Morning After Binge

Recently, I've been asked:

• Why do I feel so hungry in the morning after an evening of non-stop eating? Shouldn't I feel full instead?

You feel hungry because the food you binged on was not what your body needed for nourishment. When you eat because you're stressed, frustrated, angry or bored, it has nothing to do with nourishing your body. Imagine if you put the wrong gas in your car, even if you overflow the tank - it won't run.

• Why does my body feel so sluggish and bloated? What happens physically?

Physically, you've clogged your pipes. When you eat without noticing how your body feels, you're abusing yourself. Even though your body is efficient, it still has to sort through, digest and get rid of the evening's onslaught.

• Why does this affect my mood, outlook and self-esteem? I feel like I'm a failure, have no self worth, and that this negative downward spiral seems to be my destiny - a life of self-inflicted ups and downs - all caused by abusing food.

It's frustrating to feel out of control. Your mood, outlook and self-esteem are not the result of abusing food. Instead they are the result of abusing yourself.  Your body is not an object, it's a very real connection with your heart and psyche. The first rule of intuitive eating is to protect yourself. It's part of your survival instinct. 

Use the intuitive tool of patience to give yourself grace. When you're patient- instead of angry with yourself, you can understand what pushes your button and how to protect yourself against it the next time. Once you use patience, you will discover you feel more peaceful. Then use the intuitive tool of foresight for self-defense. Make a plan to protect yourself.

• Why do I want to punish myself by abusing my body and my heart?

You don't! However you have been programmed by diet programs to believe eating certain foods is "bad" and that you are "bad" for craving them.  Programming whether it's from our parents, media or programs is inner dialogue that runs like a script in our heads. Your inner voice is your intuition. It may warn you with a gut feeling but it will never lead you to punish yourself. Read the sections Am I Really Hungry that explain how to know the difference between your inner voice (intuition) and inner dialogue (media/parents/programs). Use the index and get in-depth answers.

•  Why is so hard to regain control after several days of overeating? 

You may have all kinds of chemicals and sugar in your system keeping you out of touch with your body. If you're finding you're uncontrollable, treat food like a drug. If this drug is screwing with your body, it's destroying your health. Without your health, you cannot live.

Confusion caused by a chemical imbalance is hard to deal with. It's time to use tough love which is doing what is right instead of what is easiest. Read the chapter called Satisfaction in Am I Really Hungry to get some clear ways to do this.

• How can I get back in touch with my intuition and break this cycle?

Life is always going to have unexpected stresses. Forgive yourself and allow yourself to get back in sync with your body and mind. Focus on using your 5 senses when you're around food. When you feel an emotional drive to binge, take control by giving yourself 3 minutes to use foresight and patience. Make a commitment to honor yourself. Every day, every meal is a new opportunity to recommit to protecting yourself.

Listen to your body. Ultimately your body has a 'mind' of it's own and is clear about what feels satisfying and what foods make you physically at peace. 

More great tips and easy answers to eating challenges when you download: Am I Really Hungry? 6th sense diet : Intuitive Eating.

The Inner Game of Eating

Imagine you can eat what you want, know when you're hungry and be happy with your body and yourself. It's all part of the inner game of eating self-control. The inner game keeps your head in tune with your gut feelings and your body with simple intuitive tools.

• Your head is the hard drive where you store experience and where your values connect. 
•  Your gut feeling is the connection that protects you by staying clear about what you sense and your long term priorities. 
• Your body is the source of energy, health and pleasure. Naturally, you want to tune in to that! 

Intuition is having an open mind and a flexible attitude. Sitting down to eat without a plan is having an open mind. This arms you with an awareness that you drives you to feel curious about your choices. Part of the inner game of eating is realizing that you always have options.

Having a flexible attitude gives perspective. For example, If I eat this whole pizza, will I like what it does to my body?, If I slam this sandwich down my throat without even tasting it, will I feel satisfied?  The inner game of eating puts you in charge of what you do.

• Perspective is how you know yourself. 
• It allows you to get out of your own way to see where you're going. 
  
  
  
  The inner game of eating includes checking in with your body with all 5 senses before you put food in your mouth. Doing that is your intuitive way of showing self-respect. Your senses give you an intimate reality check. What's real is not a plan or a number on a scale.  What's real when it comes to the inner game is how you feel, what you sense and your personal priorities. 

Listening to your 6th sense teaches you about yourself. The better you know yourself, the easier it is to be good to yourself by maintaining eating self-control. It's surprisingly natural to get through the maze of eating challenges and diet stress to discover satisfaction with yourself by knowing the inner game of eating self-control.  Intuitive tools that keep you in touch with eating self-control include:

• curiosity reminds you to notice what you notice with your senses and your mind
• prudence is the reminder that you always have options and the ability to choose what feels best
• foresight reminds you to think about the results of your choices so there are no regrets.

