Nutrition Advice - Just Listen To Your Body??

Nutrition Advice: "Just listen to your body"

My body: "A muffin the size of a football sounds quite reasonable at the minute"

I hear this advice all the time.

“Just listen to your body.”

It sounds like great advice but the problem is that many people don’t actually know what their body is telling them.

After years of dieting, emotional eating, snacking out of habit, eating while distracted and eating because food is available our internal signals can get a little noisy.

Sometimes hunger is hunger.

Sometimes it’s boredom.

Sometimes it’s stress.

Sometimes it’s the giant muffin sitting on the counter.

That’s why I think “just listen to your body” is often incomplete advice.

A better approach would be to listen to your body... but also educate it.

Learn what happens when you:​

• eat more protein
• eat regular meals (with no snacks in between)
• eat at similar times
• include fruits and vegetables
• sleep more
• exercise consistently

Over time, your appetite often becomes easier to interpret.

You start noticing the difference between:

• hunger and cravings
• satisfaction and fullness
• fuel and comfort

Intuitive eating is a skill and like most skills, it takes practice and it’s not something you’ll pick up immediately (especially after years of faulty eating patterns or diets and detoxes)

If your body is currently asking for a muffin the size of a football, don’t panic.

Mine occasionally does too.