The 5 Big Benefits of Intuitive Eating and Eating Mindfully
Filed Under: Intuitive Eating
14 September 2020 | Written by Xenia Ayiotis
The benefits of Mindful and Intuitive Eating are endless but these are the 5 biggest benefits of practicing Intuitive Eating and learning to eat mindfully…
1. You will stop fighting food
Do you look at people who leave half a cookie on their plate and wonder how they do it? Chances are they don’t like the cookie OR they have never told themselves they shouldn’t eat cookies? The more food rules we have the more preoccupied we feel with food. The more you restrict certain foods the more you will want them. The secret is to allow those foods without guilt and judgement.
2. You will learn how to let go of “all or nothing” thinking
Embrace the “middle way” – that is the biggest skill we can learn to make peace with food. Dieting, food restriction and over-exercising often leads to backlash behaviour. Most of the time dieting leads to overeating or binge eating. Mindful Eating is the middle-way between restriction, rules and all-or-nothing behaviour.
3. You will learn how to trust yourself and your body
When we have subjected ourselves to many diets and rules we lose trust with ourselves. We lose trust with our bodies. We eat because we have to, or because the diet tells us to. We eat foods we don’t want. Some of us have forgotten what hunger feels like – we know the 2 extremes – starving or stuffed. Our bodies have an innate wisdom and will tell us what to eat, how much to eat and when to stop. By eating intuitively and mindfully, you learn to distinguish the difference between body hunger, head hunger and heart hunger.
4. You will learn to cope with stress & difficult emotions with or without eating
Emotional eating gets a bad rap. It is seen as a sign of weakness. Actually, emotional eating is simply a coping tool – not a coping failure. Most of us were not taught how to deal with difficult emotions and it’s human nature to avoid feelings of stress, anxiety, anger, boredom, frustration and loneliness. Some people overwork, others shop, some of us eat to cope. The way through this is awareness of our triggers and to respond with care.
5. You will learn how to CHANGE with KINDNESS
You cannot hate yourself into change. Change happens slowly, with patience and acceptance. Beating yourself up into change is not going to result in sustainable change. Healing and transforming your relationship with food and your body is not about restriction, deprivation, control and willpower. It is not about doing things perfectly and linearly, rather it’s more about setting the intention to change and committing to baby steps – not giant leaps – towards that change. Sometimes it’s 3 steps forward and 2 steps back and another 2 steps sideways, like a salsa dance, but as long as you keep moving, over time you will see, that you have undergone a transformation.
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