Have you ever been sat by yourself, your mind plagued with the thought of food when you've told yourself that you're 'trying to be good'? When trying your very best not to go to the shop for your favourite chocolate bar or just holding off because of the ludicrous notion that there are specific times that you're 'allowed' to eat food. This is something I have had countless experience with and I know I'm not the only one.
After reading Meghan Jane Crabbs book 'Body Positive Power', I've thought a lot about intuitive eating; the crazy idea of actually listening to your body and following through with what it's asking of you. When listening to your internal functions, you feel less of an urge to lean towards destructive diet behaviours, such as binge eating and those random cravings become less of an issue because you're telling yourself it's okay to eat when your body tells you to. To be honest with you I didn't realise that 'intuitive eating' even had a name.
You see dear reader: I love food, tasting new food, going out for meals, trying new recipes and simply enjoying what I consume. At first I thought that by giving up on having a strict diet, I'd failed or wasn't making the right decisions for myself, however, when I dug deeper it was clear that in fact my relationship with food had improved and I had just not realised. I believe that food and the composition of our diet can have a massive effect on our mental health. In the context of mindfulness, I've become rather mindful when it comes to food. Part of the practice of mindfulness requires you to be present in the moment, so if I'm hungry I'm gonna eat and you should too! Whilst also not worrying about the future based on fears from the past.
On my educational journey I've learned to stop worrying about what people may think of me because of what I eat and how I look, my life is my business and everyone should feel this way. However, it is only natural to go back and think about all that time I wasted thinking about food, when I could have simply enjoyed life or enjoyed that book or tv show, paid better attention to what was being said in a lesson. I allowed this sense of food fueled dread to control my headspace and ruin my inner peace. We should enjoy our food and not be held back by our inner saboteur... Life is too short and I don't want my time on this earth to be spent not listening to my body when it says I'm hungry.
When taking a second look, I've found that I've not disregarded what I eat, I've actually started to care about enjoying food and enjoying my life.
