How to Integrate Intuitive Eating Principle 8: Respect Your Body

The eighth principle of Intuitive Eating is: Respect Your Body. If you have been following along with this Integrating Intuitive and Mindful Eating series on my blog, then you might have noticed how principle 7 and now principle 8 are not directly related to food. (Principle 9 isn’t either—stay tuned!) These principles address how to be with yourself in a more mindful and compassionate way both internally and externally which naturally impacts how to be with your food.

With this principle I will explore and address how to be with your body in a respectful manner, which most people struggle with at some point in their lives. If you notice the chatter in your mind or out loud about your body, what is it usually about? Is it usually positive or negative in nature? The truth is that all bodies deserve respect, yours, hers, his, theirs and mine. There are no exceptions.

When you notice any internal bias you have in relation to what is a “good” or “healthy” body and alternatively what is a “not as good” or “unhealthy” body, where did these biases come from. Let’s be clear, it’d be rare not to have some internal bias seeing as how much emphasis is placed on body image, weight loss and standards of beauty in our culture and naturally we are always concerned about how we are measuring up in relation to these standards.

How you think about, speak about and interact with your own body is what this principle is about. However, it is helpful to consider any body shaming, judging or otherwise you notice that you do internally, or say out loud, towards others and practice shifting these thoughts and words to body neutrality, positivity and kindness. This will support your own process in offering these same concepts to yourself.

Mindfulness offers a significant amount of support to this concept of respecting your body, especially as it relates to the aspect of being nonjudgmental. One of the most effective ways to begin to respect your body is to practice body neutrality through nonjudgment. This is a very useful practice and just like is was applied to food in the fourth principle of intuitive eating: Challenge the Food Police it’s tremendously powerful to apply the concept on nonjudgment to how you relate to your body.

Learning to understand body neutrality is simple but not necessarily easy. To practice body neutrality, find a time when you can just be. Close your eyes and scan your body in your mind’s eye from head to toe moving intentionally through each part of your body. With each body part, first name it and then find the facts about it, for example: ears-used for hearing located on the sides of my head. Notice how there are no judgments, just facts, just what is true about this body part in this moment. Maintain neutrality and nonjudgment throughout. Notice how this feels with body parts you may not have any positive or negative associations about and parts that you do.

The body parts you find it most difficult to be nonjudgmental about with yourself, you will need to practice more regularly. For many this simple and yet not easy body neutrality practice is very helpful and eye opening. Get really curious about why you have the judgments you have about your body. With each judgment consider:

• Where did each judgment come from?

• What messages did you hear/receive about your body or body judgments from your family growing up?

• What messages did you hear/receive about your body or body judgments from your peers?

• What messages did you hear/receive about your body or body judgments from society?

• Who set the standards for “beauty” and body shape that you adhere to?

• What messages do you wish you’d heard or would like to live by?

• Can you begin to offer these messages to yourself now?

Once you practice body neutrality until it feels more natural, acceptable and your mind does not attempt to pull you towards the negative, you can begin to practice body positivity and body gratitude. Within this practice, you go through the same exercise, resting comfortably and work your way from head to toe in your mind’s eye and name each body part and something you like about it and something you can be grateful for about it. If you find it difficult that’s ok! Stay with the practice and continue a few times per week until it becomes a more and more comfortable practice.

Try taking this attitude with you wherever you go. As you begin to shift your own internal judgments about your body and allow that to impact how you judge the bodies of others, begin to notice and reflect on the following:

• How much mental space is taken up by body judgment?

• How often do you judge the bodies of others?

• How often do you compare your body to the bodies of others?

• How does this make you feel?

• Why do you think you do this?

• Are you ready to shift this internal experience?

If so, begin practicing body neutrality of others. Even if your thought begins with a judgment, can you create a neutral thought such as it’s just another person in the body that they have today, it’s not good or bad, it just is. As this becomes more comfortable, begin to shift into body positivity of others. What compliment can you offer either internally to recognize it for yourself or out loud if it’s possible to do so.

