Guest Post: Studio Eats Intuitive Eating Challenge

Hey guys!

I am SO excited to have jamie from Studio Eats guest post today. The same day that I posted about my struggle with emotional eating, she offered to include me on her 21 Day Intuitive Eating Challenge emails and they have been a Godsend.

I’m doing quite a few things to repair my relationship with food, but I’d put Jamie’s program at the top of what is making me feel better. Waking up to an email from her using real life examples, personal experience, and tips that actually make sense have encouraged me to eat exactly what I’m craving without guilt. I’ve started to completely rethinking what, why, and how I eat. I might not have a perfect diet, but I haven’t been binging on sweets or feeling guilty at night. It’s wonderful.

So here’s Jamie to tell you about the program and how to sign up for the March challenge. I would highly  recommend it!

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Hi guys! I’m Jamie, and I blog over at StudioEats. I am a Health Coach and specialize in working with people who want to become more Intuitive Eaters—ditching the diet mentality and learning to listen to their own bodies. When Clare wrote her post about Emotional Eating the other day, I immediately reached out to her and let her know about the 21 Day Intuitive Eating challenge I was running in February. She got on board, and I’m happy to say that I’ll be hosting another challenge starting in March for anyone else who is interested (details below).

Intuitive Eating and Emotional Eating go hand in hand, and I could have NEVER become a more intuitive eater without spending a lot of time focusing on my emotional eating issues (read more about my struggle with my relationship to food here). In fact, when I first tried to be a more intuitive eater I failed. I failed time and time again, and I failed because I wasn’t focusing on the most important part: my emotions.

The main point of Intuitive Eating is learning to listen to your body for what you are craving and what makes you feel good. The basic premise is to eat what your body is craving when you are hungry and to stop when you are full.

So there’s the kicker… eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. If any of you have experienced emotional eating, you know that this is NOT easy. Most of us don’t only eat when we are hungry and we seriously struggle with stopping when we are full.

Why?

Because we are bored. Because we are overwhelmed. Because we are tired. Because we are stressed. Because we are in a state of unknown and confusion. Because we are uncomfortable. Because we are anxious. Because we are beating ourselves up over something. Because we aren’t good enough.

And we don’t know how to deal with these things. We don’t like feeling this way and we want it to go away. We know that food brings us pleasure, and that it is always there for us, so we reach for it.

There are 45 people in my February Intuitive Eating Challenge and although they all participated for slightly different reasons, almost every single one of them has the following similarities:

-       they eat when they aren’t hungry

-       they deprive themselves and then binge

-       they overeat and don’t know why or how to stop

My point is that almost all of us eat for emotional reasons sometimes. Here are a few tips that I use with my clients and that each of us can use to help cope with emotional eating:

1. Before you eat, ask yourself three questions: “Am I biologically hungry?” If yes-> eat! If not, “What am I feeling right now?” and then “What do I need to fulfill that need?”. So for instance, are you bored? What else could you do to fill that need? Call a friend, watch a movie, get outside, go make plans, do something you love to do, surf the internet, take a break from work for 5 minutes to go talk to a coworker, etc.
2. A lot of times we eat due to lack of pleasure, fun, and relaxation. Do you remember a time in your life when you were just so happy and fulfilled and on cloud nine that you couldn’t care less about food? It’s because you had so much pleasure in your life at that moment. FOCUS on getting as much as possible of these feelings into your life every single day. And I mean every.single.day. This was a hard one for me, but THE biggest contributor to my weight loss. I started prioritizing fun and pleasure like my life depended on it. A couple of ideas: prioritize your social life. Work is important, but your social life is equally as important. Make boring tasks more exciting. Listen to music, do them with a friend or coworker, use cool color coded sharpies (I’m a total nerd, whenever I study, I make it more interesting but using fun sharpies). Wear a hot outfit that you love as often as possible.
3. 3.    And here is my top tip: This one is absolutely crucial and is something I do with my clients diligently. Let’s say you are focusing on being a more Intuitive Eater and eating only when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full but one night, after a stressful day at work, you come home and you eat everything that is not nailed down. Your emotions got the best of you and you feel like a failure. It is SO important to a) not beat yourself up over it… we ALL go through this and Intuitive Eating is a journey, it takes a while for it all to stick b) talk to yourself in a caring, gentle, and nonjudgmental way “it’s okay, I’m learning, this is part of the process” and then this is the most important part c) go back to the event where you overate in your mind, and analyze it. Why did you overeat? What was bothering you? What were you feeling? And most importantly, if the exact same situation happens to you again (you’re feeling crappy after a stressful day at work), what could you have done differently that would have given you what you needed? Calling your mom or a friend? Getting under the covers and just relaxing to music and a candle for 10 minutes? Cutting yourself a break and ordering in instead of forcing yourself to cook? It is in these moments that we learn about ourselves, get in touch with our feelings and needs, and grow.

I hope you like these tips!

During my next 21 Day Intuitive Eating Challenge, which starts on March 1^st, you’ll receive an email from me in your inbox at 6am on each of the 21 days with a strategy to become a more Intuitive Eater and a less Emotional Eater. You’ll also receive as much one-on-one coaching as you need.

I will be your guide and your coach during the 21 days of the challenge and will be devoted to helping you grasp the concepts and implement them into your personal life. This is what the challenge entails:

- Two 15 minute one-on-one coaching calls with me. One is at the beginning of the challenge to help me understand your current situation and help you formulate goals for the challenge and one call is at the end to recap with you and answer any remaining questions specific to you.

- Daily newsletters in your inbox at 6am, each with a different topic related to Intuitive Eating and a “task” for you to try out that day going forward

- Unlimited email one-on-one email coaching with me during the 21 days

- Access to the Private Intuitive Eating Facebook Group (the Feb group has been super active! They post pics of their food, questions, “ah-ha” moments, and successes)

For additional information about the challenge, head over to my main Intuitive Eating Challenge page.  

And for two additional posts about Intuitive Eating, see these:

Intuitive Eating: What Does This Mean, Anyway?

The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

The cost of the program is $49 but I am happy to offer it for the price of $39 to any of Clare’s readers. In order to get signed up and the $39 rate, simply email me at jamiemendell@gmail.com and put “IE Challenge- Clare” in the subject line. I’ll then get your payment information and we’ll be on our way.

I can’t wait to have you be a part of it. It’s an exciting journey and we’ll get started on March 1^st! J