Listen to Your Body: How to Eat Intuitively

Eating intuitively and still living healthy sounds like wishful thinking to many. But listening to your own body is not that difficult – in fact, everyone can learn it . What Intuitive Eating is all about, why it is so good for us, and how you can learn it, we will tell you in this post.

Intuitive eating – that's why it does us so good

If you want to lose weight, you have to do without something. This is the approach of many diets. But there is also another option that is not only more sustainable , but above all more tasty. This is known as intuitive eating . People try to listen to their own bodies and only provide them with what they really need and what is good for them.

If that sounds unrealistic to you, that's perfectly understandable. However, this is not a magic weight loss strategy, but rather a healthy attitude towards eating. Changes are not achieved through radical calorie savings and elaborate calorie tracking, but through a gradual and sustainable change in eating behavior .

If you're looking for quick weight loss, this won't get you very far. But isn't it much more desirable to feel comfortable in your own body and not have to constantly struggle with the yo-yo effect?

Once you have managed to interpret your body's signals correctly, it is no longer difficult to maintainyour ideal weight. But how exactly does Intuitive Eating work?

How to make a sustainable change in your eating habits

The most important thing when eating intuitively is to develop a feeling of hunger and satiety in your own body. In most cases, this takes a little bit, and it can happen that you gain a little weight first. However, you don't have to worry about it because your body and you need a short start-up phase before you can live in harmony and understand each other.

This may sound strange, but it actually takes some time to be able to understand and correctly interpret the body's signals. Because the signals for appetite, thirst, and actual hunger are very similar and can easily be misunderstood. Misinterpreting your body's signals now and then is not a problem at all and is part of the process, because as you know, the fastest way to learn is to make mistakes.

Intuitive eating starts with breakfast

After getting up , you may feel hungry. Often, however, this is more a feeling of thirst than hunger. Therefore, it is best to drink a glass of water first and then look further.

Most of the time, your supposed feeling of hunger is somewhat satisfied, but being hungry in the morning is quite normal. If you do not yet have a feel for suitable portion sizes , you can usually stick to the portion suggestions on the packs. These are usually calculated according to the dietary guidelines of specialized organizations, which is why they provide a good indication.

Small tip on the side – if you get a closer look at the packaging, you can take a look at the nutritional table right away. This helps you to develop a feeling for the calories and the nutrients they contain. After some time, your favorite products will tell you how much you should ideally eat.

For our Verival Porridges, for example, 50 grams of the finished mixture is considered a serving. It's best to prepare your breakfast according to the recommendation on your first attempts – you can't go wrong with that.

However, what is much more important now is that you really focus on the food itself when eating. This means that you ideally put your phone to the side , prepare your food nicely and enjoy every single bite . This not only ensures a smoother start to the day, but above all helps you to be more sensitive to your body's signals. Plus, eating comfortably and not rushing through your meal will help you feel full .

How to learn to trust your body

If you make this behavior your routine and stick to it for as many of your meals as possible, you will soon feel a change. Your body's signals are becoming clearer, and it is becoming easier for you to take the appropriate actions.

These are the foods you should avoid

However, some foods are real stumbling blocks on the way to intuitive eating. Especially sugary products can lead to unwanted signals from your body. Because of the high glycemic index, your blood sugar level rises quickly but drops just as quickly. This means that food cravings are inevitable. To counteract this, you should avoid sugary foods such as soft drinks or sweet snacks such as chocolate, cookies, and the like as much as possible or at least limit their consumption.

Another source of danger are foods that have a certain ratio of fat to carbohydrates. Chips are probably the best-known representatives of this – it must have happened to you that the package was suddenly empty, even though you originally only wanted to have a small snack. The reason for this is that the usual ratio of fats to carbohydrates in chips activates the reward center and the body demands more and more. In order not to fall into this trap, you should therefore refrain from eating chips in front of the TV 😉

However, if you prepare your snacks yourself, you don't have to worry about it anymore – how about the following recipe, for example?

Pumpkin and apple gugelhupf with maple syrup and pumpkin seed topping

The sugar-free oat cookies made from bananas, our Bircher Urkorn muesli, and pumpkin are quick to make. They are rich in fiber and provide us with many nutrients that we can naturally use especially well, not only in autumn.

Preparation time 20 min.

Cook Time 55 min.

Total time 1 hr 15 min.

Servings: 12 pieces of cake

Ingredients

For the dough

• 3 eggs
• 200 g raw cane sugar Demerara
• 180 ml sunflower oil
• 350 g fine spelt flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 teaspoons gingerbread spice
• 1 pinch of salt
• 300 g finely grated Hokkaido pumpkin
• 70 g apple finely grated
• 2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds

For the glaze

• 125 g icing sugar
• approx. 2 tbsp maple syrup
• approx. 1 tbsp milk to taste

Preparation

• Preheat the oven to 180°C (top and bottom heat).
• Grease a Gugelhupf form of your choice well and sprinkle with breadcrumbs or flour.
• Beat the eggs, sugar, and oil with the food processor for about 3 to 4 minutes until the sugar has dissolved.
• Mix all dry ingredients and mix with the egg-sugar mixture.
• Add shredded pumpkin and shredded apples and mix until a uniform dough is formed.
• Pour the dough into the prepared mold.
• Bake in the preheated oven on the second rack from the bottom for 50 to 60 minutes.
• To test if the cake is ready, make the stick test. To do this, insert a long wooden stick into the thickest part of the dough. If no dough lumps stick to it, the gugelhupf is ready to bake and can be removed from the oven.
• Remove the finished cake from the oven, allow to cool slightly, and carefully remove it from the mold.
• Allow to cool completely on a cake rack.
• Then decorate the cake with the glaze.
• Spread the pumpkin seeds on top.
• Allow the glaze to dry, and then the cake can be served.

Conclusion

Intuitive eating is about giving your body only what it really needs. Above all, it is about developing a feeling for your body and being able to interpret the signals correctly. Rapid customer success cannot usually be observed, but the successes are permanent and thus much more sustainable.

Here are the most important tips and tricks at a glance:

But the most important thing is – give yourself and your body enough time to adjust to each other in order to achieve long-term success. Eating consciously and comfortably can help you better perceive your body's signals. It's best to start with breakfast – so we wish you a relaxed start to the day and meal 😉