Daily Eats + Sitting With Your Feelings
It's been a little while since a Daily Eats post. So I thought I'd share a "day in the life" of what intuitive eating looks like for me. I know for me as well as others of you I've interacted with, it can be helpful and refreshing to see what someone eats and how someone eats throughout the day when it's not centered on dieting. We don't have enough non-diet influences in our world in my opinion. Not enough people sharing pics of food that aren't tiny portions or nothing but salad and matcha. I hope my daily eats are a breath of fresh air that, at the end of reading them, you're able to have not only some inspiration for delicious meal ideas but also have a better understanding of what intuitive eating and the mindset behind it could look like for you!
I do want to also recognize that maybe you're not at a point, though, where you can look at what someone else eats without being triggered. Recognize this for yourself and honor that. Feel free to read through my other posts on intuitive eating and self-care for more encouragement without food pics.
I always try to tie in something else that I'm either learning myself or that I want to teach you when I share my Daily Eats. And today I want to talk about what it means to sit with your feelings.
I woke up a little later than I had been this morning...actually, I've been waking up later all week mainly because I've just felt more tired and honoring that. So instead of my usual wake up at 5:15 and get out of bed at 5:30, I've been getting up at around 6. I feel a little off when I don't follow my morning routine and hoping to get back to waking up as usual soon. But for now, honoring a need to stay in bed an extra 30 mins. The day started with some coffee with half and half while reading my favorite devotional lately called "New Morning Mercies" by Paul David Tripp. If you're looking for a good devotional book for your quiet time I highly recommend this one! After reading today's page and a chapter in the Bible, I made some breakfast. I was initially feeling toast, but all we had were "butt" pieces and Paul actually likes them (weird, right??!) so I opted for oatmeal. I topped it with strawberries and a big spoonful of peanut butter.
After breakfast, I got ready and then planned and filmed my weekly coaching video for you, this week's topic being "Respecting Your Body VS Loving Your Body" and I shared ways in which you can respect your body even if you're not ready to love your body. If you missed it, you can watch it on Instagram here or Facebook here. This was my second video in a series I've started where each week I share a coaching topic and talk about it while giving you practical tips for how to make changes, yourself. I pose the topic each Monday on Instagram and give you the opportunity to ask me questions that I answer in the video on that topic! Pretty cool! I've so enjoyed engaging with you all through this and helping you become more trusting and at peace with your body and with food!
After I uploaded the video, I headed out to teach a Barre3 class at a local co-working space. At the time that I'm writing this, I'm not yet fully certified...sooo close! So this class was another practice class for certification. It was a fun class and I so enjoy all that this process of becoming an instructor is teaching me! I'm hoping to be fully certified this week (fingers crossed!).
After teaching, I came home and made lunch which was a leftover salmon patty and some sauteed zucchini. I was still a bit hungry after this so I started eating some cheese and crackers. Then, in the middle of the cheese and crackers Paul called asking if I would be interested in meeting him for a coffee date/work date :) . Of course I said "yes"! So I left the cheese and crackers behind and headed out to coffee and work.
At coffee, I just felt my emotions start to surface. All of a sudden I felt an intense sadness. It's been super gloomy and grey and rainy lately, so I felt the weather had something to do with it (anyone else ever feel like they have seasonal affective disorder??). Also life's just had a lot of ups and downs lately. I'm learning how to deal with them and not let them take hold of me. But also, sometimes it just feels good to let emotions out. It's healthy, even! So that happened. I share this to let you know that not every day is perfect and wonderful for me. And not every day will be perfect and wonderful for you. What's important is how we cope and what we choose to cope with when we feel sadness and intensity with our emotions.
Feeling your feelings is a principle of intuitive eating. And this is a skill that is so helpful if you have a tendency of either turning to food when your mood is down or turning away from food with sadness or intense feelings. Neither is a helpful coping mechanism for the long run. What I want to encourage you to do when you have these days, these moments, is to sit with your feelings. Yes, you heard me right. Sit with your feelings. Not trying to fix them or all of a sudden get happy. This can often lead to us just stuffing our emotions down until they build up inside of us even more and then come spurting out. You can cry. You can be lonely. You can be sad. You can be mad. Sit with that emotion, noticing it without being judgemental. Be curious about your feelings. Act as a loving friend to yourself in this moment. Maybe try journaling. It's not that you're passive as you sit with and feel your feelings...you are actively noticing things about yourself, learning more about yourself, seeking out what it is your mind and body are telling you that you need.
Paul and I did split a carrot muffin which helped at the moment because I was still a bit munchy. And along with a decaf americano things were starting to feel a little better.
I did some work there for a few hours before we left to go back home. You may laugh at this, but when I got home as a way of outwardly attempting to boost my mood, I put on some red lipstick. Currently loving this Beautycounter lipstick called "9 to 5"! And what do you know?! I felt a bit better!
At home, I picked up the house a little and then started cooking dinner. Dinner was burrito bowls (kinda). I was in the mindset of just getting food on the table for dinner tonight so it wasn't anything super crazy. And it tasted ok, not great. But it did the job. Sometimes that's what meals are. They do the job. If this is the case and dinner isn't super satisfying, I always make it satisfying by having something sweet afterward. Tonight we had some chocolate chip cookies. Those hit the spot!
Ending the evening writing this post for you and just so immensely grateful for you reading these words that I write. I thank you for showing up and having a heart of desiring growth for yourself. I hope you enjoyed this post!