Ben Skute
Unless you’re a chef, you don’t need to spend all that much time thinking about food. Sure, you want to give it enough thought to decide what you’re going to buy at the supermarket and make for dinner. And you want to know enough about food to determine which ones are more and less nutritious.
But beyond that, for the most part, you need to let your innate appetite cues manage your eating. If you pay attention, your body will tell you when you’re hungry. You may feel fatigue, headachy, or inattentive, and your stomach may be grumbling. Moreover, your thoughts may turn to food because ghrelin, the hunger hormone, is in ascendance to help you remember to eat.
Rely on bodies cues for hunger and physical cravings to tell you what and when to eat. That’s your body’s job. Be mindful as you eat and pay attention to signals for fullness (quantity) and satisfaction (quality). Use rational thinking intentionally to help you make (mostly) nutritious choices. Once you connect to innate appetite cues, you can begin to trust your body to feed and nourish you and free up your mind for thinking about other things.
Contributors: Karen R. Koenig from KarenRKoenig
