Can Intuitive Eating help you reach your health goals with Eva Rodriguez! Ep78

Richard Conner 0:01

Hey everyone, Have you struggled with various diets and losing weight in the past? Are you looking for an alternative to counting calories? Well, I’m happy to share this episode with you. It’s a special episode. Because it’s a replay of a conversation I had with Eva Rodriguez, back is one of my first guest. Eva is a certified life coach, Advanced Certified weight loss coach and personal trainer. She is passionate about helping busy successful, high achieving women lose their first or last 15 pounds for the last time, so that they can stop the yo yoing. And finally learn to be confident with their inner and outer beauty. And Eva is going to talk about intuitive eating. And this is a really interesting topic. We had such a great conversation, and I wanted to bring this conversation back up to you. So we’ll jump right into the conversation about the 10 principles of intuitive eating, and how you can apply in your life. Hope you enjoy.

Intro/Outro 1:02

Welcome to Inspire to run podcast. Here you will find inspiration. Whether you’re looking to take control of your health and fitness or you’re a seasoned runner, looking strict immunity and some extra motivation. You will hear inspiring stories from amazing runners, along with helpful tips from fitness experts. Now here’s your host Richard Conner.

Richard Conner 1:25

Now I’m curious, and now I really want to know, so my body’s gonna tell me what to eat. And I hear you’re eating ice cream, like, I’m sure our listeners are gonna want to know. So like, what? What are you gonna tell me next about nutrition?

Eva Rodriguez 1:38

So, so yeah, so that’ll that brings us to intuitive eating, which is what I practice, when it comes to intuitive eating. This is something that I really, it was the thing. It was a dietary theory that resonated with me the most when I was doing my emotional eating certification. And the reason why is because it just it made it made sense for me. Because I’m naturally intuitive. I’ve always been an empath. And those are also two things I’ve tried to push aside and ignore like, I don’t want to deal with this, I don’t have time to be an empath. I don’t have time to be intuitive, like I just want to get from point A to point B. But as I started doing my work and going through my own personal health journey, it’s something that I also learned to cultivate and to protect, you know, during my transformation. Well, I understand and I know and again, this doesn’t work for everyone, just like being a vegan doesn’t work for everyone and doing paleo doesn’t work for everyone. Intuitive Eating, I think can work for most people. But some people need structure. Some people genuinely just need to know exactly, just tell me exactly what to do. And I will do it. And some people function that way, and it works for them. My response to that is always if that works for you, let’s stay with that. As long as it’s sustainable, right, as long as you can do this for the rest of your life. If you tell me for the rest of your life, you can eat these three things and never waver and you’ll feel fine. Great. It works. Let’s keep doing it. So I never push this ideal on to anyone because it’s a process, right. But it’s a process that’s worked for me. And it’s a process that has been proven to work for people that that suffer from things like emotional eating or binge eating, I’m very much a free spirit. I’m resistant to anything that’s that feels restrictive, or too many rules, or it’s just too strict. And you know, I’m resistant to that. And so I know that I could never successfully follow a very strict dietary theory or plan. Because I also teach about self care and self love and mindfulness. These are all things that align really well with intuitive eating. So it’s basically it was created by two dietitians in I believe was 1995. And the creators even call it a self care eating framework, which integrates instincts, emotion, and rational thoughts. And it’s evidence based, it’s been validated with this assessment skill that they use and over 100 studies to date. But again, it’s a very personal thing. And it’s a very dynamic process. And it has 10 principles, which I’ll share in a little bit. But basically, the way that the principles work when it comes to Intuitive Eating is by helping you to cultivate attunement to the physical sensations that arise from your within your body to get both your biological and psychological meet needs met and by removing the obstacles and disruptors to that attunement which usually come from your mind, in the form of rules, beliefs and thoughts. So that’s how the principles the 10 principles work and overall but again, it’s a very different way of thinking and some people struggle with understanding, intuitive eating because it without really like going like getting complicated. It is just you eat when you’re hungry, and you don’t eat when you’re not. Right. It’s like that’s the most simplistic way for you to put it. But when you say that to someone, right, they’re like, Oh, so you mean I can eat pizza and ice cream every day? And that and then I gain weight? All right. And the answer is absolutely not. Right. You cannot eat pizza and ice cream every day and think that you’re going to be healthy. But what happens is when you learn to listen to your body, and the hunger signals, and the fullness signals, you learn to calibrate yourself and what ends up happening, eventually, you stop craving certain things and you start craving other things, your body will start to crave healthy foods, it just if you give it a chance to enjoy it.

