I've been talking a lot about the ketogenic diet and the carnivore diet both here on WIP the site and the WIP YouTube channel. That's partly because I know a lot of people are interested in nutrition and dieting, and partly because I have a lot of experience with them. Sometimes I wonder if my interest in different eating habits is more like an obsession; that I simply can't help but try different things to see what kind of an effect they may have on my body and mind; or, worse, that I fear I'll get fat again if I don't pay attention to what I eat, and so I think about nutrition all the time.
Apparently, there's also this thing called intuitive eating, which means that you eat whatever you want, however much you want, whenever you want. This should make you feel optimal and settle your weight to where it should be. And before you laugh "so I can eat just cake all the time?", let me clarify the statement:
- Whatever you want: after only eating chocolate cake and feeling sick for days, your body will start to tell you what it wants you to put into it, and be it veggies or meat or more cake, you should do it.
- However much you want: you might overeat in the beginning, but overeating tends to make you feel sick, and your body will again start to tell you how much is enough.
- Whenever you want: eat breakfast if you feel like it, or skip it if you're not hungry. Listen to your body. It'll tell you when you should gas up.
The key here is that you don't limit any food from your diet. You can eat exactly anything you want and nothing is off limits. Because what would happen if you told yourself you can't have something?
You'd start to crave it immediately. And that causes you to binge eat on everything else.
So don't try to limit your portion sizes, or your food groups, or your meal windows. Eat whatever you want, whenever you want, and however much you want. (Emphasis on want: I doubt you want to eat foods and amounts that make you feel sick.) And when your body is satisfied, stop eating. Continue when your body tells you to, be it 5 minutes or 5 hours or 5 days later. And don't try to drink more water than you feel like. Your body will give you thirst signs when it needs it.
Now, for my personal stand - intuitive eating sounds very good, almost good to be true even, but I'd like to think that if I started eating intuitively now, my body would start to tell me to eat more meat and less everything else. That's mainly because whenever I have a little veggies with my meats these days, my mental level decreases, which automatically makes my brain and body tell me to switch back to meat.
The thought of the occasional and allowed cake and vegan food does intrigue, though.
RK
