My Intuitive Eating Experience
March 25, 2010
At around 10 o’clock this morning I started noticing my typical signs of hunger- growling stomach, headache, difficulty concentrating, so I ate a few nuts. About a half an hour later, my hunger came back. I knew that eating more nuts would not satisfy me….what I really wanted was to eat my lunch! My initial thought was, “I already ate breakfast and it’s only 10:30 in the morning, I can’t eat my lunch. I can’t eat lunch earlier than 11:30.“ Suddenly I realized that this was a completely unreasonable rule. Who says you can’t eat your lunch at l0:30 in the morning? I am sure that this thought came from our society and years of being in environments (school, work), which have taught me to eat lunch at noon. But in my current life, I can choose when and what I want to eat. So, today, for the first time in my life, I ate my nicely packed lunch which included a salad, yogurt, and fruit at 10:30 in the morning and I was completely satisfied. :)
The reason that I’m sharing this with you is that I think it’s important for everyone to listen to the voices in your head (or in your stomach 
); try to recognize any “food rules” that are dictating your eating; and to start to challenge them. Obviously my body was telling me that I needed food, if I had ignored it and ate “when it was time”, I probably would have had a completely different experience- extreme hunger, eating fast, probably overeating, then feeling sick, and possibly guilt. But, instead, I chose to listen to my body, honor my hunger, and ignore external cues for eating (time). The end result was feeling fueled properly, pleasure, and contentment.
