Cheat?!!

I heard about a diet that encourages you to 'cheat' to lose weight!?!?  BAD IDEA. Everyone knows cheating makes you feel bad about yourself.  Only someone truly out of touch with her intuition would see cheating as a solution. It's the opposite of trusting yourself!

C stands for confused.

H stands for hurting yourself.

E stands for everyone.

A stands for angry.

T stands for trouble.

 When you ignore your intuition, you are out of sync with yourself and feel stressed. Cheating causes stress.  When you're stressed you get angry easily and everyone around you knows it. Cheat when you eat spells long term trouble. Don't be confused by the promise of a 'quick fix'. There is no such thing. 95% of people who diet gain back more weight than they lose! Cheat and you cheat yourself. Ouch.

Eating intuitively keeps you clear about your meal choices and helps you achieve and maintain a healthy body. When you're in sync with your intuition, you feel like you have more energy because you're in tune with your body and your values. You create your future when you feel clear about who you are and what matters.

C stands for clarity.

R stands for remember values.

E stands for everyone.

A stands for automatic

T stands for total body mind heart in sync.

E stands for evolution.

Trusting your body and using intuition is staying aware of who you are and what makes sense for your needs physically, emotionally and socially. Intuitive eating creates clarity that feels like balance or well-being. Balance diffuses stress and keeps long term priorities in view. Intuitive eating is creating what makes sense for your happiness and long term quality of life.

Don't buy into media hype and lies. You know what makes sense. That's why you're reading this.  Be good to yourself. Treat yourself with dignity and respect your body. Use your intuitive tools to keep clear about eating choices. It becomes automatic. You won't be stressed, and everyone will know it.

Pick up or download a copy of Am I Really Hungry? to see easy ways to protect yourself from cheating or being cheated when it comes to what matters in your life! An attitude of dignity will help you help yourself. Life is too good to cheat yourself - ever!

#janebernard

It's too hot for stress and guilt!

Wow- Summer is half-over but the heat won't let up and there are still weeks ahead of wearing clothes that reveal every unwelcome bulge. The surprise is- only you see flaws. Other people see pleasing curves. We are all our own worse critics.

Did you know that being hard on yourself can make you fat?! That's right, stress and guilt sabotage weight loss. Our bodies are primitive. Energies like stress and guilt feel threatening. When your body's threatened, it holds on to fat.

To be your ideal weight: work with your body, don’t fight it or ignore it.
People who diet have the habit of ignoring their bodies.
So, why not connect with your intuition and get some relief?

Eating based on a book or a program is stressful because it's not about you, your body or your life realities. Rushing to lose weight, forcing yourself to follow a program, or starving yourself all create stress. It's really too hot in August to bring on more heat from stress.

Eating intuitively puts you in sync with your body. You feel comfortable with yourself. It's refreshing. Why not cool off with intuitive eating?

Becoming an intuitive eater is natural; it doesn't create stress.
Everyone can do it because using intuition is being plugged into yourself. Your appetite is personal, just like your fingerprints or DNA.

Eating is as easy as breathing and as important for your health and energy level. If you tried to restrict your breathing the way you control your eating, what would happen?

Diets create stress. Intuitive eating is long term satisfaction.
August is too hot for stress.

People who don't diet and stay a healthy weight are intuitive eaters that have tools to stay in sync with their body goals. These tools demolish hot buttons like stress and guilt that sabotage weight loss.

Nourishing your self is done with food, ideas and emotions. It's all connected inside you. Your senses work with your mind and your body to let you be clear about what is nourishing.

Use your intuition and get rid of dieting for good.
Am I Really Hungry? 6th sense diet : intuitive eating  has the answers you're looking for.

Diet or Eat Intuitively?

Are you ready to let go of the stress of having to think about every thing you eat in terms of calories, portion control or programs?
Are you ready to eat for energy and good health?  

If you answered 'yes' to the above questions, you're ready to eat intuitively. 

Classic dieting doesn't work. It's a fact that 95% of dieters re-gain their weight. Diets create stress that rolls into all aspects of your life. 

Dieting:

• causes emotional dependency on program structure.   
•  creates dependency on calorie counting.
• makes you doubt yourself which sabotages self-esteem.
• claims to know more about your body than you do. 
• sabotages your relationships by creating stress at mealtime.

Intuitive eaters maintain their healthy weight. Eating intuitively is liberating. 
Intuitive eating:

•  is a focus on your how your body feels, what you value, and your personal goals. 
• means you're the expert. 
• brings an open relationship with food and eating that is flexible. 
• has no emotional component so you enjoy eating. 
• can bring new life to your relationships. 

When you make the choice to be an intuitive eater, you begin. Yep, it's that easy.  
Doing what you really believe takes courage. Making the choice is like turning a corner. The fact is: eating intuitively is a choice.
 

