Happy New Year everyone. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, catching up with family and friends. Hopefully you are rested and recharged ready for a fantastic 2016 full of joy and possibilities.
I'm sure most of you would have made New Year's resolutions and have set some exciting goals. However, often people set goals or resolutions around health and well-being that are based on negativity, deprivation and restriction. These are never sustainable long term as we generally force ourselves to do something we don't want to do simply because we think we "should".
If we need to lose weight or get fitter and we "make" ourselves eat less and exercise more we begin to resent it. We either start to crave what we shouldn't have, overdo the exercise and get injured or simply don't do it because we are not enjoying it.
For a sustainable change to happen, I believe we need to simply be mindful of our negative habits around our health and find some positive ways to make the changes required. If we enjoy doing it, we will feel empowered to keep it up. This starts by simply listening to what our body is telling us so we can tune into its natural instincts.
Our body knows when it needs nourishment and when it has had enough, however a lot of us have simply stopped listening to it. A great analogy of this is when you are filling up your car with petrol and when it's full you simply stop otherwise it would just keep spilling over and over. So why do we keep giving our body more food when we know it's had enough? I believe it is because we use food for comfort instead of the physical need of hunger and we tune out to the feeling of fullness because the food is serving a greater need at the time.
I have been eating "naturally" (mindfully) now for 20 years. What that means is I eat when I am hungry and stop when I am satisfied. I eat exactly what I want and I stop when I have physically had enough. I am able to do this easily as I no longer use food for comfort. All the steps are positive and empowering and I do other things that give me pleasure in those moments when I need comfort.
I had also eaten negatively for 20 years and tried all sorts of diet programs and excessive exercise regimes. But none of them worked because they were all negative, based on deprivation and restriction. Natural Eating works long term because it is positive. I eat small amounts regularly which gives me joy, satisfaction and energy. In turn this enables me to exercise in a way that I enjoy because it gives me pleasure, not because I have to.
If you want to make positive sustainable changes around your health and well-being this year, I encourage you to eat naturally, which is simply learning to tune back into your body's natural instincts.
Prior to discovering Natural Eating in 1996, I'd had food and weight related issues for over 20 years. Through combining Natural Eating with Personal Development, I have maintained a healthy and natural weight ever since. I now run my own business, Nourish 'N Nurture, teaching people how to develop a healthy relationship with food. For a FREE copy of my e-book entitled "Empower yourself by eating what you want" please click the following link http://nourishnnurture.co.nz/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Catrina_Bengree/379036
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