Updated: Jul 17
By Rejan Magee
Do you feel like food is your enemy?
Are you constantly thinking about your next meal?
Many of us grow up on a Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) – meaning lots of low-nutrient foods, lots of refined sugars, packaged and processed foods, and not enough of the foods that our bodies need to thrive. In fact, this is almost the norm.
We’re taught from a young age that we should eat everything on our plate, eat things that we dislike and don’t bring us pleasure, drink a tall glass of milk with every meal, and convenience foods are marketed to us left, right, and centre.
We’re also bombarded with images of slender women, extremely fit men, and are led to believe that in order to be successful, you have to run yourself into the ground. It’s cool to have a million things going on at once, and thank god packaged and fast food exists, right?
Unfortunately not only these foods, but these ways of thinking lead to poor health status and an unhealthy relationship with food. It creates addictions around certain foods, negative connotations with food, and habits that become hard to break.
We end up feeling sick and tired, and when we try to better our health, it becomes a perpetual cycle of dieting and binging, and beating ourselves up – which doesn’t get us anywhere.
How, then, can we break this vicious cycle?
Intuitive eating (and having food freedom) is an approach to eating that centers around healing from the damaging effects of chronic dieting.
An intuitive eater is someone who is able to make food choices without experiencing feelings of guilt, shame, or dilemma. They are able to properly recognize their body’s hunger cues, they are able to monitor fullness (and honour it), and at the same time can still derive pleasure from eating. They also have a healthy relationship with food.
This is important because in adopting this lifestyle, you’re able to lose weight safely and naturally, and then actually maintain a healthy weight thereafter. This way of eating and thinking increases your overall health and wellbeing and reduces your risk of chronic disease and illness.
Once you have food freedom, your self-esteem is boosted and there are less and less lingering feelings of negativity towards food as time goes on.
This is a key element of all of our nutrition programs. We delve into your relationship with food and work hard to strengthen it so that eventually you can say, “food is no longer an issue for me.” You’ll get to a point where you can have your cake and eat it too.
If you’re a first responder, you can get FREE access to our online health hub here.
For more information on what we do and the programs we offer, click here, or schedule a free discovery call.