Intuition helps control of your eating because it keeps you clear about your priorities and your boundaries. That protects you.

Using intuition means, emotions don't rule, you do! When clarity is the foundation of your efforts to be your healthy weight, it happens. 

Everything you do takes effort, and every effort you make creates results. Be clear about your eating goals, and you will achieve them.  Make the choice.

  

“Life is the sum of all your choices.” Albert Camus

How to be an intuitive eater is made clear when you read Am I Really Hungry? The website has answers and the book tells you exactly how to take control of your choices, intuitively.

If Your Body Could Talk - an exercise

Trash talking your body makes it shut down. 

Eating intuitively keeps an open honest connection with your body.

What would you do if your body could talk?

This 2 part exercise is powerful. It helps for losing weight , and importantly, this is good for putting your head back on track with your heart.   Doing the exercise opens up a different way of trusting your body/mind intuitive connection. Try it. Let us know what happens.

1. On a blank sheet of paper write a letter to your body: 

Start with Dear Body. Take a breath and tell your body whatever you want. Be patient, and let the words stream. No one will read this but you.

2. Give your body a chance to reply. On another sheet of paper, use pencil and write yourself a letter from your body to you:

Use your other (non-dominant) hand. Start with Dear and your name. Take a breath and start writing.  If your body could talk what would it tell you?

Using your non-dominant hand forces you to connect differently with your body. I ended up printing.  It will take effort to use your other hand and be hard to read but, do it and see what happens. 

In an eating situation where you feel emotional or pressured to act, you may find that you stop listening to the intuitive connection with your body. Stress can put you in a self-destructive place where you are mean to your body. When you're in an eating environment that pushes your buttons, take and breath and use your senses to connect with yourself. Give your body a voice.

It takes effort to remain open. This exercise is worth the effort. I saved it and found reading what I wrote the next day moving.

You will discover it's intuitive to be kind to yourself. Intuition is subtle in the beginning. Write yourself a letter from your body and feel the connection.

Breaking up is hard to do.

Why Good Diets Don't Work Long-Term...

Leaving a diet program can feel like defeat or even like a broken heart. But instead, it's the way of being true to your body.

My neighbor was ecstatic for 2 months. She was losing weight, feeling great, and 'knew' that she had finally found "the one". No, she had not found the man of her dreams, but she believed she had found the diet that worked for her. It was exciting, something like love.

And then stuff happened. First it was the backlash from a really horrible day, which resulted in a box of donuts with a coke, and that was followed by a great party where she thought she was having fun- until the next morning. Feeling let down, nothing was making sense for her. Emotion driven hunger had put her out of touch with her body, and out of touch with her common sense. 

There are many good diets. The reason they work in the beginning is the diet is new, full of potential and promise. In the beginning instead of feeling restricted, you feel like you're part of the program. 
Problem is, the program is consistent and does not vary, but Life is not consistent and your body's needs vary. 

So after the flush of new wears off, you start to become physically weary of this wonderful diet, and start rebelling, by breaking the rules of the program. It's intuitive to be true to your self. But when you're emotionally invested in a diet program, it's hard to do it without feeling guilty and emotionally let-down. This is when self abuse starts.

When you reach the point where your diet is becoming frustrating, or inconvenient, or just isn't working, it is time to use common sense. Common sense tells you to listen to your body, not to abuse it. My neighbor didn't realize that she could have outgrown the great diet. Her body was telling her that she needed to change.

A good diet is not the same as a romantic commitment. A good diet is only good while it works for you. When a good diet gets stale, it's time to fine tune your senses and tune into intuition and your body to see what's missing. 

Sure, breaking up is hard to do, but changing what you eat, and how you do it, is natural, healthy and keeps you slim. Visualize your ideal body, and see it when you see yourself. That's where your heart is. 

A diet is an agenda. If the agenda works for you, do it. When it gets stale, find a new agenda.

Navigating for Success

There is often much on your mind and shoulders when you eat. Life is a long series of hills and valleys that twist and turn without road maps. Challenges and opportunities are distracting, demanding, frustrating, fortifying, and rewarding.  

Weight issues are another twist to navigate. Eat to fortify your future. It is intuitive to focus on eating for quality of Life. Do this to re-affirm your long-term perspective and realign your priorities. The result is, the road of Life is easier to navigate. So, make meal time, a time of personal indulgence.

Do Not Quit
"When things go wrong as they sometimes will;
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill;
When the funds are low, and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but have to sigh;
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but do not quit.

Success is failure turned inside out;

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;

And you can never tell how close you are.

It may be near when it seems so far;

So stick to the fight when your hardest hit.

It's when things go wrong, you must not quit." (Anonymous)

What are you really hungry for? Hunger is a heart felt as well as a physical experience. Emotional hunger is real but you don't feed it with food. Use your six senses to recognize it. Feed what's real and you will discover that you can get what you want, and where you want to go.

