Well, my initial thought was to write a blog post apologising for my absence – I was SUPPOSED to write about the end of my pregnancy and the early newborn days, and I was hoping to do some Christmas blog posts too. Clearly, I haven’t achieved any of this! But as I began to write
Pregnancy is a time of enormous change – and for the majority of us, change is pretty hard to handle. The changes our bodies go through during pregnancy are intense. Most of these changes aren’t particularly pleasant on a physical level, but emotionally and psychologically, it’s even harder for some pregnant women. There is so
Intuitive Eating & Wellness Culture in Pregnancy If you read my last blog you will know that I decided to approach this second pregnancy much differently to my first. I went into pregnancy #2 feeling a sense of calm over what I should/would eat – but also being nervous about how this might affect me
Principle 10 – Honour Your Health: Gentle Nutrition Principle 10 (the last of the Intuitive Eating principles) is about honouring your body through health and body wisdom. Nutrition is about SO MUCH MORE than just what you do or don’t eat, because it’s also about the ability to listen to your body in relation
Principle 9 – Exercise: Feel the Difference “No pain, no gain” – “if it doesn’t hurt, you’re not doing it right”… heard these before? Been lured into the promises of bootcamp? Don’t get me wrong – high intensity exercise can be great fun, and for many people, this is the style of exercise they enjoy
Principle 8 – Respect Your Body The reality is that nothing positive can come out of hate. No amount of self-loathing will help you to grow and change. Diet culture has us firmly believing in the thin ideal – that we are all capable of being a thin, toned size 8-10ish. And that this is
Principle 6 – Discover the Satisfaction Factor It is an unfortunate reality that diet culture has essentially ruined our ability to enjoy food. We have lost the satisfaction factor for the most part, and even when we do gain pleasure from our food it’s often short-lived because guilt soon follows. What the diet, health and wellness industries
Pregnancy and the pregnant body is a miraculous thing – I don’t think anyone can deny that. But this doesn’t mean that every woman loves being pregnant, and I am certainly no exception. The decision to have another child was a difficult one for me – even though I had a number of frozen embryos
This principle of intuitive eating is very much aligned with the work of mindful eating. We continue to come back to the hunger/fullness scale – and that’s because being able to recognise our physical hunger cues is fundamental to being both an intuitive and mindful eater. Here’s the link to the hunger/fullness scale again in
Principle 4 – Challenge the Food Police “What on Earth is the food police”?!?! I can hear you asking… I think the explanation by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (in The Intuitive Eating Workbook) is the best way to summarise it: “The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created. The police station is housed