Complaints

Is your body complaining?
Your body doesn't play games with you. It is merely a vehicle you use to maneuver through your day and your Life. But the body does complain. We experience complaints as tension, high blood pressure, discomfort, exhaustion, and a general sense of dissatisfaction.

Being nagged physically or emotionally is unpleasant and tiring. Sometimes you experience this as cravings. When emotional demands override the physical needs of your body, the complaining starts. ouch. Balance physical needs with nagging distractions that push your emotional button by depending on experience and intuitive common sense. I promise, you absolutely have the answers.

When you are around food, take a deep breath, and choose to Think Clearly.

Listen to your body by paying attention to your 6 senses: to what you see, taste, touch, smell, feel, and know in your heart, and mind.  

Small decisions  you make every day create the big picture of your Life.

Are the messages getting through at meal time that you're stuffed? or that the food is not what will fill you up because it's not what your body is craving. The message is: Pay Attention to your body with your 6 senses. You don't need the complaining.

Suggestions for a happy body:
When you're craving something sweet here's a satisfying alternative to junk food.

• Keep unsweetened frozen blueberries, strawberries, blackberries or raspberries in the freezer for sweet noshing. Berries taste good, and have anti-oxidants, and fiber. Anti-oxidants are good for fighting the effects of air pollution, and fiber keeps you regular. 
• You can also buy unsweetened frozen cantaloupes or mangoes to have on hand. 
• I like to freeze seedless grapes for a cool snack.

Frozen fruits can be mixed in the blender with ice cubes, milk, unsweetened juice, or yogurt for a fruit smoothie. In the morning, have a smoothie and a handful of walnuts and almonds for a quick, healthy, and power packed breakfast.

A kitchen timer can help you change your habit of eating too fast.
Set it for 30 minutes when you sit down to eat, then eat slowly so that your last bite coincides with the ding. This will allow for fullness signals to make it from your stomach to your brain. Also this will allow for more efficient digestion, because eating slowly is eating more relaxed.

Your body won't complain!

Life is a gift and Intuition a S.O.R.

Loneliness is often the reason we eat when we’re not hungry. Food, in our busy and complex times, can be easier to get then human contact. Sometimes you may eat food because you are hungry for a human link. Remember intuition is your ultimate connector. It balances what you sense with what you know and what you feel, to give you the clear “right” choice. Let your intuition guide your eating choices.

Your 6 senses work with your body so that you can be clear about what you are hungry for. Your intuition will help you recognize: if you're hungry for company, or if you need to eat.  Eating what you don’t need, or want, is a sure way to gain weight.

Polishing your senses will help you recognize what to eat that makes sense for your body and to be your healthy weight. It will also help you recognize where your appetite is coming from. Importantly, fine tuning your senses opens up choices that are empowering in every area of your being.

Life is a gift. The dictionary defines a gift as “natural talent”. Fine tuning your senses nourishes your natural talents of seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting and touching, and opens opportunity throughout your Life by connecting you with your present.

Stress in our lives dulls our senses. Before you eat, choose to reconnect with the present and connect with your 6 senses. Use your intuitive breathing-  3 deep breaths in and 3 deep breaths out. Open your eyes, use your ears, listen to your heart, and respect your experience. 3 breaths in and 3 breathes out before the first bite.

When our senses are dulled we make the wrong connections.

Fine tuning your 5 senses connects with your intuition, and you strengthen positive links in your life.  Try it.

You will find clarity, and a sense of relief.

Connect with Pleasure

Eating is a way to connect with pleasure in your life. Of course you eat to survive, but the gifts of your senses also encourage and allow you to enjoy the tease of colors, sights, smells, textures, and tastes. That’s one reason why it’s nice to eat slowly and in an environment where you are physically comfortable. Why not enjoy the tease?

As you fine tune your five physical senses, taste, smell, touch, hearing, and sight, you are tuning in to your sixth sense, your intuition.

Your intuition gives you the distinct pleasure of knowing your self.

Connecting with your intuition happens naturally because, in fact, all of your senses are always working together. Being aware of this, keeps you clear about what matters to you when you eat. This is comforting and reassuring, and a form of being in control. Being in control means you are clear about what you are doing when you are eating. If you sit down to eat confused, or ignore what you are sensing, then misunderstanding happens, and the result is overeating, or eating for the wrong reasons, or eating what makes you feel physically or emotionally bad about yourself. This is the opposite of pleasure.

Do you know that expression: Wake up and smell the roses.”?  The point is that there are flowers blooming in your life all of the time- even while you’re asleep, or eating. The other point is that your nose enables you to enjoy their sweet scent. Have you ever walked in a room and smelled cookies baking, or someone’s perfume? Your sense a smell is a tool to use when you chose what to eat.

Each sense serves as a pleasure center.

Your eyes tantalize by revealing beauty and potential.

Your ears bring words and songs to encourage, lift and entertain.

Your sense of touch is the key some of your most tender and most erotic sensations.

Taste and smell work together as a constant source of satisfaction.

Your intuition pulls it altogether.

Trust and respect your senses. As you recognize your senses working in unison, you will receive the most satisfaction of your life. Satisfaction is the foundation of pleasure. When you sit down to eat, think of the pleasures in front of you.

Eat less, chew more, and let yourself enjoy the tease.

All About You

You are very special.

As you use your intuition, you will become aware of how special you are. The ten tools of intuitive eating are your private source of reinforcement to achieve your eating goals. Each intuitive tool is custom designed for you.