These simple but not easy practices can transform your relationship to your body, to yourself and to food. When you can just be with your body without the negativity and noise you will create a less stressful internal environment for yourself. When you begin to shift from body shaming, judging and comparing you open yourself to feel a great deal of respect for your own amazing body as well as respecting the bodies of others.

3 Strategies to Eat Mindfully Throughout the Holiday Season

The holidays offer a time for fun and fulfillment, yet they can be stressful, tiring and overwhelming at the same time. Maintaining mindful awareness throughout the season will help you remain connected to yourself, remain healthy and well while keeping any stress or emotional eating manageable and at bay.

During times of increased stress you become more likely to be in a rush and tired, which leads to making choices that are often rushed and favor convenience. This may cause an experience of not being fully present which can cause eating to feel like just one more thing on your to-do list. Rushing, not being present with your food and not choosing nourishment can cause the internal experience of stress to only become worse.

Mindful eating is paying attention to what you are eating while deriving pleasure and nourishment from your food. When you are eating mindfully, you enhance the experience of eating while acknowledging the opportunity to nourish your body and your mind. Mindful eating is paying attention to the sensory experience of your food.

Just the sight of the food you are about to eat begins the process of digestion. Mindful eating begins by taking in the visual elements and aromas of your food, before you even take one single bite! This mindful process enhances the experience of eating and pleasure of tasting your food.

The holiday season can trigger emotional and stress eating simply because of the stressed and rushed nature of the season. Additionally, this time of year more “comfort foods” tend to be always available and just about everywhere which can trigger the desire to eat irrespective of hunger. Cravings can be caused by just seeing or smelling food AND because of stress and emotional distress.

The three following strategies are intended to help maintain mindful eating throughout the holiday season in order to manage emotional and stress based cravings effectively. When you use these strategies you create an opportunity to be present with your food, to be engaged with eating in a mindful, calm and relaxed manner. This creates an opportunity to derive true pleasure and nourishment from your food, while at the same time reducing stress and emotional tension in general.

1.    Practice 1 minute of deep breathing before eating.

When you are breathing deeply and in a state of relaxation you are engaging the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the rest and digest mode, which is the mode we want to live in—unless of course there is a true emergency. Often when we are rushed or stressed during the holidays, we eat more quickly to get to the next thing on the to-do list. Try slowing down, and breathing deeply for one minute before you eat in order to calm your nervous system. This will allow your body to assimilate the nutrients from you food more effectively while also creating a sense of inner calm as you release stress and tension with your breath.

2.    Before you eat, set an intention to eat mindfully.

When you set any intention, you set in motion a powerful force that helps you focus. When you set your intention to eat mindfully before you take your first bite, you will be far more likely to do so. Setting an intention helps you create a sense of ritual and care for the process of eating and the nourishment and pleasure you will derive from your food. Try setting an intention to eat mindfully before you eat and notice how this simple practice can shift your awareness and sense of focus from your to-do list to the present moment.

3.    Practice gratitude before you eat.

After a bit of deep breathing and setting your intention to eat mindfully, offer gratitude for the food you are about to eat. When you express gratitude for your food, you create a space for deriving pleasure from your food in a big way. This can be a powerful practice to reduce stress and emotional eating as gratitude helps to alleviate stress and anxiety. When practicing gratitude for your food before you take a bite, recognize the preparation and the life giving nutrients in your food—as well as the pleasure you will experience by eating it. Be grateful and notice the impact of gratitude on your physical body as well as your mood state.

Try these three mindful strategies to remain present, focused and engaged as you make choices about what you eat and how you eat it this holiday season. Taking time to slow down, breathe, set an intention to eat mindfully and practice gratitude will allow for health and fulfillment throughout the entire holiday season.

