Get Sensual.

Intuitive eating includes being aware of sensations like hunger and fullness. It is intuitive to use your mind to notice how your body feels. 

Recognize how your body feels by using your 5 senses: taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing. 

Being sensual keeps you in touch with what matters. 

Your 5 senses tune you in to your body and the intuitive tools guide you to re-connect with self control around eating.  (http://www.IntuEating.com)

How the senses work:  

>The job of your senses is to give you pleasure and protection.

>When you use your senses, you are giving yourself every advantage they offer. 

>When you take them for granted, you ignore them and miss opportunities to protect yourself from  over eating.

You will discover that using your eyes when you eat keeps you more tuned in to how much you're eating.  Being aware of tastes, textures, smells and at the same time of being aware of how your body feels keeps you clearer about eating choices. It's the natural mind/body connection of your intuition. 

Be sensual. Changing from the habit of ignoring your senses to noticing what you notice will help you shed pounds. When you connect with your intuition, and use your 5 senses, you connect with your body.

Using your senses- sight, taste, touch, smell, hearing and your intuition 

complete the mind/body connection you need to make choices that protect you and

keep you eating healthy.

As you use your senses, start trusting what you notice to make your eating choices.
You know what you want for yourself.
You have learned from experience portions that feel good to your body.

Connecting with your body when you eat is a way of respecting yourself. It's the way to give yourself the chance you deserve to be healthy and happy. 

Intuitive eating is how to be clear about what's important for you. It is making eating choices that make sense and  feel good to you emotionally and physically. The only way to predict your future is to create it. By eating intuitively you create the body you want.

Eating Habits

At a party last night, someone told me he thought eating three times a day- even if you’re not hungry- was normal. It’s not. Eating if you’re not hungry is how to gain weight fast. Eating for satisfaction is intuitive. Your intuition guides you to satisfy hunger and keep your body fortified. When eating becomes a habit, it’s time to wake up.

Your intuition always leads to your best interests. That doesn’t mean it’s easy because none of us are brought up being told to trust our intuition. So to be an intuitive eater, we have to change our habit of ignoring ‘that little voice’.

Ignoring messages from your body and censoring that little voice means being out of touch with your self. The result is you take your self for granted. Ouch. Being taken for granted feels bad.

Eating habits are like sleep-walking because habits are unconscious. Habits leave you in the dark. Some eating habits are emotion driven, and so do take time and effort to recognize. Emotions that create doubt are habits that stop you from achieving your eating goals. Emotional habits can feel like boredom, anger,or depression. As you fine tune your six senses, you won't be prey to these culprits.

Eating when you’re not hungry is clearly not in your best interests. Eating has to be an honest response to your body to nurture you. When you eat what feels good to your body, and satisfies your desire for physical pleasure (taste), and emotional need (comfort and self-respect), you will not eat what you don’t want, and you will not eat when you’re not hungry.

Eating out of habit is the opposite of being a sensuous eater. Why not skip a meal now and then and use that break in habit to wake up your ability to recognize what your body is really hungry for.

Then, eat for satisfaction.

Change your body?

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it.” Carl Jung

Last night I had dinner with a woman who told me that she had tried to love her body, but she could not. She had been told to love her body to lose weight, and this put a lot of pressure on her. Ouch. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to love her body to lose weight, but she does have to stop fighting with it. The first step toward change is acceptance. Acceptance means you will work with your body to achieve your weight goals. When you accept your body, you trust your self. It is not automatically easy, and it takes courage.

The result of not trusting your self is, you lose self-respect. Then, you feel cowardly. Then, you get mad at your self, and act in a self-destructive way. You may eat mechanically, out of anger, frustration, or boredom. Then, eating is not about physical hunger or appetite, it’s not a response to your senses, it’s a self-destructive habit. Self destructive behavior is an example of fighting with your body.

Does this mean you have to love your body no matter what you see in the mirror? Absolutely not. When you use your eyes and look at your body in the mirror and it looks out of shape, it doesn’t feel good. When you accept your body, then you are free to choose to do what feels right to change it. Instead of fighting with your self by condemning your body, you can decide to work with your self, to pay attention to how your body feels, what messages you are getting from your six senses, and what you know, to achieve a healthier body.

