Your "Body Voice"

I might have been a little harsh last post with my dear friend “Food.” It turned out that me and my little family caught a nasty intestinal virus that’s been hitting our city hard this week. Woah, not fun. Time to play a little catch-up!

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I’m very proud of myself for starting off September on the right foot this year. I’ve been eating all those good-for-you foodies and trying (as in, I’m going to try tonight) to actually plan a week of meals and follow through on it. *SHOCK!* I know, it’s alarming. Seriously though, I know that planning meals is something I must do for myself if I want to be successful in this whole lifestyle change of mine.

On Fitblog last Tuesday we were all chatting about what our #1 piece of advice for losing weight is. Someone, (I think it might have been Rita?) mentioned the following: Start thinking of food in relation to how it makes you feel.

I love this thought, and I feel that it directly ties into one of my “Drop Dead Gorgeous by December” goals: To start viewing food as fuel. As of right now, I’m a total calorie counter. I still need an immense amount of help knowing what an appropriate amount of food to be eating for my goals. Jess has an amazing page to help you understand all the math that goes into adjusting your caloric intake for your fitness plan. At the very basic level, it’s input minus output. Anyways, my point is this: once I start viewing food as fuel and how foods make my body feel, I think I will enter a whole new level of fitness.

 I know we've all been in this position before, time and time again: 

Photo Credit

Double cheeseburger, cupcake, PIZZA = DELISH but also = gross, greasy, bloated feeling.

Hummus & Red peppers, grilled chicken = DELISH and also = great, clean, energized feeling.

Our bodies are smarter than we think. I don’t give mine enough credit, or I just plain ignore it.

I think some of our bodies have been ignored and misused for so long that they’ve stopped talking to us. I can see my “body voice,” just sitting on the couch flipping channels in my brain. “eh, maybe I feel like an apple.. wait, How I Met Your Mother is on.” Or maybe even they’ve been shot down so many times that they’ve started to believe they’re wrong. 

This scenario usually plays out between my "body voice" and me:

       Body voice : "I am so hungry for energy. I neeeeeed some apples and granola, STAT" 
       Me : "Nah. Let's just order pizza. It's so good, remember?"
       Body voice: "Yeah, I guess, but shouldn't we...."
       Me: "SHHHHH, i'm on the phone. Yeah, I'd like to order a large mushroom and pep..."

Yes, I know I’m talking about an imaginary voice-person.

Yes, I still think it’s a valid point. 

I don't think it's to late for me to SHUT UP and listen to the signals my body gives me, and I definitely don't think it's too late for you. Especially this holiday season, I'd like to be able to stand strong with both my mind AND body on my team!

Tell me:

Do you listen to your body’s signals, or do you have to feed it new messages?

Tune in next time : the dreaded “before” pictures / new scale.....