This naturally sweet Strawberry Chia Seed Pudding is super nutritious. It's packed with protein, fiber, and omega-3's. A delicious afternoon sweet treat or perfect for breakfast.
Wash and slice strawberries the day you are serving pudding.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the almond milk, yogurt, maple syrup, vanilla. Whisk in the chia seeds. Let stand 5 minutes then stir again to ensure all chia seeds are incorporated and not sticking to the bottom of the bowl. Cover and refrigerate overnight.
The next day, spoon pudding into bowls and top with .fresh sliced strawberries. Drizzle with additional maple syrup if desired.
This roasted asparagus recipe is tossed with a homemade lemon and thyme dressing. An easy and delicious side that brings plenty of nutrition and flavor to any meal.
There’s a way to ditch the diet culture, make peace with food, and prioritize your physical and mental wellbeing. It’s called “intuitive eating” and it’s not a weight loss program. Instead, it’s a way to get back in tune with your body and refocus your mind away from “food rules.”
Intuitive eating de-prioritizes weight as a primary measure of health, while inviting you to eat the foods you want when you’re hungry—and stop eating when you feel full. This isn’t a “free for all” to give up and eat how much you want of whatever you want whenever you want it, either. It’s about getting back in tune with your body and showing it the respect it deserves.
Eating intuitively means being curious about what and why you want to eat something, and then enjoying it without judgment. Yep, without judgment. It’s about trusting your body’s wisdom without influence from outside of yourself. It’s about removing the labels of “good” or “bad” food and ditching the guilt or pride about eating a certain way. It’s about accepting food—and our bodies—as the amazing wonder that they really are and a belief that there truly is no “right” or “wrong” way to eat.
The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
The two dietitians who popularized intuitive eating in 1995, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, have outlined 10 principles.
1 – Reject the diet mentality
Ditch diets that give the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. You are not a failure for every time a diet stopped working and you gained the weight back. Until you break free from the hope that there’s a new diet around the corner, you cannot fully embrace intuitive eating.
2 – Honor your hunger
Your body needs adequate energy and nutrition. Keep yourself fed to prevent excessive hunger. By honoring the first signal of hunger you can start rebuilding trust in yourself and food.
3 – Make peace with food
Stop fighting with food and give yourself unconditional permission to eat. Stop fostering intense feelings of deprivation by denying yourself a particular food, as these can lead to cravings and bingeing. You don’t want your “giving in” to lead to overwhelming guilt.
4 – Challenge the food police
Confront the thoughts that you as a person are “good” or “bad” based on what and how much you eat. Diet culture has created unreasonable rules. The food police are the negative, hopeless, or guilty thoughts that you can chase away.
5 – Discover the satisfaction factor
Pleasure and satisfaction are some of the basic gifts of existence. By allowing yourself to feel these when you eat, you can enjoy feeling content and fulfilled. When you do this, you will be able to identify the feeling of “adequacy.”
6 – Feel your fullness
Trust that you will give yourself the foods you desire. Pause in the middle of eating and ask how the food tastes. Be aware of the signals that you’re not hungry anymore. Respect when you become comfortably full.
7 – Cope with your emotions with kindness
Restricting food can trigger a loss of control and feel like emotional eating. Be kind to yourself. Comfort and nurture yourself. Everyone feels anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger. Food won’t fix these feelings—it’s just a short-term distraction. Ultimately, you have to deal with the uncomfortable emotions.
8 – Respect your body
Everyone is genetically unique, whether it’s shoe size or body size. Respecting your body will help you feel better about who you are. Being unrealistic or overly critical of your shape or size makes it hard to reject the diet mentality.
9 – Movement—feel the difference
Feel the difference activity makes. Not militant or calorie-burning exercise, but simply moving your body. Focus on how energized it makes you feel.
10 – Honor your health—gentle nutrition
Choose foods that honor your tastebuds and health. Don’t focus on eating perfectly. One snack, meal, or day of eating won’t suddenly make you unhealthy or deficient in nutrients. Look at how you eat over time. Choose progress, not perfection.
