Listen to your body and trust your intuition …

What happened to listening to our bodies?

So think back to when you were young, I mean really young, your ill and you don’t feel like eating anything but then good old Mum, who knows everything, comes and says you MUST eat something. You force yourself to eat the dried toast or the cereal she has served but you don’t really want anything.
Think to when was the last time you were really hungry, not just ‘ooo I fancy ….’, when you were REALLY hungry, I bet you can’t remember can you?
Over time you have ‘learned’ that even when your body doesn’t feel like eating you should at least try and eat something, combine that with all the mixed messages you get about eating 3 meals a day, eating 5 smaller meals, breakfast being the most important meal of the day and before you know it your body is no longer in control – your mind is. That’s exactly why I believe any fat loss is all a mind game, we need to unlearn all these things we have learned over the years and go back to the basics or our ‘inner child’ as I like to call it.
I have been there, I am ‘normal’, like you, I am no different, I have tried weight watchers in my teens, done the whole 5:2 diet, slimming world, those diets that are unsustainable on  any long term level – all of them teach you something though, different things and each have a place. Charlotte, a Lady bug turned Lady Bird lost 9lbs in 6 weeks just by taking out wheat from her diet. Gill a Lady Bug from January and now Lady Bird has lost 16lbs since January using the Fitness Pal app after reaching a plateau with Slimming world – my point? Everyone is unique, every ‘body’ has different needs depending on activity, allergies, metabolism and therefore different methods work for different people.
At the beginning of this year, with training for my first Ultra Marathon in mind, I chose to listen to my body and my body only, at times I have only eaten one meal, after the Wokingham Half Marathon it was a celebratory glass of wine and a bowl of olives, that’s all I wanted, in the run up to some of my longer runs it’s been mozzarella, avocado, kippers, hot cross buns with butter, pesto – all good fats, all needed after long runs to replenish those lost stores and fuel the next run. I even had a massive chocolate frenzy following my half marathon suggesting a drop in my magnesium levels and then last week an uncontrollable desire for orange juice, pure orange juice, every day!!! (perhaps my body telling me it was fighting a virus – the virus won by the way).
My body has transformed over the last 6 months, have I lose weight ? I have no idea – I don’t weigh myself but my shape has definitely changed and I have run ALL my training runs with very little water and little food intake and felt great – good preparation, perfect pre-run fuelling and hydration.
My lesson from this ? Become more in tune with YOUR body, it does tell you what it needs but you need to listen, all the years of reading, being told this and told that will cloud your judgement. Clear them. Go back to your inner, innocent child self and start again – re-train yourself to listen and just maybe the ‘inner child’ will win !