Dietician Vidhi Chawla says, “Once you start practising intuitive eating, you let go of your obsession with weight gain or loss and focus on foods that are good for your overall physical and mental health.”
Here she shares a few initial steps that you need to acknowledge on your path of intuitive eating.
Honour your hunger
Since you’re not following a diet plan, you also don’t need to starve yourself. If your stomach is grumbling and you feel like eating or munching even, eat. There’s no need to ignore your hunger or repress it. As humans, we are bound to feel hungry and intuitive eating is about paying attention to your hunger and feeding your stomach till you feel full, mentally and physically.
Respect for your body
Social media has been influencing our mindsets about our physiques and portraying an ideal image of the perfect body. Consuming such ideas can plant a seed of insecurity and doubt in our minds and we start rejecting our bodies. While food and exercise are a way to shape your body, so are your genes. Everybody is different and our genes play a major role in determining the shape and size of our bodies. Intuitive eating celebrates the diversity of all body types and the idea that we all are worthy of appreciation, love and care.
Exercise for yourself
Intuitive eating encourages you to embrace exercising and movements not to burn calories but because you find joy in moving and it makes you feel good about yourself. Instead of forcing yourself to follow a set of rules that can help you gain that ‘ideal’ body, you move your body as you see fit. You can decide to choose to walk instead of jog every morning if that brings you joy.
Choose foods wisely
Most importantly, you completely reject the idea of dieting, guilt and remorse after having your choice of food. You tune down the voice in your head of negative judgement and decide to choose foods that satisfy and keep you healthy in your way.
