Hi Wellness Warriors! I’ve got the ninth installment of my Intuitive Exercise Series for you. If you are just tuning in, I’ve been using the ten Intuitive Eating Principles as a framework to show how Exercise Culture can sidetrack us just as easily as Diet Culture. (You can read the intro here and part one here.) The ninth principle of Intuitive Eating is to use exercise to engage your body, and since we are flipping the coin, let’s fuel up!
Truthfully, I could write a long and involved post about this topic. In fact, I’ve done that before. And as I’m adapting the principles of Intuitive Eating, I’ll let them stand for themselves for the diet side of this coin. There’s an entire book dedicated to that topic and many others who can do it much more justice.
But there are a few areas I would like to highlight here. First being the need to look at food choices from a much broader context than just calories consumed. As I wrote in my last post, while calories in versus calories out does in fact govern the thermodynamics of weight management, calories are not the end all.
Yes, when you consume more than you burn, you will gain weight over time. But we need to look at the deeper reasons for overconsumption. Sometimes there are things outside of our control (like a new medication or an extremely stressful situation) that we are using food to cope with. Sometimes we are just bored or stuck in our habits. But by getting to the root cause, instead of trying to chronically and intensely restrict ourselves, we can begin to build healthier habits.
Looking solely at the caloric value of food, also devalues food in the bigger social context. Part of eating, at least in the current era, is for pleasure. It is fun to eat things that taste good. And by restricting consumption, we restrict pleasure. Limiting our favorite foods is why dieting is so difficult and we end up feeling like we have no willpower.
Food also tends to play a part in celebrations and our Social Health. It’s a lot less stressful to go to dinner with friends and just enjoy what you want to enjoy rather than to have the calorie counter ticking away in your head. I’m not saying go crazy, but just like you would with a child, pick your battles. Enjoy in moderation and then return to making stronger choices with the next meal.
And we also get to the interplay of food as fuel for exercise. Many individuals I see on the weight loss train also want to improve their muscle definition. Guess what? Just as hours upon hours of cardio won’t get you where you want to go, neither will restricting your intake.
If increasing muscle definition, body recomposition, and/or gaining strength and stamina are part of your goals, you need to be doing the correct workouts. That means strength training. And consuming enough calories and protein to support at least keeping the muscle mass you do have. That means eating properly before and after workouts.
The human animal is unique in that we can survive on just about any type of diet. But we do the best on diets that we personally find filling and fulfilling. There is no reason to restrict calories or pleasure when what typically needs to happen is that we need to get back in touch with our needs, wants, and hunger cues.
Until next time, be well friends!
