Hello love!
For a long time I ate “well” but I wasn’t nourishing myself. I was also dieting a lot at the time and emotionally eating.
Diets restrict you a lot and this is not health promoting even if the foods are healthy. Diets are also not intuitive. So in essence the physical stress of limited calories and mental stress of a restrictive mentality make it depleting.
Scratch Dieting
I had to start from scratch. I started to take away all restrictions but what I found was that I swung from restriction to complete “freedom” but I felt awful at both extremes.
So what I found that worked was to allow all foods but make the majority of my eating be whole foods without limit.
Dieting puts a lot of mental stress on you which creates stress which in turn depletes health. Eating in a way that includes everything in a balanced way helps you to nourish yourself.
Experimenting Helps you Become Intuitive
I found that when I found a strategy and tried it I would have more intuitive insight. For example I tried drinking water away from meals to help with digestion. I would try it for a while and see if it made a difference for me. This helped to make a difference in my body. This wasn’t a “restriction” but an experiment to find out results.
I noticed that when I tried things out and then went back to my old way I would notice how I felt.
This helped me figure out my intuition. The more I tried things the more I could see if it worked with my body and if it made me feel better. The more we experience the more we can see what is meant for us.
New Foods and Intuitive Eating
I don’t think we can “just” be intuitive about food unless we were raised this way. The more we clear out our emotional eating and experiment with different foods the more we can “intuit” what our body is craving.
For example a true craving will always be a real food or made of real ingredients or can be made of real ingredients. Processed foods tend to be emotional cravings and create addictions.
With clients I help them develop this intuition with strategies that bring them back to themselves. They experiment with different recipes to see how they feel. There is a science + structure and the intuition of whether it works for our body which is how you can tell what true nourishment is.
If you have any questions please let me know below.
To true nourishment,
Michelle
Certified Holistic Nutritionist.
