The Intuitive Eating Effect
I wanted to start this post with one of my least favorite words: 'nonundelow' (pronouced non-un-dee-low). And now I know what all of you are thinking: Megan has finally cracked; that little knob in her brain that helps things make sense gave out from overuse. But in the nutrition world, this term holds a lot of meaning in its four syllables.
The term nonundelow was coined by an LA Times author, and it refers to foods that have had all of the 'unhealthy' ingredients removed. I'm talking about your dairy-free, fat-free, sugar-free (and by extension, joy-free) products. Sadly, the upcoming generation of dietitians are being described this way. In other words, they are the professionals that recommend eating nonundelow products as a way to be healthy, as a way to cut calories. But why on earth would we cut calories by eating foods that taste like cardboard?! Let's be real...reduced fat Oreos are not the same as full-fat Oreos, and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.
It was about this time that the Intuitive Eating movement began. Elyse Resch, a dietitian, decided she had had enough of the nonundelows and the professionals that champion them. So what did she do? She wrote a self-help book.
Don't get me wrong, I love books. And self-help books always have a way of making you feel motivated and good about yourself, though they are not very effective in the long run. But I can honestly say that out of all the books I have read in my life (over 100 in the past year alone), and most of them being the most popular books of all time, if I had to recommend any book to anybody, it would be this one. Unlike most books, it applies to everybody; it provides joy to everybody; it provides peace to everybody. So if you have the chance, please read it!
Now that I have gone on and on about Intuitive Eating, perhaps it is time that I actually explain what it is. Intuitive Eating is a concept that promotes peace with our bodies and peace with our food. We eat when we are 'empty,' we stop when we are satisfied. We eat what we want to eat, not what we think we should eat. We eat what makes us happy, not what has the most fiber content.
When we start to eat intuitively, something incredible happens: we become happy, we let go of our constant dieting, and we get to eat the food that we love. Oftentimes we make our food choices based on what we should eat, not what we want to eat. And most of the time what we want to eat has nothing to do with nonundelows. What's worse is that sometimes we think we can curb our cravings by eating other things. For example, we eat celery when what we really want is chocolate. And when the celery doesn't work, we move to carrots. Then we eat whole wheat bran wood shaving fiber-filled crackers. And when none of that works, we eat the chocolate anyways. Studies have shown that when we forget about eating what we think to be healthy and eat what we actually want to eat, we actually eat less; we save calories, and we curb the craving the way that it's meant to be curbed: eating the food that we actually want to eat. And as we do this, we will find something fascinating: it doesn't take very long for the craving to subside when we finally let ourselves succumb to it. For me, it's typically just a fun-size candy bar, a spoonful of frosting, or a muffin. All of these are about 100 calories, but if we try to eat around our cravings, this could end up being many many more calories before we finally 'cave' and eat what we wanted to eat in the first place.
Intuitive eating also reignites the desire we all used to have when we were children--the desire to make eating a pleasurable experience. We eat until our pleasures are satisfied; sometimes that is after the third bite, sometimes that is after the 20th. We are not obligated to finish the food that's on our plate, nor are we obligated to only have one serving. However, we are obligated to our bodies and our minds to feel good and be happy.
I like to look at this from a child's perspective. Yes, children have that stereotype of being incredibly difficult when it comes to food, but I truly believe that if we all ate like children that we would be happier with ourselves. Children only eat what they find pleasurable; they like a variety of color, texture, and flavors. Children stop eating when they are full, and only eat when they are hungry--this innate ability slowly goes away (usually around age 5), and is sometimes even 'trained' out of them at early ages by parents or peers. They day we stop listening to what our bodies are telling us is the day that our food begins to control us.
The implications of this are astounding! The idea that our children are our examples for how we should eat can be surprising. I think about my older brother who age yogurt and peanut butter sandwiches for the first 9 years of his life. Did that drive my mother nuts? Yes. But he was listening to his body and making a conscious decision about what he wanted to eat and then ate it. There were no questions about it. There were no doubts. He wanted yogurt and sandwiches, so that's exactly what he ate.