Richard Conner 5:31

So what are the 10 principles that I’m hanging on?

Eva Rodriguez 5:39

Okay, so the 10 principles, basically. So we’ll start with number one. Number one is reject the diet mentality. It’s rejecting the diet mentality and the false hope that losing weight quickly and easily and permanently will happen by following a certain diet. So the diet culture has led so many people to feel like a failure. Every time that a new diet stops working, or you gain all the way back, it’s trained us to feel like, oh, man, I wasn’t able to stick with this or, you know, I can never, I can never stick with anything, right? I hear that from so many people that have tried these different types of let worked for a few weeks, and then, you know, I fell off. It’s that diet mentality that actually keeps you stuck. And it keeps you feeling bad about yourself. And I’m a huge believer, I don’t ever want anyone feeling bad about themselves. And we need to love ourselves. First is reject the diet mentality. Number two is honor your hunger. And you do this by keeping your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. So what happens is, you know, someone will decide I’m going to go on a diet, first thing they do, they stop eating a bunch of foods, they start restricting, they take out all bread, or all carbs, or all whatever the you know, whatever it is that you enjoy eating, you’re going to stop eating that tomorrow. So it’s like, I’m not going to anymore, ever again, I’m never gonna eat white stuff again, right? So we go into this, like really extreme thinking. What happens though, is, if you don’t keep yourselves fed with adequate foods, adequate energy, adequate carbohydrates, you’re going to inevitably trigger this primal need to overeat. So you’ll notice whenever you’re restricting yourself, like, if you’re like, I’m not going to eat carbs, what are you fantasizing about, at five o’clock carbs. Like I would have like, like dreams about food when I was, you know, doing these crazy things. It’s just primally, you’re going to be triggered to want to overeat and to crave these things that you cannot have. So once you reach this moment of excessive hunger, because oftentimes, when you go on a diet, the first thing you do is you cut your calories into like, really drastically, and you’re under eating, now you’re under nourishing yourself, once you reach this moment of hunger, every intention you had of being like moderate and you know, conscious and all that all that goes out the window, because now you’re hangry. And now your body is like I want all the carbs. So by learning to honor your hunger as the first biological signal, when when you’re hungry, when that first hits you, that sets the stage for rebuilding the trust in yourself. And in food, which makes those takes us to number three, which is make peace with food.

Richard Conner 8:20

Before you before you jump into number three, Eva, let’s talk about your honor, your hunger and something you said there about. If you cut carbs out, you’re you’re going to crave the carbs, and you’re going to dream about it. So I want to share a personal experience and get your input on this. So I actually stopped drinking soda almost four years ago, I would think about it all the time. And I would want to write about it. I wouldn’t have it. And I’ve been successful all this time. But it wasn’t until I don’t know the last six, nine months, just like you said literally I’m having dreams about drinking soda. So it’s a little bizarre, but I want you know, I’m just wondering, Is that similar to like, what you’re talking about? Like is is my body saying Hey, buddy, it’s been a long time since you’ve had soda. There’s no need for this, you should be drinking. So I’m gonna deal with that.