When you don’t accept your self, you are creating stress inside. When you don’t like your body, you are condemning yourself. You are creating hostility inside that will bug you and press your buttons every time you look in the mirror. The result is- you will unintentionally, punish your self by self-destructive eating.

Change won't happen over night or even in a week.  What will change overnight is your attitude.  Once you stop fighting with your body, you won't look at food the same way. Instead of resenting your body, you will work with it, doing what you know and feel is good.  In fact you will be using your intuition, and your body will respond.  That's a guarantee.

When things are not ideal, it is not easy to face them. But it’s a fact that not dealing with reality will not change it! Instead it’s helpful to realize that the present is the foundation for the future, and that accepting what is real means you can change it.

Download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating 

for practical advice, and you will change your body! 

Guts, Balls, Nerve.. The Intuitive Diet

Guts, balls, nerve, boldness, confidence, all signal courage. These are inside you, and connect with your 6th sense and your intuitive diet.

Until you fine tune  and respect your senses, 

the simplest things like eating for health and energy seem like the hardest.  

Until you smell your food, you will not taste it. 

Until you see what’s on your plate, you will eat anything. 

Until you can feel your stomach, you won’t know if you are hungry or not. 

All of this is simple. But to change bad habits is not easy. 

Being true to your self- while obviously a most valuable and awesome habit, takes courage.

Courage is a big word that we throw around. We are not in the habit of thinking about courage when we think about our self, so I will talk about it a lot, because it’s a lot to swallow. Courage is an energy you are born with. But when you focus on negative thoughts around eating, you are in the habit of ignoring your courage. This is self-sabotage.

What is courage?
Courage is the choice to eat what you intuitively feel is right, despite what others say. It’s something that you use to be true to your whole self as an intuitive eater.  It takes courage to trust your self.

Why?
Because it's a kind of boldness. When you trust your self, you have the courage to think about how your body feels, what you are sensing, and what you know in your heart - before you make an eating decision.  

It takes courage to think about eating intuitively. So please realize- you are being bold as you read this. You are already connecting with your intuition, and it feels good to connect with what feels right.

The magic thing about courage is that it opens doors. It opens doors to your dreams. Turn the knob, and trust your courage. Walk through the door and you will wonder why it was so hard. That’s life, isn’t it – full of surprise and wonder.

The first step of using courage, with your self as an intuitive eater, is to be willing to receive the messages from your 6 senses, and to be alert to what you feel in your body. Try it.

Eat with insight and courage. Learn about what works best for your body. Keto Food Chart
Read: I am Really Hungry, Body, Mind, Soul Food: Intuitive Eating

#janebernard

Self Sabotage

Not using your 6 senses is a form of self sabotage. It's leaving yourself in the desert of Life without water. Notice what you sense to know what you need.

Intuitive thinking is a way of being tuned into yourself and the bigger picture. Your 6 senses keep you in touch with your body, heart, mind and soul. Don't sabotage a great meal or miss a Life opportunity by ignoring what you sense.

When you chose to live intuitively, you are making the choice to be clear about what you are eating.  Intuitive tools with your five senses give you skills to do this. Your sixth sense balances messages from your body about hunger with what your senses reveal about your eating choice at the instant you begin a meal.

The habit of not using your senses while judging what you eat, is a form of self- sabotage. This habit is like wearing blinders and earplugs when you go to an event - You really can’t know what’s happening. Passing judgment while you eat is listening to negative thoughts about the past or the future that have no connection with your meal at all. Certainly you are not connecting with your food or enjoying eating.

When we don’t use our senses, we perceive what we’re doing incorrectly. How can you know what you’re eating when you don’t look at your meal, taste it, smell it, or feel it enter your body? Eating is supposed to be sensual. It is intuitive to relax and enjoy your food with your senses. Try it and you will find a smile on your face.

Decide to let go of negative thoughts in your head when you eat. The past is history. Allow yourself to be present. The way to do this is to chose to respect and trust your self and commit to using your senses to enjoy your food. Remember: To respect your self is to protect your self.

Spring is in the air. True love is a combination of trust and honor. Spring is a perfect time to fall in love with your self. Really trust your heart, body, mind, and six senses to protect you and let that love honor who you are when you eat.

#JaneBernard

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.