The inner game of eating connects with what you value long-term in your life. You stay clear about what gives you pleasure and away from what fills you with regret. It feels like common sense.

On Thursday, March1st at 1PM EST, I will be doing a teleseminar about how to re-invent personal dieting by connecting with your inner game of eating self-control with Holistic Nutrition Coach, Nancy Desjardins. Registration is free. Sign up and get some answers! See you there.

Intuitive Magic

A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch. ~George Bernard Shaw

Curiosity is intuitive. It's something you feel, not something you think. The more curious you are, the more satisfaction you will discover with yourself and in your world.

Working to live intuitively is going to change the way you eat and feel. Trusting your intuition is being true to yourself. It's respecting your body, listening to your heart and not letting your head be bulldozed into someone else's thinking pattern.

Eating is about pleasuring your body - not in a lewd or sexual way, but in a way that fills you with the excitement of living. A satisfied body feels vibrant and alive. Real satisfaction around eating is nearly sacred. That's why there are so many rituals around food and eating.

When you diet, you develop damaging rituals around eating. These lead to bingeing and purging. They  create a mind-set of defeat. It's subtle until you realize you've gained 20 pounds or worse. Stop eating to fit in a mindset and start eating to fit in your own mind and body!

There is a simple ritual around eating that's intuitive magic. It opens your eyes and your heart. Doing it feels like common sense. The intuitive ritual around eating that I urge you to use is the ritual of Gratitude - before, during and after you eat. It will change everything.

Right now, stop looking at your watch and start looking at what you're doing. If you're offered a serving that's huge, there's no pleasure in packing food in as if you're a box to fill.

• Instead, savor the flavors. 
• Take a deep breath between bites and allow your body the space it naturally needs to relax and let the digestive juices flow.
• Pamper your inner health so that you can depend on it later.

Don't think of calories; think of the pleasures of great health. Don't look at the clock; be in the moment. Tune in to the magic.
Try it!

Bon Appetite!

Overeating hurts! Eating is supposed to feel good.

You go out with friends to feel good. If you focus on food at a party, instead of feeding your present physical, social or emotional hungers, it doesn't feel good. Overeating is a trap because it never feels good physically or emotionally. 

To stay your healthy weight, remember that eating is supposed to feel good.  It's personal,  a direct response to your physical needs. It's intuitive to stay aware of how your body feels when you eat.

Is this you? :

• I eat fast and I eat a lot so I don't miss anything. This results from a habit of starving yourself as a form of control instead of realizing your body always tells you when you're hungry and when you're full.

• I stay by the buffet at a party because eating feels comforting. Overeating is never comforting to your body. Focusing mainly on food at a party is being dishonest with yourself because it leaves you feeling emotionally and socially starved.

• I go for 2nds and 3rds because I have high metabolism and everyone watches how much I can eat or
• I always talk about my diet at parties.  It's emotionally twisted to use eating to get attention, and it backfires. No one admires a pig. Also, no one really enjoys being with someone who complains about their diet or their body, instead of joining the fun.  

Intuition is action. Use intuition when you celebrate. If it feels good, do it!

• Listen to your heart and tune in to your libido. Use all of your senses at a party to feel good while you're there and feel satisfied with yourself later.

1. Eye contact with people opens doors that are gently exciting.
2. Listening to conversation and adding your thoughts feels good because communication nourishes your heart.
3. Really tasting your food slows down eating and is a way of experiencing pleasures that you notice with your mind.
4. It's mutually satisfying to talk about pleasure. Be sensual. If the chocolate mousse is like a dream on your tongue, talk about it. 

•  Pause, look at who you're talking to and notice yourself. It's intuitive to be clear about where you are and what you're doing. You'll discover some amazing and amusing things, and you'll change your habits because you won't like everything you see. You know yourself best. Notice what you notice.

If eating doesn't feel good to your heart or body - don't do it. Tune-in to your body and trust it by not abusing yourself.

Intuitive Exercise

Use your intuition to overcome uncomfortable emotional urges.

• Emotions make you feel heavy. Emotion-driven situations can make you feel like you're drowning. Remember: emotions are not more important than your body, especially when it's about eating. 
• Emotions make waves in our lives 24/7. It's the gamut of living. Your intuition keeps your head above the water, so you stay clear about your priorities while riding the waves. 
• You can't satisfy emotional hunger with food. That's why bingeing doesn't work. Instead, you can use intuition to know what's going to help you. 