Emotional Reflection: An Essential Component to Managing Food Cravings

Allowing time and energy to reflect on the messages from your emotions begins to create more emotional awareness and freedom from emotional eating. Emotional eating is most often driven by uncomfortable emotions and an attempt to avoid or suppress them. When you find that you are in a space of avoidance and have learned to practice the Pause (check out the previous blog) as a method to begin to make peace with food, you can shift into a space of internal reflection.

When you Reflect on your emotions, you open yourself to a powerful recognition of your internal world, your experience of—and response to—your life. For many, the shadow side, or darker side of the emotional world can be frightening. Uncomfortable emotions are often viewed as “bad” and you may fear that you will get stuck in those uncomfortable emotions. It limits your ability to fully know yourself and live in a truly present manner in life without awareness of all of your emotions.

Emotions are important information about your experience of the present moment. They show up as a response to your experiences and are essential to understanding yourself and the depths of your being. While the fear exists that you may get “stuck” in an uncomfortable emotional space, the opposite is actually the truth. When you are experiencing an uncomfortable emotion, it is for a reason.

When you take time to Reflect on your emotions and connect with and understand the why behind them, you can make a choice as to how to respond. If you get stuck in a space of avoidance, you perpetuate the discomfort, and this leads to the desire to continuously numb, whether with food, alcohol, distraction, projecting your discomfort onto others or otherwise.

When you numb consistently, this creates the feeling of being stuck as you never connect with the original emotions and do not allow yourself the opportunity to derive the information your emotions will offer you. This creates essentially a backlog of old, uncomfortable emotions which can be overwhelming and painful.

Becoming comfortable Reflecting on your emotions begins with mindfulness. When you become mindfully engaged with the present moment you can learn to witness your emotions. In the space of the witness, you become a silent observer of your emotions, so rather than being the feeler of your feelings, you are the observer of them.

The internal witness, or silent observer perspective creates an opening to awareness. From the space of awareness you have an opportunity to make a choice. The intention of becoming a witness is not to escape, but to understand and create comfort internally with whatever is true for you in this moment.

You are not tuning into the internal witness in order to not feel your feelings. The opposite is true. You tune into the internal witness to become more and more comfortable with feeling your feelings. This process offers a supportive internal space and creates an opportunity to react to your emotions in a healthy way.

When you witness and Reflect on your emotions, you become deeply aware of them and derive the information they provide you. During the process of Reflection you might choose to just be with your emotion, or you might choose to do something proactive with it, such as write the emotion down. You might choose to call a friend or share it with a loved one. You can take time to ponder the emotion and journal about what it feels like internally to have this emotion. You can journal about why it is there and what information the emotion is trying to communicate with you.

Once you are in touch with the why behind the emotion, you can make a choice on how to respond. Is anger there because you are not ok with the way someone spoke to you or treated you? Can you tell them? Can you journal about it? If you are anxious, do you have too much on your to-do list? Are there too many pressures in your life at this time? What can you do about that?

If you are lonely, can you reach out to someone you care about? Can you connect with a friend, loved one or neighbor? If you are happy, why? What is offering you this internal experience right now? How can you savor it without clinging to it?

Making a choice about how to respond to your emotions creates action, and action naturally moves you forward. When you move forward you are building emotional awareness leading to acceptance, and a deeper inner wisdom. Learning to not judge your emotions, but to be aware will move you further forward on your journey to making peace with food.

The next time you find yourself in a space of mindless eating, stress eating, emotional eating, or numbing your internal experience of your emotions in any way, first offer yourself the time to Pause. Once you have given yourself the needed time within the Pause, move into this powerful phase of emotional Reflection. In this space where you are Reflecting on your emotions, there is no room for judgement, just awareness. Once you know the why, you can choose how to respond to the emotion, creating a sense of empowerment, confidence and Inner Strength.

Feeling empowered, emotionally aware, confident and strong is how most of us want to feel. Try building your emotional awareness with mindful Reflection and notice the impact. As you begin to incorporate these elements, let me know how they work for you!