Do you want to know a secret?!

 Eating intuitively will help you lose weight, get fit and maintain an excellent level of health. Take some of the steps below and become an intuitive eater before your next meal!

1.) Reject the diet mentality - Make a firm commitment to give up dieting for the rest of your life, and get rid of all the negative feelings you feel about failure of dieting and gaining the weight back. It's the diet that doesn't work, not you!

2.) Honor your hunger - Keep your body fed with enough energy (calories) and carbohydrates, otherwise you'll be more likely to overeat.

3.) Make peace with food - Give yourself permission to eat whatever you really like, because if you ban certain foods then you'll begin to feel feelings of deprivation and fall into uncontrollable cravings and binging.

4.) Challenge the food police - No more listening to the voice that says you're "GOOD" for eating less than 100 calories and "BAD" for eating a piece of chocolate cake.

5.) Feel your fullness - Listen to your body signals that tell you that you aren't hungry anymore and observe the signs that show you are confortably full.

6.) Cope with your emotions without food - Find ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food.

7.) Respect your body - Accept your genetic blueprint. Consider someone who has the shoe size 8, they would never expect to fit into a size 6, so it is equally unrealistic to have the same expectations for body size.

8.) Exercise - Get active and feel the difference, shift your focus to how it feels to move and use your body rather than losing weight. Make it fun and convenient so you can incorporate it into your lifestyle.

9.) Honor your health - Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while make you feel good. Rememer you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy, and progress - not perfection - is what counts.

Start listening to your body today and practice these eating principles! We guarantee that you're physical and emotional state will feel stronger and healthier - and life will be more fun!

(Sources: Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that works. Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD and Elyse Resc, MS, RD, FADA.)