Paradigm that may Change the Way you Eat

[Fullcrum]

How does your body feel right now? Tense? Do you feel your mind buzzing, and not in the good way?

You can just quiet your mind and be still for a moment, relax through whatever method serves you best, and feel how your body feels. Feel your stomach, head, and chest in particular. Feel how easy or hard it is to take a deep breath.

This exercise, which I have started to do more frequently this week, is instrumental to becoming more aware of how your body feels and knowing what it needs. Especially when it comes to food.


A few days ago, I realized that in order to change the diet from food that's bad for your body to food that's good for your body, a paradigm shift must take place. It is this:

Instead of determining what you eat by how good a food tastes, eat to expand the good feeling in your body.

This is an exercise in intuitive eating: you become extremely aware of how good or bad your body feels and eat and drink accordingly.

For example, before I wrote this post, I had the sudden inclination to create a salad with mixed greens, extra virgin olive oil and chopped onions. This morning I also had a craving for onions. Have I enjoyed the taste of onions for years? No. Actually, hell no. I've never in my life had the inclination to make an onion salad, much less make a whole salad full of greens without dressing or salt. I don't think I've whipped up a salad for myself for six months.

But these last few days I've become hyper-aware of how my body feels. I've been experimenting with different trances and hypnosis to see just how good I can make myself feel. I have Paul McKenna's Positivity system; I bought it to further my positivity challenge.

It works awesome, by the way.

Anyway I've happened to notice that after a giant meal (an example of mine from two days ago at a Mexican restaurant was a chicken chimichanga, beef enchilada, chicken taco, rice, black beans, guacamole, corn chips, and flan, all in one sitting), although my sense of taste would be overwhelmed with good feeling, the rest of my body was wondering what flight of stairs I just fell off of.

So eat to expand and increase the sense of aliveness and joy in your body. Think of it this way - instead of listening to your taste buds when determining what to eat, listen to your whole body. Every cell of mine seems to cry for joy when I eat stuff that I need, while they seem to deaden when I eat stuff that tastes good but isn't what my body needs. My cells aren't weeping or anything, it's just harder to hear them. Think of eating food that's not really good for you like the static noise in your head that stops you from sensing your intuition, thinking clearly, or being focused on a task. The background buzz that does more harm than good.

It's a more holistic and intelligent way of eating. And the stuff that's good for you tends to taste good, too! The body will actually reward you with endorphins when you eat something that may not taste amazing but the body actually needs.

If you want to see an extreme example of this, watch the "Brain Power" episode of "The Human Body - Pushing the Limit". It's a National Geographic special. The whole thing is on Youtube; just do a search.

The section I'm referring to is when a fisherman is stranded in a little boat at sea for two months. When his rations run out, he catches plenty of fish and eats their flesh. But fish flesh does not contain the necessary vitamins and nutrients for life - these are found in every part except the flesh, which contains only protein and fat. So as time wore on, he became more appetized by eating the eyes, the areas between vertebrae, the marrow of bone, etc., and was actually NOT interested in flesh. His brain KNEW the nutrients in the fish and forced him to not only eat but also enjoy those parts of the fish that would normally disgust him.

This leads me to believe that, more than many would want to admit, the body knows what it needs.

So if you're trying to gain weight, maybe in muscle or even in fat (swimmers, distance runners), then of course you'll probably want to eat past the point of fullness. And if you're trying to lose weight, yeah, listen to your body and don't stuff it.

But do listen to your body.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

Nice post.

[Fullcrum]

Thanks!

This forum helps me develop my writing skills.

I'm only 16; it's funny that this writing I do here actually probably outweighs the writing I do for school, and it sharpens my essay writing abilities.

Forum writing is almost invaluable to me.

[Dannyboy1]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

How does your body feel right now? Tense? Do you feel your mind buzzing, and not in the good way?

You can just quiet your mind and be still for a moment, relax through whatever method serves you best, and feel how your body feels. Feel your stomach, head, and chest in particular. Feel how easy or hard it is to take a deep breath.

This exercise, which I have started to do more frequently this week, is instrumental to becoming more aware of how your body feels and knowing what it needs. Especially when it comes to food.

...

But do listen to your body.

TRUE! Excellent post! I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better for us if we just kept food ready all the time (good food not crap) and just snacked when we felt hungry all day long with small portions instead of 3 meals that stuff our guts.

[JimOfferman]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

But do listen to your body.

Nods head.

I don't think you should ignore your taste buds, so finds foods that please those and make the rest of your body happy.

[Fullcrum]

Of course not.

Every part of you gets input. It's similar to making a decision using intuition, emotion AND logic.