Be true to your self. When you're struggling with weight issues, or emotional issues, be kind to your self, and be ready to give your self another chance. Using your eyes, ears, taste, smell, and touch when you eat, tunes you in to your body. See it healthy and your ideal weight. Feed your ideal self. Watch it evolve.

The only time you fail is when you give up.

Your intuition will never desert you. So use it. There is always another chance to listen to your body and your heart, and do the right thing. This is your Life and this is your time. Enjoy living, and enjoy eating!

Nobody is more important than you are, so respect your self. Navigate for success.

Shake it up!

This is the first day of Autumn. Leaves are turning colors and wind has picked up. The seasons are a symbol of natural rhythms that are part of Life. Shake up your eating habits and look at colors differently. Eat something that is only fresh now, and notice how your body responds. I think you'll have an unexpected energy boost.

Just like the weather has seasons and you change your wardrobe, the seasons are also a natural time for you to change the kinds of foods you eat. When eating is a habit - like you have the same lunch every day, or always eat a certain breakfast, or never have eggs for dinner- you lose touch with what your body really wants and needs.

Your body makes it clear when you're hungry. However it's important to realize your body's needs change all the time. That means different foods satisfy you at different times. Don't eat the same foods all the time because your body won't be satisfied, and you will still feel hungry. ouch. Take a few moments to notice what you're eating and how you feel.

It's September, and suddenly there are different fresh foods at the market. This is a natural head's up that something new is available. Take it as an opportunity to eat seasonal foods you never tried before. Different foods nourish different organs in your body. Your body will tell you what it needs. Be bold and enjoy the experiment.

You will achieve success of your eating goals by using your senses to notice what's going on with your body. Your senses naturally connect with what feels right, because your senses keep you in touch with the bigger picture of your life. Use your 6 senses and you will maintain, not gain weight.

When it comes to diet and eating, your habit may be to see your self though others eyes, or to feed your body what others suggest. Taking suggestions makes sense only when you use your brain with your gut and respond to what your body feels. You have the answers for you. Nobody else does.

Changing your eating routine is going to be exciting. Shake it up, feel refreshed and benefit with the body you want.

For practical intuitive solutions that are common sense for maintaining a your healthy weight, download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating

and overcome eating challenges.

"If you can't solve a problem, it's because you're playing by the rules." P. Arden

Temptation and Obsession

What is the difference between temptation and obsession when it comes to diet?

Being tempted to eat means you are still in control. We all live with temptation. We are in a kind of flow, where choices must be made before we realize it. You are tempted to stay longer, leave earlier, eat more, work-out less, make a call, turn off the phone, take a chance, stay with the familiar, stop learning new things, start something new- .  

• Temptation makes you think twice. It puts you to the test. 
• Because temptation forces you to think twice, you are in control.

Temptation is the opportunity for you to remember your eating priorities. Feeding this satisfies you physically and emotionally. Think twice about what your body needs to feel satisfied by noticing what you notice.

• When you tune in to your body and make the choice to respect your self, things start to make sense. 
• Amazingly temptation brings out the best in you.

Obsessing feels like being out of control. It's unpleasant. In fact, obsession is losing perspective about what makes you feel good. It's like filling a sieve with water - it doesn't work. Perhaps the obsession is pizza, chocolate, or pasta and you only can think of finding satisfaction with your obsession. But- the problem is that it doesn’t happen. The result is of obsessive eating is physical discomfort and emotional dissatisfaction because in fact, food is not a substitute for what you really want. 

Only eating for good health, 

for quality of life, 

to enjoy the sharing the pleasure and 

to experience the satisfaction of taste and smell, can satisfy you physically. 

Anything else that may drive you to eat is self-destructive.

You can stay in control by remembering emotional demands are not your friend. Emotional demands ignore physical needs. Your senses connect with you physically.  Trust what you see and taste with what you know, before you allow your emotions to boss you around.  Ideas that turn into obsessions about what to eat, are not in sync with your physical needs. Don't abuse your body or allow stress to defeat your eating goals.

• Be flexible with yourself and you will discover that you have the answers. 
• Your first intuitive sense is your survival instinct. Use it. 

Many people write to me because they identify with my March 23 blog: Zig Zag Eating, http://fine-tuning-eating.blogspot.com/2010/03/zig-zag-eating.html.   Is that you?

We’re in this together, and we’ll walk through this together. You are not alone. Keep your head up and your eyes open. You have "it".

Namaste.

*JaneBernard

Tricks

Are you being tricked into eating more than you’re really hungry for?

Fifty years ago the average restaurant dinner plate was just 8 inches across. That size plate holds about 140 calories. Today your dinner is probably served on a plate that is 12 inches across (or bigger). That size holds about 350 calories. Even spoons and forks are bigger now then they were.

