One reason people struggle with intuitive eating is that you often use food to cope with your emotions. By removing the control of a diet, you feel like you will just emotionally eat non-stop and never stop gaining weight.
However, the truth is that what you need to focus on is finding other healthy ways to cope with your emotions. There is nothing bad about eating to comfort yourself, as long as it isn’t the only way you find comfort.
Take a Pause and Reflect
Before doing anything else, consider your feelings for at least a few minutes, and just let them come in. Many times, using food as a way to cope with your emotions is done on impulse. You feel stressed or angry or anxious, and the first thing you do is find something to eat to push those feelings down. But frequently, if you can just sit with the change in emotions for a few minutes, this impulse passes, and you can just move on without needing to do much else.
Write it All Down
Journaling is a wonderful tool for your intuitive lifestyle journey and can help you work through a lot. There are many forms of journaling, but for an intuitive journey, we like just brain dumps. This is where you write down anything you are thinking or feeling. You can write down gratitude, what you are dealing with, something good that happened, challenges in your life, even how intuitive eating is difficult for you.
The more you write down and the more honest you are while you do it, the more it will benefit you and help you learn how to cope with your emotions.
Find a Distractive Activity
Make a list of other activities you can turn to in addition to food. Remember, you are not telling yourself you can’t eat or that you will never eat emotionally, but just looking to add to your arsenal of coping methods. This can include anything easy to do and can be done right where you are.
It might include:
- Going for a walk
- Playing with your kids
- Walking your dogs
- Reading a book
- Watching something on Netflix
- Writing in your journal
- Coloring in an adult coloring book
- Calling a friend
Move Your Body
Lastly, try to move your body gently and happily when you are feeling stressed or anxious. Don’t commit to a difficult workout routine, but instead think of gentle forms of movement, like walking, hiking, swimming, yoga, or just a short stretch routine.