Should we eat yogurt and sandwiches everyday for 9 years? Probably not. But I hope the concept is understandable. And as we start to listen to what our bodies want, a funny thing starts to happen...we begin to want to eat healthy things simply because we are not forcing ourselves to eat them.
Let's go back to the analogy of children, specifically teenagers. When you force them to do something, they will probably just do the opposite. Or if they end up doing what you force them to do, they will be unhappy and complain the entire time. This is exactly what our bodies do when we force them to eat something that we truly don't want to eat. It will constantly keep craving the opposite, or it will start to hate the food that you are trying to force-feed it. Don't try to parent your body--instead, listen to your body. We don't want to get to the point where nonundelows are our sole source of food simply because we have lost touch with our bodies.
So...putting this all together, I have a couple suggestions that will put you on the road to becoming an intuitive eater:
1. Make a list of all of the foods you like, and don't feel guilty if you eat them. I was surprised to find out that there are people who don't know what kinds of foods they like because they have trained their bodies to eat nonundelows. If this is the case, experiment! Find out which foods you like. Have ice cream for dinner if you so choose. Make 7 loaves of banana bread (like I did this last week) and eat two of them in the course of four days. Now my banana bread craze is fixed, and I won't crave it for a while.
2. Eat when you are 'empty', and stop when you are satisfied. Though eating when we are hungry is important and should be done, eating when we are 'empty' helps us stay satisfied and keeps us from overeating. I like to equate this using a balloon. When you open the package of balloons, they are shriveled and small. This is what our stomachs look like when we are way past the point of hunger. So, to aid the situation, we eat a lot of food; in other words, we fill the balloon up to its capacity and to the point of bursting. When this happens, we feel gross, we feel guilty, and we don't eat again until our balloons are small and shriveled again. So what do I suggest? Eating when our balloons are not completely empty; eating not when it is shriveled and small, but just when we begin to realize that the balloon feels lighter and has more space in it. Then we stop just as we begin to feel the balloon getting heavier, just when we feel it expanding beyond comfort. That way, the balloon is always slightly full, but never reaches either extremes. The days I eat to capacity are the days I feel guilty about myself, and the days I wait to eat until I am shriveled and starving are the days I overeat; it's a weird thing to think about, but it's something I witness time and time again.
3. Please avoid the nonundelows! They definitely have their place, and there are times when it is smart to buy them. There are some products that don't taste different, and in that case, you might as well save yourself some calories. But if you don't like them, don't eat them! And don't listen to those who tell you that you should eat them (unless you have a strict medical diagnosis that requires them...because that is definitely a situation in which you should). I am reminded of something my dad once told me. He was at the doctor for something, and the doctor said that my dad needed to lose weight. So what does he do??? He suggests tons of nonundelows! It was his go-to weight loss plan. But my dad's reaction to this is probably the greatest 'proud daughter' moment of my entire life: my dad replied "no." My dad realized that nonundelows would take away all the joy of eating; he realized that food was connected with his satisfaction with life; he recognized that what his doctor was asking him to do would hurt him more than help him. Nonundelows are not the answer! Happiness is the answer. In everything we do with our food, happiness should always be the number one determinant of what we eat.
I hope these tips have been helpful! I started the journey of becoming an intuitive eating just a couple of years ago. I was tired of feeling guilty, I was tired of yo-yoing around with my relationship with food. I finally decided that an inanimate object wasn't going to dictate how I felt about myself, and did something about it. If you are experiencing some of the feelings associated with nonundelows, please make a change. I promise you will feel much better about yourself and your food if you do.
