Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works

by Evelyn Tribole

Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust with yourself and food.

She learned to give herself nurturing messages and make nonjudgmental decisions about her eating.

“If you don’t love it, don’t eat it, and if you love it, savor it.”

COPE WITH YOUR EMOTIONS WITHOUT USING FOOD Find ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your emotional issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.

This is also true for many workaholic clients. It’s socially acceptable to take a time-out to eat (coffee break), but to just sit at the desk, even while entitled to a break, is not allowed. They fear that it will appear as if they are doing nothing.