Friday, September 3, 2010

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.....

4 comments:

  1. This was an awesome post. I laughed at the mental image of the body voice/you convo.

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  2. Thank you, April!! I'm glad you can relate :)

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  3. This is so true! I can't tell you how many times I've shushed my thoughts of healthy food for pizza or McD's (yes, I shamefully admit to eating that stuff once a week). I blame it on my husband who has to have his fast food every weekend. I know I could easily say, "You go ahead. I'm going to make me a salad." I don't like the fast food salads because they all have cheese on them! I hate cheese! They've all gotten rid of those wonderful asian salads!

    Anyway, I'm getting a little bit off-topic here! Sorry! I need considerable work in this area as well and will gladly get on the bandwagon with you to try harder to listen to my body voice!

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  4. I find listening to my body's signals really hard but maybe that is because I spent my teens distrusting and ignoring them and in my twenties I flat out stopped hearing them all together and its only been in my thirties that I have actively tried to listen to my body and my natural instincts on many levels, not just food. I don't know how to get better at it, I just hope the more I concentrate on it the easier it will become.

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Thank you for taking the time to comment - I'll try to respond in a timely fashion!