Power Eating

Intuitive Eating is Power Eating

Hunger is a physical reality. Binging is an emotional trap. Fighting emotional traps is intuitive. It's liberating. When we make an intuitive choice, it feels 'right' and that is reassuring. Powerful intuitive tools free us from emotional eating.

Emotional eating or binging happens when we feel bad or sorry for ourselves. Even though the media would have us think differently, food is not a band-aid. It cannot mend a broken heart or make a mean person nice. Reality is that Life can be painful, unfair and hard. Responding to pain by eating more changes nothing; instead, we feel worse.

Anyone who has eaten food for emotional support knows the result is disappointment. Emotional eating is a trap. The only way out is to fight it.

When emotions guide food choices, we're going to gain weight. Intuition bypasses emotions. That's why we can feel deeply emotional around food and 'know' we're wrong to eat it. Using intuitive tools like determination, courage and dignity is surprisingly reassuring. It's power eating.

Here are 3 questions to ask yourself to know if a choice is 'right'.

• Does eating this leave me feeling physically comfortable, satisfied and healthy?
• If the answer is yes, then focus on comfort, satisfaction and health while you eat. 
• You will feel when you're had enough. This is feeling your mind working with your body. 
• Intuition balances what we want with what we know and what we feel. Power eating is listening to our intuition.
• Why am I eating this? 
• Being honest with yourself is the beginning of trusting your intuition. 
• The fact is, intuition is always protective. Trust it.
• Feel dignity in your heart and listen to that feeling.
•  If you're eating to satisfy emotions, stop. Decide to take control by being courageous. 
• You are stronger than anger or disappointment. You are stronger than sadness. 
• It's powerful to take control of self-defeating emotions, but it's not hard. Things that are wrong, crumble easily.
• Give yourself a smile of determination. Go for a short walk to cool off. Re-set your perspective. The only reason to eat is because you're hungry.
• What do I really want? 
• You want to fight it. No one wants to be a slave to emotions. Eating, weight maintenance, diet, work, family, responsibilities - all of these weigh on us 24/7. We need help to be strong. We don't have a lot of time to cook. Write down what you really want and put the piece of paper where you can look at it any time.
  • Adopt an attitude of determination and stick with it. Get what you want. Comfort, satisfaction and health create quality of life. Eat less, chew more. Attitude is powerful.
• FitsMe is a Web app that helps you find meals and create plans that fit your diet. Tell the site your food restrictions, likes, and dislikes and it serves up recipes to satiate even your pickiest preferences. It can save time and help you plan. 

Use attitude. Remember to focus on comfort, satisfaction, and health when you eat. Use the power of natural courage to zap fear and over come doubts. Use determination and self-respect to follow through with what feels 'right' and use attitude. Be dignified when you eat. It's intuitive power.

"Anything is possible if you've got enough nerve." JK Rowlings

#janebernard

4 steps to ideal weight

If you were your "ideal" weight today, how would your life be different?

This is a trick question. "Ideal" is a direct connection with our state of mind!   

Do heavy thoughts make us physically heavy? Heavy thoughts distort priorities so that we don't make good decisions. When our emotions control thinking, the result is self-sabotage. Next comes exhausting cycles of gaining  and losing weight. Can we think ourselves slim? It helps to imagine ourselves an ideal weight- but only if we stay real. 

1. Be flexible about food choices.

•  Healthy eating is a physical response to hunger. Habits are NOT the secret of healthy eating. Variety is. If you are in the habit of eating cut-up fruit with cottage cheese for lunch every day, this may not be healthy. Our bodies are always tearing down and rebuilding. Skin is often a mirror of what's happening inside.The way to know if an eating habit is a rut and not ideal, is to notice how you look and feel an hour after the meal. If you start to get hungry and look stressed - your habit is a rut. When a meal is 'healthy', our body is satisfied for hours! Healthy eating happens when we stay in tune with our body.

2. Don't force yourself to identify with an image that is not you.

• Being Physically Active is a signal of physical health. When we are stationary for long periods of time, our internal signals get confused. The body is an amazing machine that works best when it's recharged by simple physical activity, like walking. You may discover, if you want a snack between meals, that a walk around the block 'kills' your craving. Instead of grabbing something to eat to calm an odd feeling in your stomach, take a walk to help your system make connections you need internally for more efficient calorie burning and digestion. 

3. Respect your courage to trust your body.

• A Good Appetite is a sign of good health. Often, a good appetite is satisfied by less than we consume. The trick is to eat what we need, not what is easy or looks prettiest. Think about it. Protein is the most satisfying food we can eat. Many dieters are protein deficient, making them crave sugar for instant energy - that then, brings them down hard. For ideal weight, eat protein first at mealtime. Then enjoy greens and carbs. If you want to lose weight, skip carbs or just eat a half portion.  
• Chew more, eat less. Close your mouth when you chew. People who talk with food in their mouths are rarely an ideal weight. Put down the food, spoon or fork, when you talk. This way, talking more at mealtime means eating less.

4. Be Thankful for every meal. A lot of people we see, go through their days hungry. Appreciation of what we have balances our perspective. Gratitude builds self-confidence.