Yikes- the bigger the plate the more you eat. The bigger the spoon or fork, the more food goes in to your mouth at once. This doesn't give your stomach much of an option. Ouch.

Another trick that makes us eat more is a huge plate with what appears to be small portions on it. This fools us every time. It’s like trick photography where they show you the same piece of bread on 2 plates. The same piece of bread looks much smaller on the bigger plate. But, it’s a trick! Big plates are deceptive.

If you don’t want to be bigger, consider the up side of using smaller plates and even smaller spoons and forks. Think of it as the easy way for you to achieve portion control. When you downsize your spoon and fork and ask for a smaller plate, you can enjoy conversation and not pay attention to how much you’re eating because your portion will be exactly right- not super-sized.

When you don’t over eat, it makes sense that you will maintain your weight. When it comes to eating, bigger is not better. The way to take control, is to not be tricked by accepting huge plates of food. You have 2 choices- ask for a smaller plate and just put on it what fits, or ask for your plate to be divided. The extra food can be put in a bag to eat another day, or if taking it home is a form of temptation, then give it away.

Eating what you like is an intuitive trick for burning more calories!

Enjoying what you eat at every meal is intuitive. It has been proven that when you enjoy what you eat, your body digests food more efficiently. This means eating what you like, instead of forcing yourself to eat “what is good for you”, actually burns more calories. And obviously, it keeps you happy.
Nice.

Hitting the weight loss wall?

Sometimes the reason you can’t achieve weight loss goals is because you’re so used to following the old rules about eating that you’re are in a rut, hitting a wall. It's a mental trap.

Really connecting with your body by noticing what you see, taste, smell, touch, and hear, will re-fresh you, and bring a new perspective about diet and eating.

Everything you know about dieting comes from eating experiences accumulated over years of trying to lose weight. In fact, following the same old rules brings the same unsatisfying conclusions. You are not the same person- physically or emotionally you were a year ago. Old solutions only work with old problems.

Your eating challenges are brand new. Today is not your past. This is your ‘now’.

Sure you may still find sugar sexy, a jar or mayonnaise seductive, or a quart of ice cream irresistible. But you are thinking differently now. That’s why you’re reading this. Connect with self-respect and listen to what your 6 senses tell you. Visualize your body the way you want to see it.

Treat it the way you want to be treated. It’s intuitive to protect and respect your self.

When you hit your weight loss wall, tune in to your senses, and everything else will follow. Fine tuning by noticing what you are seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, and smelling connects you with your body. It also frees up your mind to wander, and puts you in the present when you sit down to eat. It's liberating!

Fine tune your senses and you will open your mind to your dreams.  Staying in the present means being clear about your eating priorities.  Eat to be healthy and feel good. Walls will be gone.

Zig Zag Eating

If you are caught in a cycle of dieting you may be a zig zag eater.

You are a zig zag eater when you pre-judge your self- by looking forward to protect your self from imagined results of eating, by looking backwards - to undo what you have done. Being a zig zag eater means what you eat is driven by doubts, habits, and fears, and feels like confusion around eating. 

Confusion creates doubts that your body looks ‘good’ and then blames food on your plate as the reason. It is like judging a book by its cover. Open the book and read it: Your body right now is breathing, digesting, supporting your vital organs, and holds the keys to your dreams.  Use your senses to pay attention and recognize messages from your body.

Intuitive eating is a focus on you, your body, mind, emotions and your 5 senses. It is not about comparing your body or rate of dieting progress with others.  Doing this raises all kinds of emotional flags, like envy or resentment. If you are busy looking forward and also looking at the past, the present just slips by.  By using your senses of smell, taste, touch, seeing and hearing when you eat, you will force your mind to stay in the present. This way, you will find your emotional doubts are not so big.  Intuition connects you with a real time perspective about who your are, what your appetite is for and your hunger.

Your intuition works in the present. The job of intuition is to make sure that the present evolves in a way that clearly focuses on your best interests. If you need to lose weight, you will.  When you base your eating on your past, or choose what you eat based on what you anticipate in the future, you are ignoring what your body needs right now, and not using your intuition.

Instead of zig zagging between what happened in the past and what could happen in the future, stay clear about where you are. Your body will look and feel better.

Begin to be an intuitive eater one meal at a time.

Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet tunes you in to how to use your intuition when you eat. Move forward to eating less and a new you.

#janebernard

Recognize Your Signals.

Re-connect with your body and lose weight!

How? By fine tuning your senses, you automatically use your intuition to respond to physical hunger.  Start today. Tune in and learn to recognize the signals.

For the serial dieter, hunger comes from an emotional place. Our ‘hot buttons’ around food and eating are legendary!  In the future try to recognize that if you feel pressured around your eating choices it means you are emotionally entangled. This is the reason for binge eating.

