INTUITIVE EATING

Now that you’ve started with your structured eating program, it’s time to examine how you can start to learn about your mind and body by looking at the foundations of intuitive eating and how it’s going to help you in your recovery process.

The main keys are:

• Let go of any thoughts of dieting and restricting your food completely.
• Tune into your hunger and learn only to eat when you’re hungry.
• Enjoy what you’re eating, eating slowly, focusing on all the fabulous flavors and tastes.
• Tune in to the satisfied feeling, knowing you now have had enough food.
• Let go of food anxieties and begin to make peace with food.

“FOCUS ON HOW FAR YOU’VE COME, NOT HOW FAR YOU HAVE TO GO”

WHY DO I NEED TO EAT INTUITIVELY?

One of the enormous critical elements for learning to eat intuitively is you cannot begin to break from the chains of bulimia if you’re depriving yourself physically, mentally, or emotionally of foods, (Here I go again!). But it’s the real glistening key to your recovery.

If there’s any form of restriction, your body will slip back into its natural pattern of trying to survive. Your brain will automatically fall back and use that old neural pathway of driving you to binge and purge.

BACK TO BASICS

Intuitive eating is all about getting back to the basics of eating. Learning how much food your body needs for the amount of movement it’s doing.

As a young child, leaving food on your plate would infuriate your parents, who would scold, “Think of all the poor starving children in the world.” But, unconsciously, you were tuning into whether or not you were hungry, knowing you had enough. This natural tuning into your body is something we were all born with; it doesn’t leave you. Biologically, it’s inside you, maybe lurking behind a spleen, but it’s there.

As a teenager, you become aware of dieting. Let’s face it; diets are mentioned everywhere in magazines, adverts, on TV. Then there’s the internet; oh my, what nonsense diets are there! Beware, I’m sure there’s probably one skulking behind your couch! They’re everywhere.

Due to dieting and restricting your food intake, this sensation of when and how much food your body needs has become buried or even super-glued behind your spleen.

But as you begin to follow your structured eating program, over time, your natural sensation of hunger and when you’ve had sufficient food will slowly make itself known to you.

A rosebud may be shaded by a tree, but as the sun gradually moves and shines down on the bud, it flourishes into a fabulous shimmering beauty of a flower. So may the light of understanding guide you forward in helping you in your steps to achieving your ultimate goal of “completely eating like a normal person forever more.”

Once you start to eat and feed your body the foods it requires regularly, you can then begin to tune into that sensation of hunger. And, gradually, it will hop out from behind that spleen and welcome the attention. It will guide you in your positive steps to learn how to eat again.

WILL I LOSE CONTROL?

The answer is NO; YOU WILL STAY IN CONTROL

Often my client's concern is if they allow themselves to begin eating again, they’ll lose control and won’t stop eating, which could then lead to a binge.

So, let me explain why you won’t lose control. If you’re depriving yourself of food (Woops! It just fell out), your mind just continually thinks about food. But as you allow yourself to start to eat again, your mind will let go and stop thinking about food all the time. That urge and need to carry on eating disappears as you start to listen to what your body is telling you by:

Becoming aware of the feeling of hunger, eating slowly, tuning in to the sense of “knowing” you’ve had enough, which I’ll explain later in this step.

HOW DO I EAT INTUITIVELY?

ITS ALL ABOUT NUGGETS AND THEY ARE NOT CHICKEN!

There are three golden nuggets to help you in your understanding of breaking free from the chains of bulimia. This is how you’re going to eat intuitively, golden nugget by golden nugget...

YOUR FIRST GOLDEN NUGGET IS: ONLY EAT WHEN YOU ARE HUNGRY

Retraining your mind and body to start eating only when hungry, rather than anxious, stressed, tired, or unhappy.

SO HOW DOES HUNGER FEEL IN THE BODY?

