Intuitive Eating For Body-Mind Wellbeing

There are as many divisions in the world of nutrition as there are in the world of, say, politics or religion. Nutrition has become a sort of religion of its own on many different fronts.

Yet if we are to eat in a way that nourishes our own unique biology, we need to be willing to leave the nutrition dogma at the door.

If we can put aside the religious aspect of nutrition and simply get still enough to see how we feel on the inside, our bodies will tell us exactly what and how much we need.

During my years as a student of holistic nutrition, my research brought me to one simple approach to nutrition and dis-ease.

Every disorder, malfunction or imbalance in the body-mind can be reduced to a very simple biological paradigm.

Toxicity or deficiency.

When someone is dealing with toxicity (think liver disorders, some cancers, certain skin conditions) their bodies have become sick with elements that burden the body. This might be too much sugar, too much alcohol, heavy metals, or other chemicals found in things like laundry detergents, cleaning products, fluoridated toothpaste and certain pharmaceuticals.

Symptoms of toxicity can include weight gain, sluggishness, brain fog, skin conditions or reoccurring infections, to name a few.

Deficiency, on the other hand, results in an undernourishment of the body-mind. There are not enough macro-nutrients getting to the body and the brain. Some of the disorders that are common to deficiency are autoimmune diseases, gut disorders and anorexia.

Deficiency symptoms often include fatigue, weight loss, gut problems, anemia and insomnia.

Toxicity in the body most often requires a plant-based diet to address the need for elimination. Plants are amazing detoxifiers and depending on your particular body type, this might require short-term or long-term dietary measures.

Deficiency in the body most often needs animal foods. Animal foods are deeply nourishing and contain life-sustaining nutrients that a deficient body so badly needs. A piece of grass-fed beef, for example is loaded with protein, saturated fat (which, contrary to mainstream nutrition science, is essential to make our hormones), minerals, collagen, complex B vitamins, vitamin A, zinc and a host of other life-giving nutrients. For the deficient person, there is literally nothing more healing.

If you were to wake up in the morning, presumably on an empty stomach, and just stopped for a minute without robotically reaching for what is either most convenient or most familiar or produced the least guilt, your body would tell you exactly what it needed and wanted.

This is where intuitive eating can become a life-saver.

But we have to be willing to leave the dogmatic narratives around food off the table.

Only your body can know what it needs.

Having lived with Crohn’s Disease for decades now, I have come to see what sustains this body of mine and what breaks it down.

I attempted, years ago, to eat a vegetarian diet in an attempt to heal a flare-up that I was experiencing at that time. I had just started to dig into the nutrition research and there seemed to be a particular bent towards eating a plant-based diet.

So I gave it a go.

After 4 months of eating plant-based and doing it properly (combining my proteins to make complete amino acid) I felt like I was dying. But I’d become dogmatic in my approach. I’d also felt morally superior for adopting this new way of eating because everything I read told me I was irresponsible for eating any other way.

One night I was out for dinner with my husband and I was gearing up to order some vegetarian pasta. At this point, I was pale, with dark circles under my eyes and I had no gas left in the tank. My husband leaned over to me and pleaded with me to eat some meat. Somehow he knew better then me at that point that this diet was not only not serving me, but making my health even worse.

Fine. I ordered chicken.

Firstly, the first few bits of chicken were so delicious that I could have cried. Secondly, within about 20 minutes of eating my first animal-based meal in months, I felt like someone had injected me with liquid sunshine.

I came alive.

And it was almost immediate.

Intuitive eating removes all dogma and hence, all guilt.

We have to be willing to inquire into what feels good, tastes good and leaves us feeling sated with the bloat. What can we eat without having to run back to more food an hour later? What feels deeply satisfying without lighting up the addictive centres in our brain?

One of the best ways that I know how to move into intuitive eating is to begin cooking homemade meals in a joyful setting.

It sounds almost too simple but it works. Try the following to tap your own intuitive nutritional needs:

• Gather up some fresh ingredients…ingredients that both look appealing to you and that when you imagine eating them, feel appealing to your palette.

• Turn on some great music in your kitchen, light a candle and put something together that lights up your senses.

• If you get quiet enough, your senses will tell you what they’re most attracted to.

• Fresh, seasonal foods…warming, wholesome stews filled with meat and root veg…a cooling smoothie with fresh fruit and nut milk…a bright and colourful salad bursting with colour and flavour…a roast beef with all the fixings.

• Let yourself get hungry in between meals. This allows your digestive system to rest and to come back into balance so that we can recalibrate and see what our body really wants.

Hippocrates, the founding father of modern medicine, said “Let food by thy medicine and medicine by thy food.” If this is to be true, and from a purely biological standpoint I believe that it is, then we have to be willing to leave the ‘better opinion of others’ at the door.

Your body already knows what it needs to function optimally.

Be willing to listen and seek out a deeper knowing and a better way for you.