Eva Rodriguez 9:06

That’s that’s really funny. And really interesting, too, I would say because I similarly, I stopped drinking soda more like two years ago when I first started with my health journey. And I was I was probably worse than most people because I would drink diet sodas, and I thought I was doing something I was like, Oh, listen, guys, it’s zero calories in here. Like I really thought I was doing something special. My drinking diet and not even realizing all the chemicals in there that makes it even worse and all the sugar. So I think in a case like your case, right, where it’s been four years and you haven’t, it might just be a matter of just like you your body might just be like, I wonder what it tastes like now. And I would I would venture to say that if you were to try soda like tonight, it would probably be disgusting to you. And I think it’s because and that’s also happened to me as well with photos actually. Especially because this happened maybe about a couple months ago where I don’t where I was, but that’s all they had or something like that. And so I had like two sips. And I was like, This is so nasty. And to think and to think that I used to drink five, six cans of diet sodas a day. So I think it’s also a matter I don’t I don’t think your body is like, hey, we want it like, let’s, let’s get back into this habit. I think it’s more just a matter of maybe you drink it so much in your lifetime that you do that you cut it off cold turkey? I do. Yeah. And so perhaps perhaps certain things have been triggering you also think about it, we’re in the middle of a crazy time. So you may just be getting triggered, sometimes by all of the stuff that’s going on. And soda in your body is kind of your, your body’s way of saying like, Hey, that was comfort food for us. You know what I mean? And we’re feeling some type of way right now maybe like that soda might seem a little. And I think some people also kind of will feel this with, whether it’s carbs, whether it’s alcohol, anytime you stopped doing something where you attached it to something, whether it was routine, or whether it was attaching it to a certain feeling that can sometimes get triggered into you then thinking that you want it again, which is why it’s really important to to, it’s what we call it deconstruct your cravings, to really get to the bottom of like, why, like, why is this craving creeping up on me right now?

Richard Conner 11:21

Okay, all right. Well, that’s, that’s great to know. So I’ll still stay away from soda. Yes, stay away.

Eva Rodriguez 11:27

Unless you want to try like two sips. And then let me know if it’s nasty.

Richard Conner 11:32

We’ll see. I’ll have to think about it. I got to finish up my fourth year, and then we’ll decide after after that. Very cool. Sounds good. All right. So I interrupted you, you’re just rolling into number three. So let’s get back to that one.

Eva Rodriguez 11:46

Yeah, so number three is to make peace with food. Uh, for this, I always say, you know, stop fighting with foods stop giving food power. I think a lot of times we can make food out to be more than what it is. It’s not a scary monster. It’s not following you and stalking you, right? It’s just food. And food has one job. And it’s just a few of us. Like, that’s what food does. That’s that’s the only purpose it has. But so many of us put so many extras on what food actually is and like what it represents. And we give it so much headspace and control of our lives. And we plan our lives around food. And it’s like, come on, like it’s just like, let’s just make peace with it. And also, again, if you tell yourself that you can’t have something or you shouldn’t have a particular food, unless it’s because your doctor said that you can’t or you shouldn’t have it. It can lead to like we just said these intense feelings of deprivation. And then that can build itself into these uncontrollable cravings. And oftentimes, binging so number three being make peace with food, just just giving, just understanding that it’s just food, right? It’s just food. And it’s what you make, it doesn’t need to be this, this scary thing that that controls our lives. Number four is then to challenge the food police. So just because you eat a cookie doesn’t make you a bad person. Just because you eat kale doesn’t make you a good person, right. And oftentimes with this whole, making food more important than it is. That’s where the food police comes in, where it’s like, this is good, this is bad. This is good food, bad food, healthy food, unhealthy food. The food police mentality just upholds this, this unreasonable set of rules that the diet culture has created. And the police station is deep inside our mind deep inside our psyche. And this mindset is what leads us to feeling guilty or hopeless. If we fall off plan, or if we you know, if we have a moment of weakness, and you eat a slice of cake, or whatever it is, then you’re you’re you’re judging yourself instead of giving yourself grace. And then again, reminding yourself it’s just food. It’s just food, eating bad one day or quote bad. One day is not going to set you off track for the rest of your life. It was just one day you get back on you get back on whatever wagon you were on and just keep it moving. But oftentimes, again, the mindset gets you stuck there and pulls you down. It’s like see you see what see why you can’t right you see why you can’t stick to anything. So we want to challenge the food police.