As a physical sensation, hunger is like an internal itch you can’t scratch. The only way to satisfy it is by ingesting food. Or it’s like being thirsty, which we all know how that feels. It’s similar to thirst but in the stomach in a solid form.

My clients have described this in many different ways:

For most, it begins with is a physical feeling:

A grumbling sensation in the stomach. Followed by a burning sensation.

A powerful and loud emptiness, and the more you ignore your hunger, the bigger the emptiness feelings grow.

If you don’t eat, you become irritable. Everything becomes annoying, and you may start to feel physically weak. Have reduced awareness. Even shaky.

If you do get to this point, then your body is going wild. Desperate for food, it will stuff any greasy carbohydrate foods you can find. So, it's crucial not to get to this stage.

THE HUNGER SCALE

The hunger scale is an excellent guide to help you to learn and understand further how much food your body needs. Your relationship with food will develop as you begin to learn how hungry you are.

The hunger scale is a scale from 1 to 10.

• 1 being when you’re completely empty of food and ready to eat anything that comes into view.
• 10 is when you’re stuffed.

In the past, there will have been an exploding pot of reasons why you reached out for food. But there’s only one reason to eat: you’re hungry!

Learning how to use the hunger scale will give you a powerful indicator of how hungry you really are.

If you didn’t use the hunger scale, you could end up eating more than you need because you aren’t aware of how much food you need.

HOW TO USE THE HUNGER SCALE

• Ask yourself before you eat, “how hungry am I on a scale from 1 to 10.
• If you register between 4/5/6, then you are more than likely hungry, so it’s time to gobble.
• If you register 1/2/3 on the scale, then you are going to be way too hungry, this is a time for caution. As you learn how to use the hunger scale, you’ll find it easier to gauge where you are and not allow yourself to get down this low. It’s a danger zone, so take your eating slowly.
• If you register 7 or above, you are probably not hungry, so ask yourself, “I know I am not hungry for this food. What feelings am I trying to change?”

Print out the scale and stick this up somewhere visible for you to learn . You need to create a new positive habit of tuning into the hunger scale every time you eat to make this more conscious for you as you tune in and begin to learn about your hunger correctly.

YOUR SECOND GOLDEN NUGGET IS: AWARENESS EATING

This golden nugget is about eating slowly, intuitively, deliberately, and intentionally. Learn that it's okay to be aware of all the fabulous smells, tastes, and flavors. Over time, you can begin to enjoy the experience of eating again.

Most bulimics will wolf down their food without becoming aware of what they’re actually eating. I would eat so fast, I resembled a grey wolf inhaling a mountain goat, without even taking a moment to enjoy each morsel, not even a muddy hoof.

For you, with your positive new habits and patterns, this nugget is critical because if you eat like a wolf, you won’t feel the signs that you’ve had enough food.

As you eat, your body releases various chemicals to tell you that you’re almost full, which can take up to 20 minutes, so if you continue eating without these chemical messages, your stomach becomes overstuffed. We know where that can lead you!

TOP TIPS ON SLOWING YOUR EATING DOWN?

It’s essential to have a calm, relaxed environment while you eat. Take time to eat slowly, leisurely enjoying the experience. Imagine now achieving this, feeling calm, relaxed, and happy as you eat. What a breakthrough this will be for you, and the immense achievement you’ll feel. Purposefully spend at least 20 minutes eating your evening meal.  

• Chew your food slowly. Why? Because digestion starts in the mouth. Saliva contains the enzyme amylase, which helps to break down the food. If the food doesn’t say in your mouth long enough, it won’t absorb this enzyme, which breaks down carbohydrates. Only a small amount of carbohydrate digestion occurs in the stomach. Therefore, the stomach will have to work harder.
• Studies recommend chewing each mouthful 32 times, although that can be tricky if you are eating jelly! If you aren’t chewing your food enough, your digestive system becomes baffled. It may not produce the correct amount of enzymes needed to break down the foods eaten. With this could well come problems like bloating, diarrhea, irritability, heartburn, and many more.
• Rather than counting the number of times you are chewing your food, take your time, putting your knife and fork, sandwich, or whatever you’re eating down between bites.
• Regularly stop and tune into how your stomach is feeling—checking if you are nearing the almost full sensation in the stomach, so you don’t overeat.

