Welcome to How to Love Your Body on Today’s episode we are going to be talking about how to tell if you are listening to your body or listening to your head. There are so many tiny nuances in IE and this is one of them.

This is actually a really important distinction between the two. Yes our body and our brains come together and make decisions - so really we are using both when choosing what we want to eat. 

But if we skip our body's input when choosing food that is when we most likely hear “I’m so full, why do I always do that, I’m allowing all food but this doesn’t feel good.” Of course there is nothing wrong with any of that - you can be full, it’s okay if you “do that”, and it’s also okay not to feel good - yeah it’s not comfortable but it doesn’t mean you're horrible and a failure. 

Lauren's story: 

So we talk about this often but really how this came to be is that I experienced this first hand just a couple of nights ago- I kinda had an off day with eating, I ate enough but it just wasn’t as satisfying because xyz and all the things that don’t really matter - when it came to dinner time - I was feeding the kids and also sitting to eat myself and although I was eating something I enjoyed my brain was grazing. I was wondering if I should eat more of the same thing or get something sweet or when the kids go to bed to make myself another snack or something - I was searching and searching and was quite annoyed because this isn’t something that usually happens to me after dinner - usually after dinner I feel complete - I’ve eaten enough that satisfies me, i get the kids to bed, and after that I usually have some chocolate or ice cream and that feels great. So when my “typical” night wasn’t happening - I was annoyed! I was checking in and asking myself what I need? If I need to go eat something sweet right now - just go and do it. I can also have something after the kids go to bed - I was allowing but it still didn't feel “right” - I was in my head. I also realized that i was feeling a little off that night - I was home with the kids alone - I was feeling certain emotions about certain things - which is fine - and then I was like okay well maybe I’m feeling some feelings and I just need some food to comfort me - I then said, okay well if you need to eat that’s fine - go ahead and do it! There’s nothing wrong with that - I was giving myself full permission to do whatever I needed to do - and then I asked myself how does my body feel? And that was the shift right there. I literally felt myself drop from my head into my body. I realized all the chatter was all going on up in my head. I wasn’t considering my body at all. When I dropped into my body I could tell that I actually felt content and wasn’t actually hungry - I still gave myself permission to eat whatever I wanted / emotionally eat if I wanted to but since I was back in my body I realized eating something wouldn’t “fix” anything - because I wasn’t actually hungry - it would have not made me feel good in my body because actually my dinner was satisfying and filling. 

This may seem like a story that has an intention of getting yourself not to eat something - that’s not the case here - because later when the kids went to bed I went and got an ice cream because I was ready for it (taste buds and body!)

So why share this - I felt the shift between my head and my body so intensely - like it was a visceral AH HA moment that I was like “ohhhhhh wooooow I didn’t even realize how stuck I was in my head” - dropping into your body is so important when Intuitive Eating… 

Jenna’s story: 

I vividly remember one time when I was at Starbucks - of course and I was in line (pre pandemic) and I was waiting thinking … ugh I don't feel like a coffee but I want one,,, and I was debating if i should leave or stay. Starbucks is my favorite and I did want a coffee but it was like my body was screaming at me, no thank you that would not feel good.

But I stayed in line, my mind thinking h