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finding BALANCE: practice patience

balanceStacey OswaldComment

Not too long ago, I introduced the topic of intuitive eating and told y'all about my progress, which you can read about hereBut how are you supposed to start implementing intuitive eating into YOUR life? I know it might seem easy at first- how hard can it be to give yourself the freedom to eat whatever you want? However, it's actually pretty tricky, because you have to start paying legitimate attention to your body's natural cues, which if you're like me, you've been avoiding since elementary school. You have to stop all of the body name-calling you do on a daily basis, practice patience with your progress, and eat what you want when you want it but only until you're full. 

AKA it takes some work. So I thought I'd introduce a weekly column called "finding balance," where I update y'all on my progress and tell you about something that I've done recently to make intuitive eating a permanent part of my life. It'll be published every Sunday, as a way to help you guys start your week on a more positive, balanced note! 

As far as my progress goes, I've had some bigs ups and downs this week. I'm still unemployed and I haven't made a ton of new friends, so I've been feeling a tad lonely. Also, while I've worked a lot on the blog this week and gotten back into running, I've still had my anxious moments and my supremely bored, uninspired moments. I've noticed, by listening to my body, that I tend to want to snack when these moments hit. Running has really helped, and I've found myself avoiding mindless snacking by either getting out of the house or focusing on a TV show or blog post. But I'm still struggling with listening to my hunger cues when I'm in a bit of a blah period. It's not like I'm binging on food anymore (thank God this has stopped since I started this process), but I do still eat past my desired level of fullness sometimes, which is something I'd like to get better at in the coming weeks. 

Which leads me to my first nugget of wisdom for you guys: YOU HAVE TO BE PATIENT. I am literally the least patient person in the world, so this was a hard one for me to learn. I'm that girl who will literally walk away from the coolest restaurant in the world if forced to wait in a five-person line... I just don't do lines. Or traffic or "six-week programs" or 90-minute yoga classes. When I first started intuitive eating, I would hate on myself all the time for not being able to "do it right." But eventually, I learned that there is no way of doing it right. There's simply doing it, keeping tabs on your progress, and loving yourself even when you make mistakes. I make mistakes ALL the time, and when I start being hard on myself, I remember that this is simply a process. I can't be 100% perfect all the time because I just started a couple months ago. It can take YEARS to get this down, and yeah, that's scary as hell. But I just tell myself that it's worth it, that I've already made SO much progress, and that I'll be so thankful in a year for making this choice now, instead of choosing to go on yet another diet. 

So, to all of you brave souls wanting to get started with intuitive eating, just go for it. And when you make a mistake, be patient with yourself because in five years, you'll be the fit one eating an ice cream sundae without any guilt... you just might not be eating the whole thing ;)