Richard Conner 14:09

So for the food for the food police. This is an interesting one. So tell us a little bit more about that. I’m thinking in the cookie example if I have a cookie, and now I feel bad about it because my internal internal food police is saying you shouldn’t have done that. Oh, well, you know, well, it’s all over now. I might as well eat more right one more the whole back whatever the case is. So So Is that Is that what you’re saying? is like if you don’t don’t feel guilty about having one or two cookies. So you don’t start to I guess go overboard or like how how does that work? Yeah,

Eva Rodriguez 14:41

absolutely. Otherwise you sabotage yourself right? Otherwise you sabotage your progress. You sabotage yourself and then you’re again you’re you’re in and then your food jail. Right? And then you’re sitting there, you know on the floor, looking at your hands like oh, man, right? Like, I messed up like, No, it’s not it’s not that serious. It does. Does it mean? Oh, screw it, I’m just going to eat the whole sleeve of cookies. Now, it doesn’t mean that because that’ll take well, we’ll address honoring your body in a little while, because that wouldn’t be honoring your body. But it’s just saying I had a cookie or I had three or whatever, you know, it’s fine. I’ll get back on track tomorrow, instead of living in that negative headspace of now I messed up, now I’m going to sabotage my progress. Now I’m just going to eat not only am I going to eat the cookies, I’m also going to eat the ice cream and the brownies. And the soda took off a town with you know what I mean? Like, in some people will go there. Because they because if you’re a very if you want to see what happens, follow very strict guidelines, once you falter, or once you get off track, it’s really difficult to get people back, it’s really difficult to be like, Okay, you had a bad day, you had a bad you can have a bad week, and I still won’t judge you, I will never judge you. It’s just don’t give up. And that’s what ends up happening. Oftentimes, when people fall into the diet mentality, the food police mentality, it’s like, oh, eff it, all right, I’ll start to get on Monday. But it’s Tuesday. Except it’s Tuesday. So that you’re giving yourself six extra days to you know, eff off your diet or your your plan, right, whatever it was that you you committed to doing for your health. And then now you have a whole week of catch up to play. So it’s not falling into that self sabotage. It’s not falling into that guilt into that hopelessness into that judgment zone that a lot of us do to ourselves. And sometimes unconsciously, sometimes you don’t even realize that we’re sitting here judging ourselves, and the decisions that we’re making with our food or with whatever else until I have someone do an exercise on mindset. And it’s like, let’s talk about all of your limiting beliefs. And then these things come up, oh, this is why I believe I can’t do this. Because every time XYZ happens, I fall off, you know, or every time, you know, every time I have a bad day, I want a pint of Ben and Jerry’s like that used to be my thing. And I was, oh my gosh, either Cherry Garcia, or the one the double one that one would have like the cookie dough and like the brownie. So good. But yeah, you know, it becomes, you know, we fall into these patterns, right? And it’s like, that’s just my pattern. That’s just what I do. Right? And then it goes back to, again, how I address the limiting beliefs? Is that a fact? Or is that a choice you’re making? Is that a factor? Or is that just a thought you’re having, right, and then giving ourselves the grace of bad days will always come? Like, that’s the whole thing. As much as I am about positivity and affirmations and all of that, and I live that lifestyle. I don’t live in denial, and I’m not this, you know, Pollyanna, where it’s like, everything’s always gonna be great, we’re gonna have bad days, we’re gonna have bad moments, you’re gonna have a bad week, a bad year, I mean, it could be any of these things, it doesn’t mean that you give up on yourself. And it doesn’t mean that you give up on your health. And that’s why mind body spirit, it’s all very connected.

Richard Conner 17:54

Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. So that was that was number four rice challenge the food police.