• State of Mind is the lens we live through. Ideal weight is personal. Be kind to yourself. Choose to be healthy, active and smart about eating choices, and you will have a positive state of mind. Don't buy-in to dogma or media hype. Beauty begins in the heart and comes through our eyes. Love yourself with kindness. This makes you receptive to your ideal weight,  patience, self-control and variety. Life is beautiful.

Give yourself every chance to be your ideal weight. Every body is a unique shape. Ideal means: Healthy, Physically Active, Good Appetite and Positive State of Mind. If you believe Life will be better if your weight is 'ideal', tune-in to determination and it will happen. 

An easy way to fine-tune your senses is: Fine Tuning Connecting with Your Inner Power. 

#janebernard

Falling Off The Wagon

Falling off the wagon hurts. Any kind of fall hurts. The first response we need is comfort, not anger. Start with kindness.

"People don't come pre-assembled, but are glued together by life." ~ Joseph Le Doux

Life is full of surprises and curve balls. Everyone falls off the wagon. It's not about losing control; falling off the wagon is hitting a bump in the road. There are no smooth rides in anyone's life. A helpful way to handle bumps in the road is to have a plan.

 Here are some options:

• If you have a friend who also is working on her weight management, arrange a code word like: "PANIC" and the next time you hit a bump, call her. Together, the two of you practice breathing to connect with personal dignity and physical purpose, for 5 slow breaths in and 5 slow breaths out. Then, tell each other how you're feeling. Talking with a caring friend is more satisfying than the loneliness of binging. 

• If you're alone, leave the room and leave the issue inside. If possible, go outside and notice the amazing signs of life around you - plants, animals, people, sunlight, the wind.  Breathe slowly in and out 5 times to connect with your inner dignity and courage. Yes, it takes courage to fight against what hurts. Decide a way you feel comfortable dealing with the problem, and then respect your choice. The main point is not to hurt yourself.

• If someone close to you is creating stress that pushes you to hide by eating, you need to find a new hiding place. There are always options. Eating a gallon of ice cream while hiding in your room or your car may seem like a solution, but you already know it's self defeating, and the only person being punished is you. Life is not fair but you can still be fair with yourself. Stay real. One day at a time is all you can ask of yourself.

It doesn't matter why or how we fall off the wagon. It matters that we face the truth, forgive ourselves with kindness, reflect on why this happened, and hop back on with renewed dignity and fresh determination to reach our destination physique. The only time we fail is when we give up. Starting fresh is personal power. 

Stay in touch with momentum in your life.Take a tip from nature. No matter how dark the night is, day arrives. After winter, comes spring. The weather will be horrible one day and nice 24 hours later. Allow yourself to experience your truth and then remember that you have dignity, courage and determination. Ultimately, if you don't know what to do when you hit a bump in the road, start with being kind to yourself. The rest is easy.

Am I Really Hungry? 6th Sense Diet : Intuitive Eating can help you recognize underlying emotional bumps in the road and steer around them. Life is created by our choices and our habits. Our responsibility is to ourselves. No one makes us do anything. Take control of challenges by knowing yourself better. Be honest with yourself and the road will get smoother. Guaranteed! 

#janebernard

What do you notice?

Do you notice what matters to you? When you do, Life gets easier, better and often sexier.

Intuition takes what we notice with our senses and kicks it up a notch, making things clearer.  Tuning-in to what we sense when we eat is as simple as opening our eyes.

When we notice what we see, hear and feel, we take control of our choices. Only you know what feels best inside your body. Only you know how you feel when you sit down to eat. Notice what you notice. It's liberating.

• Shaking up eating routines makes it easier to notice messages from our body. 
• Now that it's spring, why not make lunch your main meal and have a light dinner? 
• Try eating ethnic food once a week to wake up your palate. The more we taste at mealtime, the more efficient and healthier our digestion!

• Don't eat because it's "time to eat". 
• The only time to eat is when your body needs fuel.

Eating out of habit is a silly way to put on weight. Eating when you're hungry is how to stay in sync with your metabolism.

• Make the choice to take control of your eating by noticing how you feel.  
• Connect with your senses to be sure about what you really want.

It doesn't make sense to plan what we're going to eat in advance. A lot can happen in our lives in a few minutes that changes everything. We can't really know what we'll feel like eating in 6 hours. Even when we cook for a family, there are times to be flexible. Notice what's going on that changes your appetite and eat accordingly.

Intuition is our 6th sense. Like seeing, hearing, taste, touch and smell, intuition is a total reflection of what's happening right now. The job of intuition is to protect our choices so that we honor our body, heart and being. We often experience our 6th sense as a gentle, persistent urge. It's easy to ignore, just like it's easy to ignore what we see and hear.

Make a commitment to yourself to notice what you notice, and see what happens.
It's not expensive or time consuming to be in sync with yourself.  In fact, it feels good.

Trust your intuition when you connect with your body at mealtime. Don't rush yourself. Notice what matters to you.

Eat when you're hungry. Stop when you're not.

You'll feel good about it. 

#janebernard