The Science behind Intuitive Eating
Studies show that people who eat intuitively tend to also have lower body-mass indices (BMIs) and higher levels of body appreciation and mental health. They are also associated with lower blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and inflammation.
A review of eight studies compared “health, not weight loss” eating styles with conventional weight-loss diets. While they found no significant differences in heart disease risk factors between the two types of diets, they did find that body satisfaction and eating behavior improved more for people in the “health, not weight loss” groups.
Another review of 24 studies of female college students showed that those who eat intuitively experience less disordered eating, have a more positive body image, and greater emotional functioning.
Overall, there is a growing amount of research that shows the benefits of intuitive eating on both physical and mental health.
Intuitive Eating and Health at Every Size
The non-diet approach of intuitive eating fits within the concept that there can be health at every size. The idea behind Health at Every SizeⓇ is to be inclusive of all weights and de-emphasizes weight as the main factor to assess someone’s health. The way someone’s body looks does not tell the whole story about their overall health and wellbeing. Instead, their habits and lifestyle are more important factors than simply their size and shape.
Like intuitive eating, the HAESⓇ paradigm has several principles. They are weight inclusivity, health enhancement, respectful care, eating for well-being, and life-enhancing movement. These include accepting the diversity of body shapes, supporting equal access to health information and services, promoting eating based on hunger and satiety, working to end weight discrimination and bias, and encouraging enjoyable physical movement.
Also like intuitive eating, the focus of HAESⓇ is less toward weight loss and more toward sustainable healthy habits. According to HAESⓇ, the objective is to “advance social justice, create an inclusive and respectful community, and support people of all sizes in finding compassionate ways to take care of themselves.”
Tips to Eat More Intuitively
There are many things you can do to start eating more intuitively and ditch diet culture and “food rules.”
Put aside your guilt for previous diets that have failed you. (You have not failed them and you are not bad for participating in them.
Stop focusing on finding or implementing diets that promise easy, permanent weight loss.
When you feel like eating, ask yourself if you’re truly physically hungry (and not emotionally hungry).
Eat when you’re physically hungry, don’t deprive yourself. Get back in tune with your body’s signals and don’t wait until you’re extremely hungry.
Ask yourself what type of food will satisfy you. (Remember, there aren’t “good” or “bad” foods and you don’t need to judge yourself for eating—or not eating—them.)
Pay attention to and enjoy your food while you’re eating it (eat mindfully).
Stop eating when you are comfortably full.
Treat your body with dignity and respect—regardless of its size or shape.
Move your body in a way that is enjoyable and see how that makes you feel.
Stop worrying about eating perfectly. If you get off track, gently bring yourself back on track.
Final Thoughts
Intuitive eating helps to improve your relationship with food and your body and mind. It’s about challenging external rules and subconscious habits around eating. It also challenges feelings of guilt or shame associated with eating a certain way.
To eat intuitively, listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues, enjoy a wide variety of foods (because none are inherently “good” or “bad”, and respect your body.
For a nutritious approach to health based on intuitive eating and Health at Every SizeⓇ, consult with a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.
Need help to see how intuitive eating and HAESⓇ can work for you? Are you looking for ways to implement this non-diet lifestyle into your day-to-day life? Book a free consultation with me https://www.corenutritionhw.com/services to see how my programs/services can help you achieve your goals.
Bruce, L. J. & Ricciardelli, L.A. (2016). A systematic review of the psychosocial correlates of intuitive eating among adult women. Appetite, 96, 454-472. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2015.10.012.
Khasteganan, N., Lycett, D., Furze, G., & Turner, A. P. (2019). Health, not weight loss, focused programmes versus conventional weight loss programmes for cardiovascular risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Systematic reviews, 8(1), 200. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13643-019-1083-8
Sorensen, M. D., Arlinghaus, K. R., Ledoux, T. A., & Johnston, C. A. (2019). Integrating Mindfulness Into Eating Behaviors. American journal of lifestyle medicine, 13(6), 537–539. https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827619867626
Van Dyke, N., & Drinkwater, E. (2014). Review Article Relationships between intuitive eating and health indicators: Literature review. Public Health Nutrition, 17(8), 1757-1766. doi:10.1017/S1368980013002139
This raspberry mint tea is a super healthy drink that's packed with nutrients to support your health. Naturally sweetened with maple syrup and taste delicious served hot or cold.
