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
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
Principle 3 – Make Peace with Food This principle reminds us that “all foods fit”. There are no “good” or “bad” foods, and we are not morally superior for choosing broccoli over cake. By the same token, you’re not a “bad person” for eating the REAL cheesecake over the dairy-free-coconut-cream-no-added-sugar version! Making peace with food requires us
Principle 2 – Honour Your Hunger Chronic dieters (and/or wellness-seekers) often ignore, or intentionally try to curb, their biological drive for food (aka hunger). While this might seem like a good idea at the time, it’s really important to realise that our body is not designed for starvation. When we deprive our body of the nutrients
Principle 1 – Reject the Diet Mentality What is dieting? In this context, dieting is basically any form of food restriction or food rules. This includes the use of exercise, medications, supplements etc… which encourage weight loss. Dieting is all about intention – if you’re doing something (or not doing something) with the INTENTION to lose