Stop, Look and Listen (Body)

Hello, beautiful people! Happy Sunnyday :) Not so happy for me, because I’m working the evening shift at work, which I hate (clearly an early bird ovah here), but alas, what I will not do for money ;) The only pro is that I’m forced to utilize my mornings for productive thing…

(Ie. writing a redundant, stupid 20 page paper for a stupid class due in a week and a half that I have no started and starting a graphic design project due in a week that I have not started………………. :\).

Must…force…self…

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First off, I got tagged in a post by the lovely Fi!! So here she goes:

1. What did you have for breakfast this morning? It will be the last of my Finax muesli with pumpkin, cranberries, maybe some almonds…oh, and my amazing cashew butter!

2. What did you want to be when you were 5? Truth: a part-time police officer/part-time ballerina.

3. Do you have any brothers or sisters? Negative.

4. Do you speak any languages? Engrrrish ;)

5. Whats your “guilty” pleasure in terms of music and/or tv? Those trashy tabloid-shows that come on and make me think…why am I watching this??!

6. What was your fave cartoon as a child? Sailer Moon!

7. What is your most cringiest childhood memory? Oh, Lawrd, too many :$

8. Is there any particular blogger that inspires you in general/inspired you to blog? There are so so many lovely bloggies that inspire me to blog…I remember one of the first food blogs I began to religiously read was KERF…and it still is!

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So, as I’ve mentioned time and time again, I’ve been struggling for a while now with intuitive eating. I was lucky to come across this post on Dana’s blog that discussed the issue. The main thing I took away from it was time. Inuitive eating, learning (or re-learning) to listen to your body after years of ignoring natural cues takes time. I realized how naiive I was at the beginning of the year, when I wanted to jump from calorie counting each day to intuitive eating three to four days out of the week. No wonder I failed!

So I’ve been making more of a concious effort to stop, look and listen to my body. This doesn’t always work, because there are times when I know I should be hungry, or need to eat, but am genuinely not feeling it. Common sense* comes into play at these times.

*Common sense ? ED

Well, now I’m learning how to listen to my body. (Which is why I love reading posts talking about years of experimenting and trial and error, only to finally discover what works best for each person’s body, like this one by HEAB.)

It’s incredible how much your body will tell you if you just stop and listen.

To function well in the morning, my body needs fibre and protein. Since I do still count calories, I try to get a certain amount in my breakfast each day. I definately include some fats in my first meal of the day (satiaity, people!), but I’ve found that I function best on a high fibre/protein breakfast – fibre even moreso than protein.

[[ Baked oatmeal win/fail - fail because it looked nasty, win because it tasted delicious ]]

[[ Quaker Oats + Oatbran with soy milk, egg whites, flaxseed, cinnamon, cloves, almonds, pumpkin and apple.]]

Once mid-day/afternoon hits, girl needs some fats. This is when the nuts and Larabars are whipped out

[[ Flowers = win, always ]]

[[ Apple Larabar with a handful of walnuts and a flower, justcuz ]]

Evenings are protein + veg. I don’t know why, but whenever I’ve tried, a solely pasta or carb dinner never fulfills be. I always feel like something’s lacking. Gotta get my veg on.

[[ Why yes, that is a tortilla lined bowl I'm eating out of.. ]]

[[ Lentils and lima beans cooked with carrot, red pepper, green pepper, garlic and onions - and other spices - served in a warmed tortilla-lined bowl ]]

Evenings involve carb-loading. I dunno if this is ideal, metabolism-wise, but I can’t think of anything more satisfying that a sammich with cream cheese and jam, and nut butter with hot chocolate. Or a cereal-yoghurt-fruit mess. Seriously. What else do ya need in life??

(No pictures, because evening snackage these days constitutes the worst possible lighting, which my Nikon Coolpix camera clearly cannot handle :\ )

After so many years repressing and ignoring the cues my body was giving me, I’m finally hearing what it’s (I’m?) tell me. It’s not always easy – I’m always inclined to save up my fats till the evening because I’m scared of…well, who really know. But I’m over coming it, slowly, but surely.

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What does your body tell you? Is it a challenge for you to listen to what you body wants?

PS. Choooooooooooooooooooooobani!