Face it, eating is an intimate act. You are putting stuff into your body. The food you eat impacts the way you look, duh!, and also the way you feel and the way you will feel when you wake up tomorrow. Eating and appetites are personal. Am I Really Hungry, 6th sense diet: Intuitive Eating shows you how know yourself better and to enjoy it all.

Your intuition is like your fingerprints and your DNA. No two people have the same fingerprints, or the same DNA. Every person’s intuition is completely unique. Your intuitive diet is a response to who you are, what you want, what you know, what you feel, and to your dreams.

That’s right, your 6th sense connects with your dreams as deeply as it connects with your senses of seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smell. As you become an intuitive eater, many emotional buttons around eating fade away. You will begin to eat to enjoy food. When you eat to feel good, you do. Importantly, you feel good about your self.

Today, take time when you eat to look at what's on your plate. If you're feeling fat, remove 1/2 of it and then slowly eat what is left. Use your senses when you eat- taking time to see what you are eating, to taste, smell it and to feel what your are eating, will be surprisingly satisfying.

Using your intuition puts you in control of your body and your decisions. Intuitive eating is all about you.

Eat Cake

Yep, you read that right.  Hey, say there is something to celebrate and you want to eat cake.  Well, as an intuitive eater, that works.  Intuitive eating is not about denying yourself. It's about enjoying what you eat for the best quality of life. Oh, I can see you rolling your eyes in dis-belief, and I get it.  How can you eat cake and lose weight.  The answer is: with dignity.  

What does dignity have to do with eating cake? Well, everything. Dignity is a kind of self-respect and that is connected with your 6^th sense.  All of your senses give your pleasure and protection. Your 6^th sense, which is your intuition, has the job of balancing messages from your 5 senses: taste, touch, smell, hearing, and seeing with what you have learned from experience. But that is not all intuition does. Your intuition also responds to your emotions. When it comes to celebrating and eating cake, emotions are big.

Ah, cake- that is a pleasure.  I love to eat cupcakes, partially because they are already cut to size and this saves me from being tempted to ignore my common sense and over eat. Over eating is not a pleasure.  It not only makes my body feel bad, but ultimately I don't feel good about my self when I overeat. Intuition is connected with common sense.

Common sense is part of your intuition because it keeps you in touch with what is real.  If you think you don’t have the common sense that other people have, think again.  When it comes to eating, common sense is connected with your other 5 senses and your body. When you eat, connecting with your senses and your body keeps you clear  about what you are doing (eating) and how you feel about it (stuffed).  Try fine tuning your senses when you eat to help connect you with your common sense.

This is my story. My friend, Emma had a birthday party complete with a cake. After we sang “Happy Birthday”, delicious over-sized pieces of red-velvet cake with vanilla butter cream icing  were served all around the table. An unnaturally large piece was placed in front of me. As soon as I looked at it my mouth was watering. Red velvet is a kind of chocolate with a reddish hue, red is the color of excitement, and I was very excited to get this treat. Connecting with my eyes, I could see it was moist and then the smell of it hit me like a sweet kiss.  I really wanted this cake.

I know my intuition connects my body with my senses and my mind, so briefly I checked in with my stomach. And then I realized, I had just eaten a big dinner, and worse, that I wasn’t really very hungry.  I still wanted the cake.

I looked around the table and all of my friends were deep in to their cake. Plus, the person next to me, who btw was a slim lady, said that it tasted really good. Of course, I thought, just my luck, I’m watching my weight and get this. I needed to connect with my common sense.  I continued fine tuning my senses. I looked at my piece again and it was seductive.

Well I already knew how this cake looked and smelled.  So for taste, I discretely stuck my finger in the soft icing and then I licked my finger. Rolling it around on my tongue, I recognized sweet, delicious, and full of butter. Suddenly the man sitting opposite me burped, not loud, but I heard him and our eyes met.  Sheepishly, he said to me.  “I guess I ate it a little fast.” And yes, his whole slice of decadent red velvet cake was gone. This surprised me because I was still checking out my piece of cake. I realized that by checking out the cake I was doing "the intuitive pause".  It was giving me time to connect with my common sense. Meanwhile, my 5 senses were telling me that this cake is yes, a definite treat. 

My stomach was quiet. Obviously, my dinner had satisfied my hunger, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to eat the cake. I love cake and I wanted to celebrate.

As an intuitive eater, I’m committed to being true to myself.  That means that I have to respect my emotions as well as my body and my experience.  Sounds easy but because it’s not automatic, I work at it. My intuition was saying that my stomach would rebel if I ate the whole thing, but that my heart would resent it if I didn’t eat cake. My 5 senses were in complete agreement with eating the cake.

I looked at the cake again and took my knife and cut the piece in half.  I reached across the table and picked up my burping friend's empty plate and put half of my piece on it. He said, thinking I was doing him a favor, “Are you sure?”  And I said, knowing I was protecting my self from over indulging, “Yes, absolutely.” And we exchanged smiles.

           

I felt better immediately. I knew that I would be having this cake and that I would love the taste and texture and that it would make me happy. Following my commitment to using my senses, I ate the cake slowly, smelling the sweet kiss and really tasting, and enjoying it completely. 

I visualized my ideal body as I ate. That, is the body I protected, and that is the body I fed the delicious cake to.  I was happy afterward because I realized I had not over-eaten, but I had had my red velvet cake. My body was not uncomfortable and I was proud of my self.  I had eaten with dignity.

The next time you’re celebrating, eat cake.  Eat with common sense.  Let your 5 senses guide you and remember to pay attention to your body.  Protecting your self is done by respecting your self.  Eat cake and do it with dignity.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Mahatma Ghandi