Intuitive Eating

Tomorrow kicks off my crazy summer travel schedule. I'm going to be away a lot in June, July, and part of August. I've decided to experiment with intuitive eating until August 1.

Intuitive eating is eating based on your hunger cues. MIND FUCKING BLOWN. Sadly, most Americans don't properly interpret hunger cues. We either overeat or undereat. We eat based on our emotional feelings and not because we listen to our bodies feeling hunger.

I've been tracking macros in My Fitness Pal for seven months and I should have a pretty good understanding of my body's needs by now. I am the queen of the food scale. I'm incredible at putting the correct amount I am trying to measure on a plate or in a bowl or cup. I've developed a strong ability to visualize correct serving sizes.

Using this knowledge of serving sizes and nutrition, I am challenging myself to make good food choices for the next 6 weeks without measuring. I want to break free of the scale, put my knowledge into practice, and hopefully lower my stress about traveling.

I'm scared. I'm scared that I'll completely fall off the wagon and gain 15 lbs. I'm scared that I will lose my muscle mass and increase my body fat. But this fear is irrational and it is tied to my fear of food. I want to learn to trust myself to make good food decisions when I don't have the safety net of accurate flexible dieting. Flexible dieting lets me eat crap when I want it because I can still hit my macros with nutrient dense food. This works great for me when I am home because I don't keep crap in my house and have to make the decision to go out and get it. When I'm in airports and hotels and strange cities, it is too easy for me to reach for candy and fried food. I want to teach myself trust when I travel so that traveling stops being something I dread. Basically I bring the vacation mindset towards food on every one of my trips, but not every trip is a vacation.

Today I've had a protein shake; some multigrain bread with peanut butter, butter, and fig spread; and some steak tips with vegetables. I didn't measure any of it but these are things I eat relatively often. Instead of tracking serving sizes, I am going to track how I feel with my food and exercise choices on this blog. Today I'm feeling pretty good so far. Wish me luck.