How do you decide how much to eat?
Do you make yourself eat more or less than you want?
If you let it, your body tells you how much to eat.
Your child can teach you how. He knows when he is hungry and when he is full. He stops eating when he gets full. He eats more sometimes, less other times.
Do you trust your body?
A lot of grownups don’t. Instead, they eat what and how much they think they should. It doesn’t work. If you eat that way, in the long run you will eat worse, not better.
Take good care of yourself with eating:
- Have meals and snacks with food that tastes good to you.
- Plan ahead so you know that you will get fed.
- Pay attention, and eat enough. Eat until you feel content. Then stop. Do it the next meal – and the next.
- Eat 3 meals a day and snacks between if you want them. Go to the table hungry, but not so hungry you gobble your food.
- Make meals pleasant. Relax. Slow down. Taste the food. Talk, and enjoy others at the table.
Love the body you have, not the body you wish you had:
- Stop dieting. Going on and off diets makes it hard to know what your body tells you.
- Let your body be the size and shape it wants to be. You may be big or small, tall or short.
- Be yourself. Don’t try to be like actors or models. They are thinner, taller, and bigger on top than most other people.
- Stop trying to lose weight. It can make you fatter. You will get too hungry and eat too much.