Pumpkin Maple Spice Granola
This recipe comes from the director of my program and is adapted from minimalistbaker.com
-3 cups rolled oats
-1 1/4 cups chopped pecans
-13 cup raw pepitas (or pumpkin seeds)
-1/3 cup add-ins of choice (chocolate chips, raw fruit)
-3 tablespoons sugar
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/4 cup coconut or olive oil
-1/3 cup maple syrup
-1/3 cup pumpkin puree
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the oats, nuts, seeds, spices, sugar, salt, and any other add-ins together in a large bowl. In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, warm the oil, maple syrup, and pumpkin puree--whisk and heat through. Pour over ingredients and quickly mix with a wooden spoon.
Spread the mixture evenly onto two baking sheets (or bake in two batches) and bake for 23-33 minutes, stirring a bit near the halfway point. If you prefer chunkier granola, don't stir as it breaks up the clusters. Instead, just rotate the pans at the halfway point to ensure even cooking. Once the granola is golden brown (usually about 25 minutes), remove from oven and let cool completely. It will crisp up as it cools.
It was about this time that the Intuitive Eating movement began. Elyse Resch, a dietitian, decided she had had enough of the nonundelows and the professionals that champion them. So what did she do? She wrote a self-help book.
Don't get me wrong, I love books. And self-help books always have a way of making you feel motivated and good about yourself, though they are not very effective in the long run. But I can honestly say that out of all the books I have read in my life (over 100 in the past year alone), and most of them being the most popular books of all time, if I had to recommend any book to anybody, it would be this one. Unlike most books, it applies to everybody; it provides joy to everybody; it provides peace to everybody. So if you have the chance, please read it!
Now that I have gone on and on about Intuitive Eating, perhaps it is time that I actually explain what it is. Intuitive Eating is a concept that promotes peace with our bodies and peace with our food. We eat when we are 'empty,' we stop when we are satisfied. We eat what we want to eat, not what we think we should eat. We eat what makes us happy, not what has the most fiber content.
When we start to eat intuitively, something incredible happens: we become happy, we let go of our constant dieting, and we get to eat the food that we love. Oftentimes we make our food choices based on what we should eat, not what we want to eat. And most of the time what we want to eat has nothing to do with nonundelows. What's worse is that sometimes we think we can curb our cravings by eating other things. For example, we eat celery when what we really want is chocolate. And when the celery doesn't work, we move to carrots. Then we eat whole wheat bran wood shaving fiber-filled crackers. And when none of that works, we eat the chocolate anyways. Studies have shown that when we forget about eating what we think to be healthy and eat what we actually want to eat, we actually eat less; we save calories, and we curb the craving the way that it's meant to be curbed: eating the food that we actually want to eat. And as we do this, we will find something fascinating: it doesn't take very long for the craving to subside when we finally let ourselves succumb to it. For me, it's typically just a fun-size candy bar, a spoonful of frosting, or a muffin. All of these are about 100 calories, but if we try to eat around our cravings, this could end up being many many more calories before we finally 'cave' and eat what we wanted to eat in the first place.
Intuitive eating also reignites the desire we all used to have when we were children--the desire to make eating a pleasurable experience. We eat until our pleasures are satisfied; sometimes that is after the third bite, sometimes that is after the 20th. We are not obligated to finish the food that's on our plate, nor are we obligated to only have one serving. However, we are obligated to our bodies and our minds to feel good and be happy.
I like to look at this from a child's perspective. Yes, children have that stereotype of being incredibly difficult when it comes to food, but I truly believe that if we all ate like children that we would be happier with ourselves. Children only eat what they find pleasurable; they like a variety of color, texture, and flavors. Children stop eating when they are full, and only eat when they are hungry--this innate ability slowly goes away (usually around age 5), and is sometimes even 'trained' out of them at early ages by parents or peers. They day we stop listening to what our bodies are telling us is the day that our food begins to control us. The implications of this are astounding! The idea that our children are our examples for how we should eat can be surprising. I think about my older brother who age yogurt and peanut butter sandwiches for the first 9 years of his life. Did that drive my mother nuts? Yes. But he was listening to his body and making a conscious decision about what he wanted to eat and then ate it. There were no questions about it. There were no doubts. He wanted yogurt and sandwiches, so that's exactly what he ate.