The key here’s to begin to enjoy the experience of all the fabulous flavors and tastes in what you eat.

THIRD GOLDEN NUGGET IS: TO TUNE INTO THE SATISFIED FEELINGS OF KNOWING YOU HAVE HAD ENOUGH FOOD NOW

The third golden nugget to learning to be in control of how much you eat is tuning in to how your stomach feels as you eat slowly, then start to become aware of feelings of comfortableness or a satisfying feeling in your stomach or head.

Stop eating when you have this comfortable feeling or when you’re 80% full.

What’s so important here is that you aren’t going to be stuffing yourself, like an overfull bulging suitcase. You’re going to focus on what you’re eating, stop and check for signs of almost full or satisfied feeling, and stop eating.

It’s time to leap in and meet Leptin

Leptin is a hormone in the body that sends a message to your brain to tell you that you’ve had enough food, which you may not be so aware of yet.

As you build on your new eating pattern and skills, you will, as you eat, get to a comfortable or satisfying stage in your stomach. This is when leptin comes in. It has leapt into your brain to tell you that you’ve had enough food! The more you can gradually become aware of this, the more you’ll naturally have control over how much food your body needs.

Your satisfied feeling will gradually become more evident each time you eat. Before you know it, your satisfied feeling will have leapt in!

My clients have described this in so many different ways. Now is your time to learn what this sensation feels like for you.

It could be:

A thought or a knowing such as "I’ve had enough,” “I’m satisfied,” or “I’m feeling comfortable now.”

A picture in your mind of your stomach 80% full or you, looking satisfied or comfortable, knowing you have had enough food but not stuffed.

A comfortable, contented, or satisfied feeling.

A physical feeling such as your stomach slightly expanding or a slight flutter in your stomach.

Trust; it’s time to begin trusting yourself and your own body’s natural instincts.

It’s about learning about your body. If, after twenty minutes of finishing your food, you still haven’t found the satisfying feeling and you’re still physically hungry, have a little more food. Remember, you’re learning new positive patterns and are not supposed to be starving yourself.

HOW DOES INTUITIVE EATING HELP TO STOP YOU FROM OVEREATING?

Once your body is no longer deprived of food, and you give yourself full permission to eat when you’re hungry, you’ll experience freedom from bingeing and feeling crazy when you’re in the same room as food. The excitement and urgency about seeking food dissipates.

You may feel terrified or anxious right now. But once you start to eat intuitively, you’ll begin to free yourself of your past habits and patterns. The obsessive negative thoughts around food will loosen and the fears and struggles you once had with bulimia will eventually disappear.

By using this method of gauging how hungry you are, eating slowly, and then tuning into your satisfied feeling of fullness, you’ll be in control. You’ll be as happy as the cat that swallowed the canary!

HOW DO I KNOW IF I AM READY TO BEGIN TO IMPLEMENT INTUITIVE EATING?

You can begin eating intuitively at any time during your recovery. However, if you’re underweight and malnourished, your signals of hunger and fullness are confused, so you need to focus on beginning to eat again with your structured eating program and learn first to loosen the hold on the triggers, urges, bingeing, and purging.

Once you’re feeling confident with your structured eating program and have started to include the fearful foods we’ll be discussing next, which is usually eight weeks or so from starting, it’s then time to begin intuitive eating. Once you’re ready, start implementing your intuitive eating.

YOU’VE GOT THIS…

By taking control, anxiety and fears will subside as you learn to make peace with food. The obsessive and negative thoughts about food and your body lessen. What emerges is a considerable amount of space for many wonderful things, like more pleasant thoughts and actions that come in to replace all the negativity that has been bubbling in your cauldron.