Join me this year as I Eat Intentionally , putting into practice the ten principles of Intuitive Eating , one at a time. In January we worked on ditching the diet mentality, learning not to count calories, or measure portion sizes, or concern ourselves with how much we’re eating in any way. Now that the foundation of a healthy mindset is in place, we’re going to build from there. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a single post! Every Monday, we check in with our progress during .
This month, your mission – should you choose to accept it – is to Honor Your Hunger.
Consider a baby: they know when they’re hungry, and they won’t rest until that hunger is satisfied. It doesn’t matter if they just ate 2 hours ago, they’re hungry now, and they want to be fed now.
Those same hunger cues don’t go away. And honestly, the time frame doesn’t change much either. From infancy to adulthood, the body needs to eat every 2-4 hours during the day to maintain adequate levels of energy. Our bodies were created to give us a signal whenever more nourishment is needed, and that signal is called “hunger”.
Unfortunately, many of us have learned to ignore that signal. When trying to lose weight, we force ourselves to eat a certain amount of calories a day, and we push ourselves through hunger so we can hold off consuming any more calories than we think we need.
This is counter-intuitive. Literally. When we ignore those hunger signals, thinking we will do our bodies a service, we actually do more harm than good. Inevitably, this is what happens:
- The hunger increases in intensity to the point where we can’t ignore it.
- We may feel shaky, irritable, faint, or even experience stomach pangs.
- We become so extremely hungry, we grab whatever is closest and easiest (usually not healthy).
- We eat rapidly in an attempt to quell the hunger pangs as quickly as possible.
- We eat more than was necessary and end up feeling sick to our stomach.
Has that ever happened to you? It’s happened to me more than I care to admit! Clearly, ignoring those initial hunger signals sets off a domino effect of consequences…. none of them good!
The solution to avoiding this scenario is simple: eat when you’re hungry. Your body doesn’t always require a full meal, but it may need a snack at different points throughout the day. Keep healthy snacks handy, and when your body says, “Eat something!”, obey. The first time!
A few snack ideas you can bring with you when you know you’ll be out all day (so you don’t starve yourself into gorging on junk, and/or succumb to the fast food drive through):
- granola bars
- Larabars or other healthy all-natural snack bars/protein bars
- nuts
- dried fruit
- trail mix
- apple or banana
Have you ever been so hungry you gorged yourself? Does it happen more often then you’d care to admit? (I know it does for me!) Let’s make a pledge not to let this happen for the month of February: instead, we’ll eat when we’re hungry!
Sounds good to me. You in?
Join me this year as I Eat Intentionally , putting into practice the ten principles of Intuitive Eating , one at a time. In January we worked on ditching the diet mentality, learning not to count calories, or measure portion sizes, or concern ourselves with how much we’re eating in any way. Now that the foundation of a healthy mindset is in place, we’re going to build from there. Be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a single post! Every Monday, we check in with our progress during .
This month, your mission – should you choose to accept it – is to Honor Your Hunger.
Consider a baby: they know when they’re hungry, and they won’t rest until that hunger is satisfied. It doesn’t matter if they just ate 2 hours ago, they’re hungry now, and they want to be fed now.
Those same hunger cues don’t go away. And honestly, the time frame doesn’t change much either. From infancy to adulthood, the body needs to eat every 2-4 hours during the day to maintain adequate levels of energy. Our bodies were created to give us a signal whenever more nourishment is needed, and that signal is called “hunger”.
Unfortunately, many of us have learned to ignore that signal. When trying to lose weight, we force ourselves to eat a certain amount of calories a day, and we push ourselves through hunger so we can hold off consuming any more calories than we think we need.
This is counter-intuitive. Literally. When we ignore those hunger signals, thinking we will do our bodies a service, we actually do more harm than good. Inevitably, this is what happens: