bit first. By rewiring your metabolism so that your body is actually speaking the same language as your health goals!
To be clear, I’m a HUGE advocate of intuitive eating!
Even though food tracking, some weighing/measuring, using your ‘hand’ as a portion guide, or a visual food diary with pics are some of the tools I may initially use with my clients, the end goal is to 100% move them awayyyy from that.
I haven’t regularly tracked a thing myself for a long time. I’m now an intuitive eater.
But you can bet your right arm I’ve done my time in the trenches. I did not spend my childhood, teens, 20's or even much of my 30's being fat adapted, hormonally balanced, metabolically flexible, or insulin sensitive! Coincidentally I was also unhappy in my skin, immune-poor, inflamed, struggling with disordered eating, punishing myself with exercise, and not my strongest mentally.
So if your ‘intuition’ is saying you need a packet of Tim Tams and therefore you eat a packet of Tim Tams because you’re ‘listening to your body’...more often than not its probbbbaby speaking the language of cravings, insulin resistance, deregulated hormones, sugar addiction, a deranged metabolism, emotional eating or all of the above.
Yes of course there’s a time and place for indulgence!
Yes of course there’s the opportunity to be a moderator rather than an abstainer!
Yes of course you might just really (REALLY) want some bloody Tim Tam’s sometimes and in that case - have the things! And move on!
But your body never NEEDS that. A fat adapted, metabolically flexible, hormonally balanced body will rarely CRAVE that.
Yep, even in times of emotion, stress, etc. (*The small caveat here is that some women experience stronger cravings for sugar in the late luteal phase right before menstruation due to hormonally driven changes in their blood sugar regulation.)
Point being. If you’re wanting to change your health or body composition, it’s generally hugely beneficial to do at least a bit of time in the trenches initially to EARN intuitive eating. Or your body simply won’t be sending you the right messages. You will be listening, and your body will be lying, and no one likes a liar haha.
The best way to transition to intuitive eating is via some tracking, some playing with macros to change the way the body uses fuel, some playing with calories (deficit OR surplus), some journaling of biofeedback such as hunger/cravings/energy/mood, and some optimising of sleep, stress & movement.
And thennnnnn you can refer back to the “listen to your body, it’s smarter than you” soundbite and all hail intuitive eating! Yew!
You’ll have rewired your body to be metabolically flexible and clear in it’s messaging...and it will rarely exhibit raging cravings for compete junk that you risk giving in to and then labeling as ‘listening to your body’ when your physiology is in fact what’s setting you up to fail.
Take the power back!
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