EAT like you LOVE yourself!

This week we continue to love on ourselves with the

“Show up for yourself” series. 

Today being all the the food that we eat.

Should you choose to accept this invitation, this is your focus for the next week. So ask yourself firstly:

“Do I eat like I love myself?”

I bet you answered that instantly!

Food is a huge trigger for many of us. It can trigger a lot of emotions or memories, from those more pleasurable to those quite painful. So when asking yourself this question, without any judgement, just notice what comes to you first:

“Yes, I do eat like I love myself” or “No, I don’t.”

Ok so now let’s talk about what Eating like you LOVE yourself means… (to me, of course, so see what resonates and what doesn’t for you).

Eating like you LOVE yourself means:

• Eating slowly and mindfully; tasting your food, chewing your food, feeling your food in your mouth, not being distracted while eating your food, enjoying every bite and BREATHING (through your nose). All these things set your nervous system up for the digestive process. Eating too quickly and your body won’t be ready to receive the food, it won’t produce enough stomach acid and enzymes to break down your food which means less nutrition for your body.
• Eating the right foods for your body. Only you can answer this one. You know what makes you feel bloated, what you react to, how fast and what happens (generally). You know what you crave, you know what emotions you attach to food so you know overall, what makes you feel good and what doesn’t. Maybe you disagree, and maybe you think you don’t, but if you do the first point, you’ll know pretty quickly what is right for you.
• Having 2-3 meals a day, no snacking, (try to have 5-6 hours between meals). Some people eat less, some eat more and this may depend on your energy expenditure during the day, your stress levels, your hormones, your level of hydration, the function of your gut and so on. A general rule of thumb is to eat when you’re hungry, when you feel the rumble in your belly or your mouth salivate when you think of food and if you find that you’re eating in between meals, you may be thirsty (really commonly mistaken for hunger), or you may not have eaten enough at your previous meal. Again, be mindful and listen and if truly hungry, eat and if you notice yourself snacking, take a drink of water and identify what you’re feeling. 15 mins and a craving usually passes…
• Eating real foods. What are real foods (in my opinion). Generally, foods that don’t come from a packet. I’m talking about fake foods and heavily processed foods, not foods like rice or natural yoghurt or raw honey. Buy fresh, buy seasonal if you know how, buy local. It is generally one ingredient, not a mish-mash of multiple (often non-food) ingredients.
• Reading labels. If you are going to buy something in a packet from the health food isle etc, LOVE yourself by learning how to read the labels and notice what’s in the packet you want. What are you looking to avoid? Preservatives, additives, chemical names you don’t know or can’t pronounce, colourings, fillers, sugar, vegetable oils.
• Eating animal foods! How many of you just unsubscribed?! 😉 Eggs, meat, fish/seafood, broths, even organ meats. Protein at most meals keeps us healthy, strong and younger for longer, not to mention full! Eat a meal that only contains carbs and wait for the hunger to kick in a couple of hours later as your body works hard to get all the glucose out of the bloodstream. Eat what you like in this category and what you digest well. Have an aversion to these foods? Your digestion might be in need of some support. To be clear though, carbs are not the enemy, just balance them with enough protein and good quality fats.
• Cooking and preparing as many of your meals as you can. If this is a stretch for you to imagine, I get it but it shouldn’t be, this is our natural way to eat which means many of us are eating unnatural processed foods. At dinner, if you choose to go to a restaurant, just ask what ingredients they use and avoid things you know you can’t tolerate. I personally avoid certain cuisines for their use of vegetable/seed oils which are highly inflammatory and will ask if something contains sugar, dairy and gluten if I am wanting to avoid them. In today’s world of food intolerances, most restaurants are happy to accommodate, you just have to ask.
• Feeling and expressing gratitude for your food. Starting a meal with a feeling of gratitude sets your body up to receive the food and use it to nourish you. Preparing your meal will also (often) make you more grateful for the time it took to prepare it. You can speak words of gratitude before a meal out loud or to yourself, but just spend a minute before eating to be grateful for what you have.
  

So Eating like you LOVE yourself is quite simply knowing and caring about what goes into your body, how it goes into your body and then listening to your body if it tells you not to eat something in particular.

Eating like you LOVE yourself is about being more empowered in your food choices so that when you eat, you are not attaching shame or guilt to them.

And because food is energy, which is a vibration, and electrical current, what we eat and the way we eat it (the speed with which we eat, our feelings and thoughts around the food), affects our energy, our vibration and our overall function.

So are you up for it?

Do you feel inspired to make a little shift in your life this week? If so, I’m here for you!

Take a deep breath and say to yourself every day for the next week:

“Today I am going to eat like I LOVE myself!”

(Write it around your home and put it as an alert on your phone to remind you to say it daily!)