Here's how to  flex your intuitive muscles to refresh and re-focus the next time you feel an emotional wave driving you towards an uncomfortable or compromising  choice.  

1. Try this:

•  Think of yourself when you're tense. Feel your body. Where are your shoulders? How does your neck feel? Where does your body hold tension? I hold mine in my stomach.

•  How do you look when you feel comfortable and relaxed?  What's on your mind? ... probably nothing :) How are your shoulders? How's your heart?... probably peaceful (*

When your shoulders are relaxed and your heart is comfortable, it's automatic to be aware of your priorities and personal boundaries. It's intuitive & healthiest for you to keep an emotional / physical / mental balance.

2. Look at yourself:

• When you're not really comfortable, it's automatic to lean forward just a little and this presses your heavy chest bone against your beating heart. Lift your sternum away from your heart. Notice the difference.
•  Use inner strength to be courageous and to be patient. Identify with someone you admire who could do it : James Bond, Superman, Wonder Woman, Harry Potter, Mother Teresa, etc. You can use the strength you recognize intuitively.
•  Use foresight to ask yourself : How does this choice feel? Tune in to your body.  Where are your shoulders? How is your heart?

3. Let your eyes and body distract you from your emotions.

• Breathe firmly in and out and really see what's in front of you. Look at colors and shapes. Notice what you notice. 
•  Breathe firmly in and out. Turn around and see what's behind you. Notice color details. 
•  Now your posture is alert, refreshed and re-focused. You're in sync with your intuition. It's pretty amazing, isn't it.

When life hits frustrating emotional walls, use your 6 senses  to stay clear about what you want. You will be in control of eating choices and look great.

• It's so easy, anyone can do it.

Let go and lose weight.

"It's all right letting yourself go as long as you can let yourself back." -- Mick Jagger

The food-filled holidays are over. Still, at a party last night women and men confided in me that they had "let themselves go" between Thanksgiving and the new year. They felt burdened. It makes no sense to focus on what you ate last year. 

The old emotionally manipulative 20th century diet mentality  is to humiliate yourself with regrets and beat yourself up with recriminations. It's wrong. It boomerangs and makes you hold on to guilt, anger and fat!  

Instead, give yourself space to come back to your best interests. Intuitive eating is tuning-in to the present. Use your 5 senses to recognize messages from your body and your 6th sense (intuition) and eat in response to physical hunger, your values, priorities and personal boundaries. 

Feeling badly about what you ate a month ago adds extra weight on your body. It makes you literally feel heavy! Put it down. Let go of it. 

Time is passing, be guided by your moments.  Stay in the now and lighten up literally and psychologically! Feel good because you're committed to being true to your body and yourself.  Enjoy your next meal because it's the beginning of living your dream. 

Let yourself lose weight by letting go of regrets and guilt trips. Then, keep in step with today, eat less, chew more and use common sense. The pounds will come off.

This is January. Eat to protect your health from seasonal colds and flu and have energy for the best quality of life. You'll get some satisfaction.

Am I Really Hungry addresses how to recognize emotional hot buttons and turn them off. It was written in response to interviews with dieters and intuitive answers. Use this book to help you let go and lose weight.

Pleasure makes losing weight possible.

Albert Einstein famously said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." If you're trying to lose weight with a traditional diet, re-read that quote. 95% of people who diet gain back more weight than they lose! Try using your intuition to lose weight instead.

Eat for pleasure. That's the easy way to be an intuitive eater.

 Pleasure touches every part of your life.

P  stands for priorities. Make eating priorities personal and uniquely suited to your needs and physical goals.

L stands for lifestyle. Your lifestyle dictates your eating choices. You choose how much.

E stands for enjoy. Studies have shown when you really enjoy what you eat, your digestion is 70% more efficient. Enjoyment also reduces stress.

A is your attitude of awareness. Being tuned in with your 5 senses keeps you tuned in to your body. When it comes to eating, your body is the source of your pleasure.


S stands for sensual. When you satisfy yourself sensually at mealtime, you're comfortably full but not stuffed. You feel good.


U is an understanding. You allow yourself to enjoy what you want in a way that respects your priorities. There is nothing forbidden or restricted. There is only common sense.

R stands for realistic. What's realistic is what works for your body. You can feel it, and ultimately you can see it. What you eat is just about you.

E stands for enthusiasm.  It's a sparkle in your step and in your smile that makes you attractive.

 Eating Pleasures include:

• Taste
• Smell
• Texture
• Relaxation
• Comfort
• Satisfaction
• Peace of Mind

Tune-in to pleasure at mealtime.

Discover that you eat less because you're enjoying yourself more.
Your Intuition is the support system you can count on.