A PERFECTIONIST & INTUITIVE EATING WALK INTO A BAR

When I first began intuitive eating, after reading a bunch of books on it, I came to the table with my perfectionist mentality.

My beliefs were:

🍆I HAVE to know EXACTLY what I want to eat.

🍆I HAVE to know EXACTLY when I am full.

🍆I HAVE to know EXACTLY when I am hungry.

🍆I HAVE to know EXACTLY what nutrition my body needs.

One bite “too much”, and I thought of myself as a failure.

While the guidelines of intuitive eating were helpful, I didn’t realize just how challenging it would be for me.

I had followed meal plans and diets my whole life, you see.
So to go the EXTREME opposite of that was daunting.

😱
Thing is, we aren’t damn robots.

We aren’t going to know EXACTLY how much food is too much or not enough.

We can gauge it, sure. But we don’t TRULY know.

📏

📐

There isn’t a PERFECT kind of food, amount of food or quantity of food that we SHOULD be eating.

If you feel a little bite overfull after dinner — it’s fine.

🍽️

It just means you probably won’t be hungry till later than you thought.

If you didn’t eat enough, it’s fine.. your body will tell you sooner than later that it needs a snack or another small meal.

If you didn’t get enough protein in one meal, it’s fine.. your body will crave more in the next meal.

🥩

🍗

Do not make intuitive eating another diet.. it isn’t.

The less rules you have around eating, the better off you will be in the beginning.

🤐

And if not having rules around eating gives you anxiety, GREAT!

It gives you an opportunity to look inside yourself and explore why that is.

🤔

I’ll give you a hint: the more we try to control food, the less in control of our lives we feel.

No amount of control over food will make up for the lack of control you have in your life. Ever ever.

P.S. This shake was bloody delicious. Can you tell by my face?