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.

The 3 Minute Rule

Sometime an unhealthy food craving can be nearly overpowering. Overcoming it happens when you use the 3 minute rule. You will discover that ignoring the feeling by really focusing on being patient and kind with yourself for 3 full minutes totally puts you in power.

Take control of what's eating you by using the 3 minutes rule to get through difficult emotional moments and challenging personal situations. It's called "Doing the Intuitive Pause".
         
            1. Stop yourself from being mentally manipulated.
            Ignore the craving by focusing on being kind and patient with yourself for 3 minutes. Tune in to your body's needs and your state of mind. It's intuitive to respect your body by remembering your physical priorities.

            2. Notice your attitude towards yourself.
            Don't compromise who you are because you're angry, frustrated, lonely, stressed or bored. Instead, find something besides food to make you feel better.

            3. Use all of your senses to notice what's triggering your appetite.
            This includes using common sense to notice what's impacting you outside of your body. Common sense is the intuitive way of being alert.

            4. Decide how you will feel about yourself if you eat what you're craving. If you won't be happy with yourself an hour later, it's not physical hunger.
         
            5. If you recognize the food craving is from your body, then enjoy eating it by noticing how satisfied your body feels while you're eating. It's intuitive to enjoy eating. In fact, you get 70% more nutrition from food when you enjoy it!

Being patient: gives you the opportunity to be clear about your values. 

Being kind: means you're allowed to do what feels healthiest long term for you.

Intuitive eating puts you in control because you make the rules. 

Your really do know what's right for you.

Since your survival instinct won't let you starve and your metabolism rate works with your body and genetics are real, dieting can only be a temporary fix. The way to achieve long term body health success is to take control of your eating by trusting your intuition.  

3 minutes can change everything

Give yourself 3 minutes and take control of your eating.

Then move on with healthy eating and trash the craving.

Your intuition connects the dots in your Life so you stay connected to what matters in the big picture.

As you take action by eating intuitively, there is no more overeating and you lose weight for good. 

Your relationship food and with your body will never be the same. 

Tips for Intuitive eating:

Start today by eating only when you are physically hungry.
Use your senses to notice what's triggering your appetite.
Decide if you will feel good about yourself afterward - before you eat.
If you feel yourself craving what you will later regret- use the 3 minute rule.

The purpose of eating is to create the foundation for the rest of your Life.
Don't deprive yourself.
Eat for long term strength, health, and contentment.
And be sure to taste and enjoy what you eat.

:)