Everybody has intuition. Learning to sense it will slowly release stress from your eating routine and your life. You'll feel different because you'll look at Life differently. Notice what you sense. Your attitude towards values and yourself will change for the better. I know this from experience.
Intuitive thinking is the natural way of being tuned to yourself and the bigger picture. It's keeping all of your needs in focus.
Use all 6 senses to stay 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.
Intuition and eating are both our survival instinct. Intuitive eating is common sense. Be clear about what you eat. This mental choice fine tunes your life by informing every choice you make.
It's easy to use intuitive tools and your 5 senses to do this. Your 6th sense balances messages from your body about hunger and priorities with what your 5 senses reveal about your eating choice at the instant you begin a meal. It's clear.
Not using all 6 senses is leaving yourself in the desert of Life without water. Notice what you sense to know what you need.
When we don’t use our senses, we don't know our selves. 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.
It's self-defeating to judge yourself and ignore what you see, hear, taste, touch and smell. It's like wearing blinders and earplugs to an event - You really can’t know what’s happening. Passing judgment while you eat sabotages digestion, pleaasure and quality of Life. Negative thoughts about the past or future have no connection with your meal at all. Noticing how your body feels or enjoying eating is intuitive. Intuitive living turns the tease of temptation into opportunity.
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 yourself and commit to using your senses to enjoy your food. Be kind to yourself and good things happen..
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.
The way to say No in an environment where there is a lot of tempting food is to tune-in with your senses. Notice what you notice. Don't let food choices push any emotional buttons. Open a channel of honesty between your desires and your needs by staying in touch with how your body feels. Use the intuitive tool called patience to stay in touch with your goals.
Patience comes with surprises, so don't worry about the unexpected. You will discover that patience is an emotional stress buster that makes it easy to say No to fattening foods and the pressure to eat. Being patient is how to give yourself inner permission to be flexible and avoid abusive eating.
Use these three types of patience to take control of eating choices.
GIVE YOURSELF CREDIT! Be patient with yourself to stop self-defeating habits. Taking a pause before digging in will get you surprise admiration from others and results you want.
This means, before you commit to a meal, check in with self-respect. Notice if you feel dignified. Notice if you're really hungry.
Look at the food on your plate. Do you like
the picture? Are being honest with yourself about what feels right?
IGNORE THE CLOCK.Patience with timing is not about waiting. It's about doing what you need to do
to get where you want to go. Your body is on its own internal clock. If everyone else is filling up but you don't need to eat, then just say No to uncomfortable food choices.
Rushing when you eat cancels natural digestion in your mouth and is an automatic way to eat more than you need.
Patience with timing allows events and people to catch up
with your inner drive. There are no shortcuts to quality.
Good timing, when it comes to eating, means taking time to make it good for you.
TURN OFF SOCIAL PRESSURE. Patience with others has limits. Self-respect is the first instinct of intuitive thinking. Patience with others means acknowledging differences and maintaining your boundaries.
If someone is
pushing your button and disrespectful, sometimes it's best to just say Thank
you and Good-bye. What you eat is personal. Being polite and at the same time respecting yourself, is being patient.
If you are attending a buffet, carry a plate of radishes, pickles or celery around. Say No to carrying around temptation.
No and yes are equally important for staying in tune with your personal power. Take control by saying No to what doesn't feel right.
Think less, sense more. Take control by flexing your self-respect muscle. Take time to be true to you. In time, this will bring you just what you need to stay in control.
Temptation is an experience we may enjoy, but in the case of overeating, it's something we fear.
Temptation is best managed with tenacity. Tenacity is making a commitment to be true to yourself when you eat. This will require making an effort. Decide that you are worth the effort. These three little tricks are a simple intuitive connection to maintaining awareness of purpose and confidence in our choices. The results are impressive! At mealtime, some of us use these little tricks to remind ourselves how lucky we are to have food on the table. Here are ways this happens:
A silent prayer of appreciation before each meal.
Eating one bite at a time to savor the flavor and make the meal stretch out.
Sharing food with others by working at soup kitchens, helping the needy or inviting friends for dinner.
Some of us have these little tricks to remind ourselves to eat less. We do this because we want to see our body reflect a vibrant, sexy ideal we see in our head. Here are ways this happens:
A silent prayer of appreciation before each meal.
Eating one bite at a time to savor the flavor and make the meal stretch out.
Sharing food with others by working at soup kitchens, helping the needy or inviting friends for dinner.
Common challenges that can be overcome with these simple tricks include: rushed convenience eating and changing emotional eating patterns. If you are scratching your head right now because these lists are both the same, then start using the little tricks and you will learn secrets about who you really are. Additional easy tricks to help maintain the body you want include:
Have your main dish on a small plate.
Order roast beef instead of tuna or chicken salad for lunch. Tuna/chicken salad is often full of fattening mayonnaise.
Order fajitas without the butter poured on at the end. You won't miss the taste.
Eat dessert with a teaspoon.
Stop eating before you feel stuffed. The way to do this is to put your hands in your lap between bites.
Doing this, you will notice your stomach with your hands. This will be a heads up.
You will give your system time to recognize how much you've eaten, and ultimately, eat less.
You will be able to maintain a clear perspective of your priorities and take pleasure in taking control of how you eat.
Tenacity is an intuitive muscle for beating temptation. The more you use it, the stronger you become. The result is, temptation won't taste so good.