No, I’m not saying hunger is in your head, I’m saying hunger is deeply connected with your stomach, and your emotions are driving you in your head. Your intuition connects with your body. Your senses: touch, smell, taste, see, hear, and taste, connect with your body.  When you start to pay attention to what your taste, you will relate differently to what and how you eat.

Taste your food! and your intuition will balance what’s driving you so that your eating is not just emotion driven. As you fine tune your senses of smelling, touching, seeing, tasting, and hearing, you will eat differently. Absolutely, your appetite and your hunger will come from a different place then it does right now.  That’s a guarantee.

Physical hunger comes from your stomach. It signals you through your 5 senses. To be your desired weight, you need to be clear that what you eat it is about the hunger in your stomach and realize it’s signaling you.  Every minute you eat, your senses are sending you signals. Choose to respect your body by responding to your senses.

As you recognize your body when you’re hungry, you connect with your mind. Then you know how you want to eat. Connecting with your senses, you will instinctively lose weight. By respecting your senses, you give your body good energy from your heart through the intuitive balancing connection. That gives you a good feeling about what you’re eating.

Mind Trash

Pay attention, your 6^th sense is guiding to you.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.  Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.  (Carl Jung )

Have you ever imagined that you have an amazing amount of innate power?  You do. As you fine tune your senses you will discover an energy force inside that is constantly directing your attention at sights and sounds and smells. Take your desire to have a slimmer, healthy, body seriously, connect with your innate power, your 6^th sense, and watch what happens.

It won’t happen over night, but it will become obvious within a few weeks that by eating intuitively your habits have changed and so has your body. There is no magic trick, but there is the danger of mind trash that will sabotage you if you are not aware of it. 

Mind trash is an enormous mental burden that we all carry. It’s a pre-occupation with negative thoughts, belief systems, concerns or fantasies about our body or our self that stir up “justifiable” anger or impatience or feelings of being helpless. You don’t need any of it. Mind trash blocks your natural protective intuitive response to what you are about to eat.

What happens when you allow mind trash to trash your eating is you binge or purge or resent your meal. Mind trash clutters your way to the body you want with layers of fat. It creates feelings of dependency when you really are free and you really are in control.  In fact, you are free and in control every time you eat. No one is standing over you with a whip saying, you’re bad, instead, the pre-occupation with negative thoughts is making you insecure. When you eat start with your eyes.  Your intuition will connect what you see, with what you know in your mind from experience, and you can chose what and how much to eat, based on what feels right. 

Mind trash is like a road block to your intuition.  Your senses of hearing, seeing, taste, touch, and smell are the way to connect with your intuition. Use your senses to free your self.  When your senses are not fine tuned, it can be hard to know what you really need to eat to feel your best and have the best quality of life. Fine tune your senses and you will tune in to your innate power, your intuition. 

It’s time to throw out the trash, and start fresh. Every one of us makes mistakes, and every one of us can change the way we see things. When things aren’t real, they are a waste of time. Use your senses to connect with your 6^th sense, and tune in to what is real for your needs. By really smelling and tasting your food and listening to your body, you let your intuition guide you.

Often we justify what we eat or don’t eat because we dislike the truth.  You know that expression, The Truth Shall Set You Free?  Of course, you’ve heard it with your ears. Try listening to it with your heart. Try to imagine what you are really looking at when you sit down to eat. The truth is that portions in this country are often impossibly over-sized. The truth is your stomach is talking to you, telling you it hurts when you stuff it.  Hey, that’s the truth, but are you listening?  Or instead are you listening to mind trash?

The next time you sit down to eat. Before you begin, visualize your ideal body.  Now, if you’re alone, play with your food a little bit, and smell it before you taste it.  Look at the size and quality of your food. Feel your appetite and relate to your physical hunger. As you think about what you really want to eat, your focus will create an emotional emphasis that will propel you, and your intuition will guide you to protect and respect your body.

What do you see? Do you see calories, do you see rules, do you see something delicious, do you see something that will give you gas, do you see a plate full of food that will keep you up all night? Okay- if you do, you have a choice. Don’t eat it. 

Your mind is trashed when you believe you are bad because of a number on a scale, or if you believe you are unable to know what is best for your body, because a book says, “this is the answer, do this and lose weight”. While there are many excellent diet books and methods to wade through on the way to weight loss, there is only one expert when it comes to your body and that is you.  It is natural, when you’ve lost touch with your senses that you may feel out of control with eating. But that is easy to fix.

Remember this, if you cannot see that you have a choice then there is apparently no choice.  You cannot see if your eyes are covered with doubts about your self or your body because these doubts are negative filters that fuel mind trash. Open your eyes.  Every person sees exactly what they want to see. It’s only when you balance what you see, with what you hear, and what you know from experience, with what you feel in your heart, that you connect with your 6^th sense and see your truth. Then, feed your truth.