Your gut and brain are interconnected more than you probably realize. New research is proving that there is a communication system between your gut and your brain called the gut-brain axis. Recent studies show that your brain affects your gut health and your gut may affect your brain health.
Imagine if eating differently could elevate your moods or improve your brain and mental health. It can. Or, if reducing stress can also reduce gut symptoms. It does.
Sounds interesting? Learn about the gut-brain axis and how you can leverage this new research to improve your gut and brain health.
Your gut is (partially) controlled by your brain
Gut disorders can cause pain, bloating, or other discomfort. They impact over 35 percent of people at some point in life—affecting women more than men. Many times, these gut issues don’t have an apparent or easily diagnosable physical cause, so they can be difficult to treat and find relief from.
We know that our brains control some of our digestive processes. For example, research has found that even thinking about eating can cause the stomach to release juices to get itself ready for food. Your gut is also sensitive to emotions. You may recall a time when you felt anxious and nauseous or felt “knots” or “butterflies” in your stomach.
Several studies show that stress may be an important—often overlooked—reason for gut issues. According to Harvard Health, “Stress can trigger and worsen gastrointestinal pain and other symptoms, and vice versa.”
This is why it’s so important to look at your stress and emotions if you have gut issues. Many studies have found that stress reduction techniques can lead to greater improvement in gut symptoms compared to conventional medical treatment alone.
Now, let’s look at a bit more of the biology behind the gut-brain axis.
Your nervous systems
There are two main parts of your “main” nervous system. One is the part that we can consciously control, like when we move our muscles to walk around, chew our food, or swim laps.. This is called the somatic nervous system.
The other part of our nervous system controls all of those things that we can’t control, but need to survive. These include processes that happen automatically in the background: breathing, heart beating, sweating, or shivering. This part of the nervous system is called the autonomic nervous system because it works automatically.
The autonomic system regulates our body’s functions by either speeding things up or slowing them down. When things are sped up, like when our “fight or flight” reactions kick in, this is done by the sympathetic part. We feel this happening when we sense danger (real or not) and get stressed. Our heart beats faster and we breathe heavier. We’re preparing to fight or flee, so our body focuses on ensuring our muscles get enough blood and oxygen to work hard.
Slowing things down, on the other hand, is done by the parasympathetic part. This happens when we’re relaxing or after the danger has passed and we start to calm down. Our heart, lungs, and muscles rest and our digestive systems do their jobs much better. In this phase, we’re secreting more digestive juices to break down food, we’re absorbing more nutrients, and we have lower levels of inflammation in our gut. That’s why this is called the “rest and digest” phase.
Both of these arms of the autonomic nervous system—the sympathetic and parasympathetic—interact with the gut [GI tract/digestive system]. This means that when our body is stressed we can experience gut symptoms and when we’re relaxed our digestion does what it’s meant to do.
Your gut is your “second brain”
In addition to your “main” nervous system, your gut has its own nervous system called the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system spans your whole digestive tract from your esophagus, along your stomach, intestines, and colon. This nervous system is sometimes referred to as the “second brain” because it works in the same way that the “main” one does. It has 100 million nerve cells (called neurons) that communicate with each other using biochemicals called neurotransmitters.
Your enteric nervous system gets input from both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, so it can speed up or slow down when it has to. It also has a “mind” of its own and can function independently of them.
This complex system is important because of how complex our digestive processes are. For example, after we eat, the neurons in our enteric system tell the muscle cells of the stomach and intestines to contract to move food along to the next part. As our gut [GI tract/digestive system] does this, our enteric nervous system uses neurotransmitters to communicate with the central nervous system.