The body tends to reward you feeding it well by adjusting your sense of taste, making that stuff more appealing. A good example is a chili pepper, which as we all know has chemicals that cause a burning sensation in your mouth. But it has, I believe, over 3 times the vitamin C as an orange. So the body rewards you with eating it with endorphins. Hence, you develop a taste for it. Same with Broccoli or Spinach, for example, if you weren't raised on it.

[MariaG]

I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better for us if we just kept food ready all the time (good food not crap) and just snacked when we felt hungry all day long with small portions instead of 3 meals that stuff our guts.

@Dannyboy1 - yes, that is a better way of eating, especially if you are in tune with your body and won't eat more than you need. In fact, a lot of athletes eat anywhere from 5-8 small meals a day that include a little protein, fat, and complex carbohydrate. Eating that way keeps your blood sugar and energy levels steady.

[Digit]

this is so spot on.

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

How does your body feel right now? Tense? Do you feel your mind buzzing, and not in the good way?

You can just quiet your mind and be still for a moment, relax through whatever method serves you best, and feel how your body feels. Feel your stomach, head, and chest in particular. Feel how easy or hard it is to take a deep breath.

This exercise, which I have started to do more frequently this week, is instrumental to becoming more aware of how your body feels and knowing what it needs. Especially when it comes to food.

...

But do listen to your body.

thats basically you taught us everything we need to know about yoga.

listen to your body.

it's that simple.


although, if you've not been listening to your body for some time, it will be quite difficult to hear likely, thnx to all the stuff added which muffles it's voice.

all the talk of "this food is good for you", and "dont eat that, it's bad" is a bit of a farce. it's much the same with moral absolutism. any absolutism probably. it's much more like moral relativism. when present (transient?) circumstances taken into account, the interpretation and action are more in harmony with what's truly best for you (and thus what's best for the whole/cosmos/universe/all).


the taste thing, i struggled with that for a while, perhaps only becoming clear in my mind after reading this thread. the foods you most need to bring your body nearer a chemical equilibrium will often result in them tasting better to you (explaining going through phases of liking certain foods), however sugars, fats and other molecules and cells and foods can have addicting properties right in the taste. how does one differentiate between a non-beneficial chemical lust, and a natural craving for the necessary nutrients? you dont. not necessarily.

(if you're looking for the answer, refer back to starting post in this thread)








some ramble on fat....

saturated, or unsaturated?

the answer.... both.

(both again specific to the unsaturateds. mono- and poly-.)

if you want a demon to point a blame finger at,

it's those pesky hydrogentated fats, aka partially inverted, inverted, trans fats. they're the liars!

one side of the molecule doing one job, the other pretending to be the other type of fat, conferring the benefits of neither.

typically, with fats as found in abundance in nature unadulterated, unprocessed,
one fat makes your cells harder, and one fat makes them soft. as much as it sounds like some parody of an alice-in-wonderland-esq song, it's what keeps the balance in this context. it's what lets your cells comunicate to each other. ...and thus, to you. if you munch on too much trans fats (which is almost ANY AT ALL), there will be a communication break down between your cells, the electric communication weakens and even fails. this invites all kinds of maladies and problems besides not hearing what it is your body craves (though that brings its own cumulative problems in time), such as cancers, cysts, lethargy, unresponsive lymphatic system and other toxin elimination systems and processes, weakened immune system and on and on and on.

so the answer really is simple,

listen to your body.

(though it really helps for when the mufflers are on to do a little reading up. so if your mufflers are on (safe to say they are if you're not getting clear messages from your body) go get a book, and a piece of fruit, and learn about fats, carbs, fibres, micro nutrients, enzymes, pH, electrolytes, etc)

[The David]

I would expand this mindset to include other areas of your life as well.

I think the urge to indulge in anything is the same part of us that urges us to speed through life. Some of us are worse at that than others, but most of us can relate. Using food as fuel rather than entertainment is a surprisingly foreign concept in today's society.

[Fullcrum]

Another way I look at food is a gateway to joy and self-esteem.

Obviously I'll only want the best.

[Dannyboy1]

My problem is the really good foods are expensive (organic) or inconvenient (hard to find or at many different stores). Also, when I'm trying to eat for ADHD, or other health problems, it takes so much time to prepare everything I wouldn't have time to live.

[outdoorsnewzealand]

Originally Posted by Fullcrum

Instead of determining what you eat by how good a food tastes, eat to expand the good feeling in your body.

Nice post Fullcrum.

It's also important to become aware of how food makes you feel in the hours after you eat. Some food will make you feel good temporarily (sugar buzz is the obvious example) but then feel bad later on.

[Gnosis]

Thank you for pointing that out. Yes, I mostly do that. Sometimes my body craves fats and it will eat the toast (which it does not crave) just to get the butter on top. My dog does the same thing, sigh. I've learned to figure out what part of the food item the body really wants and leave the rest alone.