It’s that time of year. We’re all making promises to ourselves that we really can’t keep. But what if we did something a little bit different. What if we based a New Year’s resolution on what our body is already telling us, but we’re not listening too. What if our New Year’s resolution is to listen to our bodies and eat intuitively?
My eldest son is 21 months and is the very definition of intuitive eating. When he is hungry, he eats with enthusiasm and gusto. When he’s not, he turns his dinner into a sensory exercise. (Either way, peanut butter ends up in his ears.)
It’s beautiful, really, to watch him eat. He has not yet been influenced by commercials that equate over-eating with manliness or under-eating with self-control. He has no shame or body hate. He’s just a toddler giving his body the energy it needs to play.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all eat so intuitively…sans the food all over our faces? Listening to our bodies and let it tell us what it needs…it’s what we all could be doing.
As we start this new year, maybe our resolutions don’t need to be to go to the gym a million times or anything else that sets us up for failure. Maybe we just need to resolve to eat like a toddler!