Your enteric nervous system is also very closely linked to your immune system. This is because a lot of germs [bacteria/pathogens] can enter the body through the mouth and end up in the gut. You have a large immune presence there to help fight them off before they become a larger problem and infect other parts of the body. The cells of the immune system provide another path for the gut to communicate up to the brain. They relay information like when they detect an infection or when your stomach is bloated, so your brain knows, too.
Even the friendly gut microbes (gut microbiota) that help us digest and make certain nutrients play a role in communicating with the brain. They make neurotransmitters, some of which are known to influence our moods.
The gut-brain axis
This intimate and complex connection between your gut and brain is called the gut-brain axis. And we now know that the signals go in both directions: from your brain down to your gut, and from your gut up to your brain.
This is where we see the link between digestive issues and brain, stress, and mood issues.
When someone is stressed enough that they get into the “fight or flight” reaction, digestion slows right down to allow the muscles to fight or flee. The same physical reaction appears whether the stress is from a real threat or a perceived one. This means that your body reacts the same whether you’re facing a real life-threatening situation or whether you’re super-stressed about a looming deadline. This disruption of the digestive process can cause pain, nausea, or other related issues.
Meanwhile, it’s known that experiencing strong or frequent digestive issues can increase your stress levels and moods. People with depression and anxiety have more GI symptoms, and vice versa.
How stress and emotions affect your gut
Because of these strong connections between the gut and brain, it’s easy to see how stress and other emotions can affect the gut. Things like fear, sadness, anger, or feeling anxious or depressed are often felt in the gut [GI tracts/digestive systems]. When they cause our digestive systems to speed up (or slow down) too much, this can influence pain and bloating. It can also allow germs to cross the lining of the gut and get into the bloodstream, activating our immune systems. It can increase inflammation in the gut or even change the microbiota.
This is why stress and strong emotions can contribute to or worsen a number of gut [GI/digestive] issues such as Crohn’s disease, colitis, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), or food allergies or sensitivities.
Then, these gut issues are communicated to the brain, increasing the stress response and affecting our moods.
This loop of stress and gut issues and more stress and more gut issues becomes a vicious cycle.
New research shows that changes to the gut’s inflammation or microbiome can strongly affect many other parts of the body as well—not just the brain and mood. They’re also associated with depression and heart disease.
How to eat and de-stress for better gut and brain health
What you eat can have a huge impact on your health. This is particularly true when it comes to the microbiome. Your gut health improves when you eat a higher-fiber, more plant-based diet. That’s because it provides your friendly gut microbes with their preferred foods so they can grow and thrive. Probiotic foods that include health promoting bacteria are also recommended. Reducing the amount of sugar and red meat you eat can also help. These can lead to a healthier microbiome by helping to maintain a diverse community of many species of microbes to maximize your health. They can also lower levels of gut inflammation, as well as reduce the risk of depression and heart disease.
For better gut and brain/mental health, eat more:
Fruits and vegetables
Nuts and seeds
Whole grains
Yogurt
Sauerkraut
Eat less:
Sugar
Red meat
What about stress? Evidence suggests that some stress reduction techniques or psychotherapy may help people who experience gut [GI/digestive] issues. They can lower the sympathetic “fight or flight” response, enhance the parasympathetic “rest and digest” response, and even reduce inflammation.
Some of the stress-reduction techniques I love and recommend are:
Meditation
Deep breathing
Mindfulness
Relaxation
Yoga
Prayer
Your gut, brain, and mood will thank you.
To Sum it Up
Our bodies are complex and interact with other parts on so many different levels. The gut-brain axis is a great example. Research shows that what we eat not only improves the gut and overall health, but also brain and mental health. Not to mention that several stress-reduction techniques have been shown to reduce digestive illness and distress as well.
Want to learn how you can eat and de-stress to improve your gut and brain at the same time? Are you looking for a way to incorporate “mood foods” into your diet? If so, schedule a free consultation https://www.plantfedlife.com/services to learn more.
References
Cleveland Clinic. (2016, October 6). Gut-Brain Connection. Retrieved from
