Good Life Cuisine
Let's Grow Together
Intuitive Eating: My Wife as a Role Model
I often read in my bed, before falling asleep. It's a habit of more than 20 years. Normally, my wife sleeps next to me, so we sometimes read together. So as I started reading about intuitive eating, throwing glances at my wife, it hit me: she's a natural intuitive eater. It was when I read about those domestic cats that just lift their tails in the middle of eating and leave. Yep - that's my wife. She just stops and says: I'm done. No matter what is on the plate. Quantity of the food she leaves also doesn't play a role.
Habit = Knowledge + Skills + Desire
In his book “The 7 habits of highly effective people”, Stephen Covey defines habits as intersection of knowledge, skills and desire.
Knowledge, according to the author, is the theoretical paradigm that tells us what to do, and why to do it. An example he gives is ineffective communication. I may be ineffective in the way I interact with my spouse or colleagues if I don’t master the skill of listening.
Catching the Critic
In previous posts on self-esteem, we learned about the inner critic and the devastating effect he can have on us. The weird thing is that the critic plays an important role in our lives, in meeting our basic needs: he either helps us feel or do stuff, or protects us from negative feelings. This is also an important clue in learning how to catch the critic when she strikes. And being able to catch him is the first step in gaining control over her.
Freedom in Moderation
I had been doing "onesies" - one drink only. This is not new to me, but lately I did more of that, and was more aware of the process. I start to really enjoy that one drink. Sip by sip, savouring.
Intuitive Drinking
As I start to learn to eat intuitively - which comes down to eating any food, any time hungry, but stopping when full - I start to see how moderation in food and in alcohol actually relate. I've read many comparisons, and I try to derive some my self, but I was never really happy with them. I think I start to feel where they might be very similar.
Why do we Listen to the Inner Critic?
As we have seen in a previous post, attacks of the inner critic are devastating. An important question then is: why do we keep doing this to our selves?
Blocks on the Road to Intuitive Eating
Hi,
I'm on day 4 of focused intuitive eating practice. Actually, it wasn't that focused. I had quite a week at work. But thanks to this intention to practice, this morning, I was triggered to reflect about the previous days. The reflection gave me some important insights into what could be the major blocking points for learning how to eat intuitively. I would like to share them with you.
A first root-cause seems to be emotional eating:
Change - it's a Learning Process
So you tried to change, and you slipped. Take a deep breath. And exhale.
It's easier said than done I know, but try to focus on the learning process. All the practice and effort did not go out of the window. What would you say to a child learning to walk if it stumbles, or falls? Would you think she is never going to learn to walk, or that he just sucks at it, or that there's something wrong with her? Of course not. You would know falling down is a natural part of learning to walk.
About Rules, Values and Shoulds and the Change Process
I was triggered by a discussion about the importance of rules in self change. I think there is a very important aspect about rules not to be ignored. If not carefully formulated, rules can be used by our inner critic to undermine our self-esteem. When this happens, not only we feel bad, but we also undermine our change process. We may feel like a failure, and not worthy any further efforts to change.
Discovering my Intuitive Eating Stop Button – the role of Practice
I’ve been reading, and reflecting and trying some "intuitive eating" out – you might have read about it in my other posts. I have been paying much more attention to my hunger signals, and started to get into a habit of checking in with my self before, while and after eating. Trying to be more aware of my food related thoughts and behaviours using simple, non-judgmental observing. I think I’ve made quite some progress.
