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Intuitive Eating changed ME

Posted by Jennifer Campoli on April 28th, 2010
Filed under intuitive eating, Motivation, Wellness | 4 Comments »

On June 1, 2008 something changed in me. I still can't put my finger on it, but that day will forever be marked as the day that I was no longer willing to live in my world of dieting, food obsession, body obsession, shame, guilt, or restriction. I spent every day since I was 15 focusing on my body and how it simply wasn't good enough. While there are a few paths that you can go down when you are in that frame of mind, I chose one: to stop eating. My world became restrictive in every sense of the word.

But everything changed on that day in June. I found a book titled Intuitive Eating. Merely 10 pages into the first chapter I felt a sense of relief and understanding that I had never felt. I started to realize that just maybe I could dig myself out of this world I had built around food and body obsession. And so I kept reading. I read the entire book in one sitting. I couldn't put it down, I couldn't stop to let it sink in. I had to learn as much as I could about this revolutionary approach to my relationship with food. Sometimes things just change you. It may be something as simple as a phrase from a friend or the words in a book. Sometimes you just start to change. And so I did.

Through their nurturing coaching, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch showed me what a healthy relationship with food can look like. What it can feel like. And that food is meant to be enjoyed, that food can fuel your body and nourish your soul! I was given a new sense of power. I had broken myself down with guilt and shame towards food, how I looked, how my unhappiness controlled my actions and because on the inside, I didn't know how to be the person I wanted to be. I was caught in this world and fully ruled by a diet mentality. Becoming an intuitive eater became the most powerful thing I had ever done.

This is what Intuitive Eating has done for me…

I now view food as nourishment, not a ticket to weight loss or skinny jeans.

I no longer label foods. There is no good food or bad food. It is all simply food.

I do not have anxiety and fear towards food decisions.

I look forward to events with friends and family without inquiring about what will be served, what the menu is and how I'm going to navigate an evening of forbidden treats.

I hear, listen to and understand the signals my body gives me. I know what true hunger feels like. I know when my body is lacking nutrients or calories. I know when it feels sad, upset or angry.

I no longer fear that I will forever struggle with my weight or my body.

I have learned to love this body, right here, right now.

I feel balanced.

While I could spend hours on this topic, I do not want to write the longest post known in the blog world and I want to respect the words in the book. If you have any interest in learning more about Intuitive Eating, please visit the site, order the book or audio book, and please email me if you would like.

Over the next few weeks I am going to delve a bit deeper into each of the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating. My reason for doing this is two-fold actually:

1. I want to share how these ideas have impacted me and my life, in hopes that maybe someone else out there might learn something. Or maybe you might begin to see that your world does not have to be about calories, diets, carbs or weight.

2. In the past few months I have found my diet mentality creeping back into my life. I know exactly why and I even know when it started. I hope that as I reread this book and share with you the meaning I find in it, this will be a helpful step in my recommitment to balanced, intuitive eating. I have always found that once you decide to lead your life in a particular way, you will always have to recommit to that choice, many times. So here I am: recommitting.

I hope that my posts will be a place for honest and open ideas. I am going to be very real about my successes and how I've failed since learning. I am not going to say that I have never worried about my weight or counted calories or overate for the wrong reasons. That simply isn't true.

Now, check the site out! Let me know what you think!

Till tomorrow!

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