"Food plays an important part in proper nutrition, but what you do to your foods and what your body does about them is the final answer." ~ Dr. Hazel Parcells
Valentine's Day is packed with libido raising chocolates and other waist expanding temptations. How do we enjoy it without being trapped by the sweetness of the treat? Of course the celebration of love is a good thing. How do we avoid unhealthy temptation and embrace tasty love?
To separate love and libido from unhealthy temptation when you're enjoying a treat, look at your sweet and your sweetheart and check-in with the way you feel.
1. Confusing eating with satisfying intimacy causes disappointment that leads to binging.
The libido thrives on anticipation, not big meals. Taking it slowly keeps you in control. Plan a light meal like tapas and put on some music. All of our senses connect with libido. Be creative with the way you choose to enjoy your treat and
your evening. Rub a piece of chocolate across your lips and try to have your
partner lick it off without either of you laughing. Of course, laughter is a libido boost- way more than chocolate. Libido is the drive for physical intimacy a feeling of anticipation, an openness to possibility and romantic potential. If you feel this:
Be true to yourself by taking your time. Patience heightens anticipation which makes your experience more exciting.
Take it to a higher level with eye contact while you savor your treat. Also give the verbal pleasure signal of "mmnnn".
Just take a nibble, because you want your body to be relaxed for the next part of the evening. Feeling full signals your body to focus on digesting food. That kills libido.
Say Thank you! and mean it. Let the big picture come into focus naturally.
2. Love, like eating, is an inner connection. Food only
represents love when we savor it; binging is a kind of disconnect. A great and enduring love affair is
founded on open communication and mutual respect. The loving way to eat is
to keep open communication with your body by tuning-in with your senses
before and while you eat. It's the intuitive way to respect your body and to respect yourself. Love feels like a light in your heart, or it is a peaceful, gently exciting sense of being appreciated that is relaxing and deeply affirming. Real love is a direct connection with dignity and self-respect.
When chocolate represents love and you take a nibble, your energy will soar. This is a happy feeling that lasts as long as you stay true to the feelings of dignity and self-respect.
Get sensual. Love yourself by eating lightly and let that lightness connect with your heart. Touch your partner's fingers. Smile while giving your partner eye contact. Make love with your eyes - if you dare!
Share a taste with your partner and say, Thank you! from the heart. You will feel satisfied, leaving the remaining chocolate as a symbol of love and anticipation for the future.
3. Temptation, created by emotions and stress, causes binging. Taking
control of the temptation can be a turn-on for both of you, because it
makes priorities clear. Take control by focusing on the big picture.
Your priority is to appreciate each other and the meaning of the
celebration. What you eat should compliment the evening, not rule it. Temptation is an urge often accompanied by a subtle feeling of frustration, a whiff of self-defeat in the air. If you feel this:
Remember to be true to your body and your heart, together. To stay connected with your intuition, use determination to feel good about your experience.
Take a taste and savor it with a "mmnnnn". Look your partner right in the eye and feed him/her a taste.
Say Thank you! and mean it.
Thank yourself because you are focused on what you want and who you are. You are honoring yourself. Love will find you through your smile as temptation turns into self-confidence. You will feel it.
Plato said, At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet. I guess, in a perfect world we would all be poets. Enjoy your chocolate, dance with your libido and fall in love all over again this Valentine's Day! Be loving towards yourself. Write a poem about chocolate instead of eating it, or share it with a stranger. Tweet about it. Remember, whether it's a cold winter day or hot in July, Love for you is in the air every day.
For more common sense ways to deal with temptation and frustration around eating and to learn how to tune-in to your body with intuitive sensual thinking download: Am I Really Hungry, 6th Sense Diet:Intuitive Eating
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.
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.
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".
This past week was my birthday, and I got a lot of tempting and delicious chocolate.
My friend Elan in Colorado baked me chocolate chocolate chip cookies from a French recipe that are huge and light and deeply, deeply, chocolate. These cookies are a delicious, amazing, seductive experience. And my daughter, gave me chocolate covered espresso beans and chocolate filled candy from an exclusive chocolatier in NYC. OMG. It has been at first very hard, because, of course, I wanted all of it.
When I spoke with Elan to thank her I confessed to actually eating 2 of the cookies in one sitting (which made me feel wildly overdosed on sugar) and she told me she only eats ½ of one at a time! Ouch.
Chocolate is wonderful, delicious, and fattening- so when you have chocolate, break it into bite sized pieces and share that wonder and delicious part with a friend or family member. It makes them happy and it makes you feel good about your self.
Chocolate: Connect with your body by really tasting it and savoring the flavor. Connect with your heart by sharing the pleasure. Connect with your intuition by doing what's best for you.
It doesn’t have to be your birthday to be surrounded by foods that will tempt you with their taste and make it hard to resist over eating. But do yourself and those you love a favor and keep temptation away by sharing. Take the box of candy to work and set it out on a table with a note: "Enjoy". No one will complain. And you will set a standard that feels healthy for your spirit. It’s a way of respecting your self.
Don’t be tempted by the illusion of satisfaction. Real satisfaction is a process, not a conclusion. You’ll feel good about your choice when you give your chocolate away. Having no temptation is a relief.
After talking to my friend, I remembered the Hobbits in the J.R.R. Tolkien books. They give presents to others on their birthday. So, I have been giving the chocolate cookies and candies as bite-size treats to friends to celebrate my birthday. Everyone is loving it, and I’m loving the way my body feels. It wasn’t easy but I’ve learned that difficulties can stimulate our greatest achievements! Giving away chocolates is an achievement.