Keep your mind open as you fine tune your senses. Doubt is a form of self sabotage. Why not trust that you know more then you realize about your self and your needs. All of us are conditioned to ignore our intuition. This is especially true when it comes to eating which is amazing since our intuition, our appetites, and our hunger are all connected.

The Intuitive Diet: Q & A

A Sound Bite of Insight

Eating connects with all of your appetites: a hunger for comfort, a craving for love, a passion to understand who you are, and a thirst to know how to protect your self and live the best quality of life. All of this is intuitive. Beyond eating, your intuition is always present and coordinates everything in your life as it’s happening.

My name is Jane Bernard. My 1st book, Fine Tuning, Connecting with Your Inner Power was written during a time when I felt nothing but emptiness and was searching for my passion. This is what happened: On the way to connect with my passion, I discovered my intuition. I also discovered a lot of amazing opportunities! By fine tuning my senses, I learned that individually they are amazing and that together they are my Life force. Fine Tuning is not an intellectual book, but it is full of truth. Joey Reynolds, the radio personality, says that every page has a “sound bite of insight”. (more at www.FineTuningBook.com)

You were born with 6 senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing, and your intuition. Your intuition, the 6th sense, is your inner drive that puts you on the path of possibility. It is the sum of your potential and it is always available. Your intuition connects your heart, mind, body, and soul. When your senses are set on automatic, often you will make choices that you later regret.

Every person has -at least once- suddenly intuitively jumped out of harms way. According to a study done by Dr. Jennifer Murphy at the Army Research Institute, as your intuition tallies cues, big and small, it sends out an alarm so you can react physically before understanding in your mind, before recognizing why. This means that you can count on your intuition as a clearing house where eating options crystallize and priorities are realized. Use your intuition to make eating choices that keep you on track. Fine tune your senses and start to feel the buzz.

Because I speak and write about connecting with your intuition, many people have asked: “Can I use my Intuition to lose weigh?” The answer is yes, and I decided to write about it, and this blog is a taste of what will be in The Intuitive Diet book.

Questions people ask:
-Does everyone have intuition?
Every living creature has intuition. It is your 6th sense and the most common way people refer to it is, “the survival instinct”. Your intuition connects you with what makes sense.

-Why do some people seem to have better intuition than others?
Some people trust their intuition more than others. For example, police, soldiers, nurses and artists all tend to rely on their intuition to know the truth.

-How can eating be intuitive?
After all, eating is part of your survival instinct. Nothing is more basic or more your intuitive than the will to live. Every animal has it.

-Does every animal have intuition?
No. Only people have intuition. However, every animal is born with strong instincts. All animals except us live by their instincts. Instinct is spontaneous. Human intuition is an internal guidance system that balances what you’re sensing with what you’re feeling and what you know from experience.

-What is the difference between instinct and intuition?
Instinct is a kind of clarity and intuition is a kind of focus. Instinct is a part of nature, so when you trust your nature you will tune into your instincts. Intuition is a coordinating and guidance system inside of you. It is through your instincts that you perceive your intuition. Intuition is a uniquely human wisdom.

-What about a “gut feeling?”
A gut feeling is usually an intuitive response. If you have a gut feeling you must determine whether it is your 6th sense protectively guiding you, or if it is guilt of some other emotion that is pushing your button.

-How do I know if it’s my intuition?
Intuition is never destructive. Your intuition will never guide you to do something destructive to your body. Just like your other 5 senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, your intuition will protect you or lead you to a pleasurable experience. If you think your ‘gut feeling’ is to eat a 2nd or 3rd huge slice of pie, or an entire box of cookies, or a whole quart of ice-cream, think again. Something else is pushing you to do things that hurt your body and ultimately your self image. Once you master the core tools for staying connected with your 6th sense, you won’t be confused by manipulative emotions.

-How can intuitive eating make me aware of portion control or healthy eating?
Because your intuition is the clearing-house for what you have experienced as well as what you feel and sense, portion control and eating what your body needs becomes natural.

-What is the best way to Fine Tune my senses?
Use them. For example: Use your eyes. Whether you look at what’s in front of you not, it will still be there. If you ignore what you’re seeing, you might trip, fall, or crash. Also if you cover your eyes, you are hiding from your self. Look at what is in front of you and you will create what you want. Decide to be brave.

The Intuitive Diet is a practical, natural approach to successfully achieve and maintain your healthy weight because it’s custom tailored. Reading this blog will help you recognize reliable intuitive choices about what to eat. You will learn to use your intuitive tools to overcome dilemmas about what, when, and how to eat to be your healthy weight.

To really get answers about weight control, I interviewed dieters and non-dieters and learned that people who are “naturally” their healthy weight have two important traits. I learned the secrets and I learned the tools that will keep you connected with your 6th sense.

Intuitive eating is effective, not abusive. It is not just about food, it’s about you. It is a way of self-respect. You will see your self, and eating, differently. You already have all of the answers, and I’m going to help you connect with what you know. Get ready to smile.

