It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on the blog. Actually, I’m constantly posting on Instagram, but I’ve been neglecting this place. I’ll be posting more here lately so it doesn’t get lost. Everyone can open and read it whenever they want 🙂 I’m starting a series of posts on Mindful Eating/Intuitive Eating. People think nutrition is just about what we eat, but it’s actually such a vast world. It’s much more than just counting hours, calories, meals, or saying “I ate broccoli, I ate salad.” I’ll try to explain each aspect in detail in this series 🙂

What is hunger? What are the types of hunger? What are our needs to feel full? When and what should we eat? All of this from a holistic perspective. I’ll talk about mindful eating, emotional eating, intuitive eating, what true nutrition is, following body signals – everything. I’m at a point in my training that I’m very happy with right now. Of course, education never stops, but right now I’ve been able to synthesize all the topics I wanted in my head. The effort of 5 years is starting to come to fruition. It covers everything from the foods we eat to stress management to emotional eating. I’m so comfortable with this. I’ll keep explaining it to you all. Without understanding this, no diet, no nutritional plan will be sustainable in the long term; we won’t be able to move beyond the yo-yo effect. Let’s begin.

Our physical bodies, of course, need food, water, sleep, exercise, rest, and relaxation. These are essential needs for life. A lack of any one of these can lead to weakness, stress, fatigue, anxiety, and depression. To compensate for these deficiencies, we often consume high-energy foods (like sugar, pastries, pizza, alcohol), but perhaps all we want at that moment is “rest” or “sleep.” Because we’re unaware of our true needs, we overwhelm ourselves with the first energy-boosting, high-sugar, carbohydrate-rich food we can find.

I suggest you ask yourself, “What is my real need right now?” and then address that need.

You’ve worked hard all week. You’ve struggled with all the problems at work, your boss, your constantly chattering coworker. You’ve looked after the kids, cooked, listened to your spouse, been stuck in traffic… you haven’t paid any attention to yourself or pampered yourself. After dinner, there’s a refrigerator or pantry constantly calling out to you. You want to eat everything, but eating doesn’t solve the problem. Then, self-blame and judgment start, like, “Look, you failed again, you’re always like this.” Then it’s a vicious cycle that snowballs. More eating, more anger, physical swelling, bursting, not being able to fit into your clothes in the morning, going to work angry again, eating again – it rolls on and on. But we haven’t looked at our real need. That need is to do something that will pamper/make you happy. Maybe with your spouse, your partner, maybe alone. Something fun, social, calming. This hunger is his hunger. If you’ve had dinner and your stomach is full, and you’re still going to the pantry/refrigerator, please ask yourself, “What am I hungry for right now?” I’m thinking of leaving it here for now and going step by step. Does this story resonate with anyone? If you write your questions about this in the comments, I’ll shape the continuation of the posts accordingly.

This series will continue. I will group the posts under 3 headings: “Nutrition with Awareness”. If we figure this out, we’re in luck 🙂 I’m dedicating these summer months to explaining these things to you. Now you’ve learned how to eat sugar-free/gluten-free. There’s thousands of pieces of information on my Instagram account, blog, and book. Now it’s time for these 🙂