Intuitive Eating means paying attention to your body's needs through
hunger cues. Many of us have spent a long time destroying our ability
to listen to our bodies by manipulating our diets to meet some external
guideline. Most people who discover they have Celiac or
gluten-intolerance have already experienced malnutrition to some
extent. When you're glutened, your body cannot absorb essential
nutrients. If it goes untreated long enough, you can develop things
like osteopenia (loss of bone density) due to calcium deficiency or
severe anemia. Once you go gluten-free, it is important to pay
attention to what your body needs to rebuild itself after a long-term
deficit.
At first you may simply crave calories. This is a
normal response to starvation and your body may urge you to consume
easy-to-digest sources such as simple sugars and fats. You may have a
sudden craving for dairy products as you body looks to rebuild your
bones. You may crave iron foods such as red meat or dark green
vegetables, or high-protein foods.
Listen to your body. You
are recovering from an illness, and now is the time to give your body
what it needs, not what you think it "should" need. If you seek a
dietician, you'll want to find one who has experience with eating
disorder recovery, because your body's starvation experience and
recovery (regardless of your weight or what you've been eating) is
probably similar enough to compare dietary recovery plans.
Some
people may be tempted to avoid food they're craving from a fear of
gaining weight. Right now your focus should be on healing the damage to
your body. People who practice intuitive eating sometimes do gain some
initial weight. But as your body rebuilds itself and learns to trust
you to fulfill its needs, the cravings will taper off and your weight
will return to a natural level for you.
See the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating at Intuitiveeating.org for more information.
No comments:
Post a Comment