Should we eat yogurt and sandwiches everyday for 9 years? Probably not. But I hope the concept is understandable. And as we start to listen to what our bodies want, a funny thing starts to happen...we begin to want to eat healthy things simply because we are not forcing ourselves to eat them.
Let's go back to the analogy of children, specifically teenagers. When you force them to do something, they will probably just do the opposite. Or if they end up doing what you force them to do, they will be unhappy and complain the entire time. This is exactly what our bodies do when we force them to eat something that we truly don't want to eat. It will constantly keep craving the opposite, or it will start to hate the food that you are trying to force-feed it. Don't try to parent your body--instead, listen to your body. We don't want to get to the point where nonundelows are our sole source of food simply because we have lost touch with our bodies.
So...putting this all together, I have a couple suggestions that will put you on the road to becoming an intuitive eater:
1. Make a list of all of the foods you like, and don't feel guilty if you eat them. I was surprised to find out that there are people who don't know what kinds of foods they like because they have trained their bodies to eat nonundelows. If this is the case, experiment! Find out which foods you like. Have ice cream for dinner if you so choose. Make 7 loaves of banana bread (like I did this last week) and eat two of them in the course of four days. Now my banana bread craze is fixed, and I won't crave it for a while.
3. Please avoid the nonundelows! They definitely have their place, and there are times when it is smart to buy them. There are some products that don't taste different, and in that case, you might as well save yourself some calories. But if you don't like them, don't eat them! And don't listen to those who tell you that you should eat them (unless you have a strict medical diagnosis that requires them...because that is definitely a situation in which you should). I am reminded of something my dad once told me. He was at the doctor for something, and the doctor said that my dad needed to lose weight. So what does he do??? He suggests tons of nonundelows! It was his go-to weight loss plan. But my dad's reaction to this is probably the greatest 'proud daughter' moment of my entire life: my dad replied "no." My dad realized that nonundelows would take away all the joy of eating; he realized that food was connected with his satisfaction with life; he recognized that what his doctor was asking him to do would hurt him more than help him. Nonundelows are not the answer! Happiness is the answer. In everything we do with our food, happiness should always be the number one determinant of what we eat.
I hope these tips have been helpful! I started the journey of becoming an intuitive eating just a couple of years ago. I was tired of feeling guilty, I was tired of yo-yoing around with my relationship with food. I finally decided that an inanimate object wasn't going to dictate how I felt about myself, and did something about it. If you are experiencing some of the feelings associated with nonundelows, please make a change. I promise you will feel much better about yourself and your food if you do.
Pumpkin Maple Spice Granola
This recipe comes from the director of my program and is adapted from minimalistbaker.com
-3 cups rolled oats
-1 1/4 cups chopped pecans
-13 cup raw pepitas (or pumpkin seeds)
-1/3 cup add-ins of choice (chocolate chips, raw fruit)
-3 tablespoons sugar
-1/4 teaspoon salt
-1/4 cup coconut or olive oil
-1/3 cup maple syrup
-1/3 cup pumpkin puree
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the oats, nuts, seeds, spices, sugar, salt, and any other add-ins together in a large bowl. In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, warm the oil, maple syrup, and pumpkin puree--whisk and heat through. Pour over ingredients and quickly mix with a wooden spoon.
Spread the mixture evenly onto two baking sheets (or bake in two batches) and bake for 23-33 minutes, stirring a bit near the halfway point. If you prefer chunkier granola, don't stir as it breaks up the clusters. Instead, just rotate the pans at the halfway point to ensure even cooking. Once the granola is golden brown (usually about 25 minutes), remove from oven and let cool completely. It will crisp up as it cools.
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