Intuitive Eating In Real Life + Eating When You're Not In The Mood

It's been a while since I've done a "what I eat in a day" post, so I thought I'd share with you how intuitive eating looks in real life and encourage you on your own journey towards peace with food.

I mentioned yesterday that I'd be doing a what I eat in a day post today but I never know what it's going to turn out to be. You see, intuitive eating on the weekend for me means not having every single meal planned out for my day, but taking it as it comes and choosing to eat what based on what feels good. During the week it's a little more difficult to eat in this way because I work and have to plan out meals to pack for lunch and have a general idea for dinner to make life easier. But weekends are for a little more freedom!

That being said, in all honesty yesterday wasn't my greatest day. I had planned on talking about comparison with this "WIE" post, but I feel it's more fitting to talk about eating when you're not in the mood to eat. Because that's how my day was yesterday.

Emotional eating for me is more along the lines of emotional "not-eating". My typical response to uncomfortable emotions is to lose my appetite and not be "in the mood" to eat. I know for some people food is their form of comfort for emotions. But for me, all desire for food goes out the window.

So that's how it was yesterday. I was having a rough day for silly reasons. But was emotional all the same. I woke up and took my dog on a run in the 30 degree weather because that's one of my coping mechanisms. Getting outside and moving my body helps keep me grounded when emotions are running all over the place. In this case, exercise was what I needed in that moment to cope, though compared to in the past where it was my only coping mechanism, I know have other ways of coping in a healthy way. So if running or another form of exercise is a coping mechanism for you...AWESOME! Buuuutttt, it just shouldn't be your only coping mechanism. Especially if it turns in to an obsession or if you're in an eating disorder or with exercise obsession.

Came home after the run wanting something warm. This savory breakfast bowl consisting of 2 fried eggs, some sauteed spinach with butter, 1/2 an avocado, roasted sweet potatoes, and some pickled red onions really hit the spot! I ate while catching up on some The Real Life RD's recent blog posts and absolutely loved this one as well as this one. I love learning from Robin and hope to one day be as brilliant as she is :)

After breakfast I spent some time working on an upcoming resource for you guys...more on this very very soon. I really spent the morning in silence and just enjoying the time to be still.

I got ready for the day and had plans for the afternoon with a friend watching a Christmas play that her church put on. It was basically a "Broadway-ish" performance of the nativity story and was really well done! But before I left I knew I'd need to eat so chose a gluten free bagel (for no reason other than I saw them at Trader Joes and was curious to try :) ), topped it with almond butter and my quick chia seed jam made with frozen cherries and chia seeds. For sides I chopped some apple and carrots. After a savory breakfast this sweeter lunch sounded good. And PB&J is just oh so comforting in my opinion!

I headed to the play and enjoyed some time with a friend. Then came home and cleaned the house a little before preparing dinner. I was hungry, but still my emotions kept me from really truly being interested in eating. But I knew that I SHOULD eat because I could feel hunger. I chose the easiest thing, some leftover spaghetti that I'd made the day before.

Here I want to mention how sometimes with intuitive eating you eat because you should eat even if you're not in the mood. In the past when I was struggling with my eating disorder, I let my emotions rule over how I ate and chose not to eat during these times when I wasn't in the mood. I knew that if I didn't eat I would wake up famished and may feel out of control with eating. Intuitive eating in this time was eating out of self care, because though my mind didn't want to eat I knew my body needed food.

I usually eat more than this on any given day. But because of my emotions it was all I could do to eat 3 meals. But doing so was an act of self care because I knew that skipping a meal would turn out making me feel worse in the long run.

Today was a much better day and I'm grateful to my ability to listen to my body's need for food even when my mind was telling me no because who knows, I may not have been able to snap of my negative attitude yesterday if I wasn't meeting my body's needs while trying to also meet my emotional needs.

How about you? Are there ever times when you're not in the mood to eat because of emotions? What's your response?