When you ignore your senses, you sabotage your happiness.

Connect with your body when you eat.

If you think about eating strictly in terms of calories and rigid diets, you are missing the point of eating which is to re-fuel your body so you can have the best quality of life possible. It is intuitive to respond to your body when you eat. Your body is clear about when you're hungry, what you're hungry for, and how you feel about what you eat.

Being in tune with your 5 senses keeps you in touch with subtle bodily feelings that you may currently be ignoring. Then your intuition connects what you sense, with your mind, and that is how you realize when a decision that might habitually seem perfectly natural and reasonable is not really focused on who you are or your hunger. Intuition balances and connects your senses, mind, and emotions, it constantly gives an update that is an empowering perspective. You perceive this as an insight.

The fact is nobody rules your hunger, or your body, but you, which is why it is good to connect with your body by listening to your senses. Trusting your inner voice frees you, from rules imposed by the experience of others, to create ways of eating based on your own life realities. It also frees you to adopt rules others have discovered that intuitively feel right for you. As you learn to recognize your intuition, you will have a different perspective about eating choices.

It is not always easy to know what we want to eat because often we are a slave to our desires. This morning I saw a TV commercial for a vegetable chopper. A great looking guy in his 20’s was really enjoying chopping onions while he said, “You will have an exciting Life with (product name).”  “You can chop your troubles away!”  “You will get skinny again, one slap/chop at a time.” The target of this commercial is our desire to live a great life. But the reality is, even if this is the best vegetable chopper ever invented, it won’t bring excitement into your life. If you are a slave to your desires, you will call that 800 number right now. If you listen to your intuition, you will laugh out loud at this charming and audacious commercial.

Fine tuning your senses helps you identify and change deep-seated patterns or habits in your diet decisions that prevent you from realizing your long term diet goals.

Ignoring what you see, hear, smell, taste, or see hurts your body. When you ignore your senses you are not in control of your appetites.

Ultimately, when you ignore what you want, by ignoring your senses, your body knows it and shows it. Remember the role of your senses is to give you pleasure and protection.  Protect your self.  Use your senses to connect with your body and you will recognize that you are in control of your choices.

Will really listening you your senses guarantee that you will lose weight?

No.  Paying attention to your senses is the beginning of recognizing your 6th sense. It's like opening the door. Intuitive eaters maintain their 6th sense connection by depending on intuitive eating tools. Once you master the tools, this diet is guaranteed.

Dr. Alan Hirsch, a neurologist, inventor of SENSA and Neurological Director of The Smell and Taste treatment  and Research Foundation in Chicago, has done remarkable studies on taste and weight loss and observed the profound effect your senses of taste and smell have on the amount of food you eat.  Dr. Hirsch discovered that patients who lost their sense of smell gained 10 to 30 pounds.  As a result he theorized that if the loss of smell leads to weight gain, that enhancing smell can promote weight loss.  And it does! Smell you food before you eat it and watch your habits change.

Wake up to your life potential!

When you respect your self, You protect your self

Intuitive eating is a commitment to respect your self.

Everything about your senses makes sense because your intuition connects what you sense with your brain and your heart.  As you fine tune and follow your intuition, you will discover that you see and understand your food options differently.

Your palm is both a connector and an enabler. The same is true of your intuition.  Your fingers work together because of your palm.  Just like your palm connects your fingers with your mind and heart,  your intuition provides communication between your five senses and connects this input to your body, mind, and heart. If you hurt your palm, it’s hard for your fingers to work together to catch a ball or hold a baby.   When you ignore your intuition, which is your 6^th sense, your other five senses cannot work to your fullest advantage. This leaves you physically, intellectually, and emotionally handicapped, and not realizing your natural potential.

The more you pay attention to you senses, the easier it will become to recognize signals from your body.  You will relate to your body differently. The result is you will know which foods work best for your needs and when your needs change.

Suppose you're in a restaurant and a plate of food is placed in front of you.  Visualize the body you are about to feed as your ideal body.  Before you pick up your fork, smell your food.  Next, look at it.  Now, what do you feel, and what do you think?  How hungry are you?  Is there too much food on the plate for your body to feel good?  Does your feeling make sense?  Maybe this is not the right meal!? Maybe it's exactly what you need..

Remember the role of all of your senses is to provide pleasure and protection. Making the connection between what you sense and what you think is a big step and the very beginning of recognizing your private source of self protection, your 6th sense, your intuition. This is exciting.

Respecting your senses by recognizing them and responding to what you see, hear, taste, touch, and smell is a way of respecting your self. Intuitive eating is a total immersion experience because it involves your senses, your body, your mind and your heart. Wanting to connect with your senses is the way to begin. Quietly you will open your mind as well as your heart to trust your self.  Making the choice that honors who you are gives a new perspective every time you have a meal.

Intuitive eating refreshes, recharges and renews your awareness of what you eat.  With the intuitive diet, eating only makes sense when your food feels good to your body, tastes fresh to your mouth, smells good, and look appetizing, is how you respect your self.    

The intuitive eating lifestyle includes making the commitment to give your self the chance to succeed. This is part of being true to your self.  A fact about human nature is that until we believe we are doing the right thing there is a chance we will draw back.  Don't take that chance.  Make a commitment to pay attention to what you notice.  You can ignore the facts but you cannot change them.

Lose weight without suffering with The Intuitive Diet.

Release stress around eating choices by using your intuition.

Americans have been struggling with diets and exercise to maintain a fashionable weight for over 50 years. It’s no secret that it’s not really working. With classic 20th century dieting, our emotions drive us. Often for dieters there is guilt, self-loathing, and stress around eating. 20th century dieting usually means suffering, restrictions and most likely only a temporary fix. Images in the media often distort our self-image, and this, too, hits us emotionally. The good news is: intuitive eating lets you end this cycle of emotion driven self-abuse that is often experienced as over-eating, or self-induced starving. Instead of trying to control your eating, The Intuitive Diet works with your body.

Diets are by definition, restrictive. Feeling restricted creates stress. Stress can create weight gain and prevent weight loss. Intuitive eating works physically, emotionally, and intellectually to create your natural weight because the focus is on feeling healthy, not restrictions or weight loss. It’s the weight to go. Instead of stress, you feel satisfied. As a result of using your intuitive tools, you will recognize what works and doesn’t work for you. You will discover your common sense, and in the process, you will achieve the weight that makes sense for your body and your lifestyle.

By fine tuning your senses, you will learn to recognize eating choices that feel good the next day . It’s as easy as deciding you’re ready to do it. “It takes as much stress to be a success as it does to be a failure.” Emilo James Trujillo

It’s time to change your relationship with food and eating. When you are driven to have a certain “look”, you push your self to eat or diet at a pace that ignores what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell. The result is you feel stressed and have dulled your senses. When the senses are ignored we make the wrong connections! You see a plate of brownies and eat on auto-pilot, or you sit in front of the TV and eat an entire bag of chips! Are you comforting your self or are you being hostile to your body? As you connect with your senses you will start to notice connections with your body.

Intuitive eating connects you with values that define a quality of life every one needs. It is understanding the way balanced eating feels and knowing when you’re satisfied. It puts you in touch with your body so that you really are in control of your eating. And there is no suffering.

Intuitive eating is being in control of your self, what you eat, and how it happens. As you connect with the satisfaction of intuitive eating, you will feel good. Your relationship with food will change. You will feel good about your self. People who are ‘naturally’ slim have two powerful traits. First, they trust their intuition about what to eat. Second, they have core tools that keep them on track, which are always accessible. In fact, we can all do this. Everyone can connect with their intuitive tools, and learn to use and depend on them. With practice, it gets easy.

What is intuition?
Intuition is your 6th sense. It is your internal guidance system. Intuition is like your sense of hearing, a passive way of receiving. It is like your eyes and can be focused. It is like taste and smell, because you can savor and develop it. And intuition is like touch because it can comfort, or shock you. In fact, your intuition is how your five basic senses interact. You can always access your intuition. Pleasure and protection are the supreme gifts of our senses. When our senses are finely tuned, so are we!

How do I do it?
Begin to eat intuitively by simply renewing appreciation of your five basic senses- taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound. You will discover it is refreshing. Doing this will make a drinking a cup of coffee, eating a fresh peach, or walking through the supermarket, a brand new experience. This is the attitude of embracing your intuition. Start today. It is said that those who gain experience while retaining a beginner’s state of mind become long-term survivors. The benefit of intuitive eating is a long-term reality.


You will start to release your stress when you pay attention to your senses.
As you do this you’ll notice your own energy flow. That’s because our senses are how we receive and share energy. Listen carefully, and you will discover that you have insights about your hunger and your appetites. Use your eyes and you will recognize things that you thought you missed and you will feel literally, more awake. Energy is a subtle as breathing or as obvious as running a mile. Peace of mind, the body you want, and enjoying meals is at hand.

Children notice every thing. They are open to what they’re seeing hearing tasting and smelling. Adults tend to sleep walk through their sensory experiences – except for extreme pain or extreme pleasure. Your senses are all about different kinds of personal pleasures. Discover the energy and pleasures of your senses by being more childlike. It’s a very cool way to release stress.

As you learn to use and depend on your intuitive tools, and you will be able to recognize and handle hunger, frustration, stress, temptation, and satisfaction, around eating, so that you look and feel good. Connect with your senses and enjoy it. It's time to stop suffering and to start enjoying eating. Doing this, you will connect with your self intuitively, eat what makes sense and feel liberated.

Welcome to 21st century eating.

Namaste.