Eva Rodriguez 18:00

The number five is discover the satisfaction factor. Oftentimes, in our compulsion to comply with this diet culture, we overlook the pleasure and the satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. So part of this part of number five is just slowing down and actually enjoying your meals. And for people that eat really fast sometimes is what I’ll tell them. And you may have heard this said before, is eating with your non dominant hand, because it forces you to slow down, it forces you to pick up the fork, actually pay attention to how much you’re putting on your fork, then you put it down, and then you’re chewing. But anything that you can do to just slow down and actually enjoy your meals. Not only does it help you actually enjoy, like what you’re actually eating instead of gulping it down. But it also helps you to discover when you’ve had enough, because when you’re eating really fast, you’re bypassing your your fullness signal, because you’re just eating right, you’re just eating, your stomach is still in the middle of processing, and you’re eating even more. So when you slow down. It allows you to really get more in tuned with your body and in tune with your signals. And you’ll realize oftentimes you will realize that you might just eat less food than you thought you were because you were just eating slower. That’s why it’s important to just you’re also eating for enjoyment, or otherwise, what’s the point? Otherwise, you know, if you’re just going to just like golf it all down. And then you’re gonna give yourself heartburn because you ate too fast. Right? Like what’s, what is the good and that like, why are you why I always say to people as well, don’t make it more difficult for yourself. Again, life is hard enough. So anytime we can make something a little bit simpler, a little bit easier, or a little bit less just like pushing a boulder up a hill. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Small changes. Sometimes it’s sometimes it’s just a really, really small habit changes. But that can be a big little change I say for people is try to slow down when you’re eating and just think about how you’re feeling and think about what you’re eating. People are always extremely right Like, Oh, am I gonna sit there and like really think about each each bite, no, you don’t have to do that. Like, let’s not be extremely let’s not go, let’s not go there. But just slow down a little bit. And your senses, your other senses start to kick in versus when you’re just rush, rush rush, you know, trying to rush through this sandwich or whatever it is that you’re eating. Okay, so that brings us to number six, which is feel your fullness. So again, we’re listening to our body signals are signals that are telling you that you’re no longer hungry. And by observing the signs that show that you’re comfortably full, then you’re not stuffing yourself. Because with if you’re just eating, and you’re completely not paying attention, and you’re just eating really fast. Next thing, you know, you’ll look up, and you’re busting out of your pants, because you ate so much so fast, you missed the signal, you missed your body telling you, we’re good. That’s enough, because you just kept eating through it you ate through that signal. So by pausing in the middle of your eating, and asking yourself, oh, how does this food taste, just kind of just taking a moment, at the same time, you’re also assessing your hunger level. So you’ll start to notice again, that’s why I’m saying it’s a process because if you start to do this tomorrow, you might be like, I still ate the same amount, it’s going to be a process. Or you might say I still ate I still was too full. If that’s the case, it’s just because you’re not used to your signals yet. Because if you’ve been ignoring all of your internal signals for your whole life, it’s going to take a little bit of time to really get back in tuned with how it’s supposed to be. And oftentimes, this is something that, you know, the author is talking about the akin this whole thing to toddlers, like toddlers know, when they’re hungry, and when they’re not, in your father to you try to feed a toddler when they’re not hungry, what are they going to do? Right, and then when they’re full again, they’ll turn their face away. It’s like I’m done, I don’t want anymore. That’s how we are innately created. But as we get older, right, and as we’re exposed to the diet world, and this whole diet mentality, and all of that, we start to forget what our body’s actually telling us, we start to forget our signals. So that’s why taking the time to feel when you’re full. And then when you’re full, you stop eating, you don’t keep eating to the point where now you’re stuffed. That’s why there’s a scale of zero to 10. So you don’t want to get to a full 10 where it’s like, I’m so full, I have to unbutton my hands. You ate too much. You shouldn’t ever feel that way. If you do. That’s just because you’re eating too much. And you’re ignoring your your hunger signals, and your fullness signals.

Richard Conner 22:36

So So do you have any advice? Like feeling your fullness? And maybe you do eat too fast? Do you have any advice to trying to get ahead of that, like portion sizes, or just things to think about ahead of time, so you don’t overdo it? Right? Right out of the gate?

Eva Rodriguez 22:51

Yeah, the main thing that I advise to do for anyone who’s even just even trying to get a little bit more mindful with their eating, is start with half of what you would normally eat. So as you’re serving yourself, or if you’re if it’s takeout, or whatever, you know, eat half, eat half, and then pause for about 15 minutes yourself. So take a pause and see how you feel. And if after 15 minutes, you’re like, yeah, no, I’m still hungry. I’m so hungry, I can eat the rest of this, then continue, then continue and keep checking in with yourself. But I think that’s a, that’s a good way to just kind of start testing your cues on just like just start a little bit smaller, or serve yourself half of what you normally would or just even put a line through your plate. I’m just going to eat this first half right now. And then I’m going to take a break. Let’s see, I’m gonna see if I want the rest of it as you continue, because again, it just takes a little bit of time. But as your body starts to realize, oh, okay, he’s doing something different today. All right. All right. You know, like, our bodies are so smart. And I always say this to people, our bodies are so smart. Their job is to keep us alive. And to keep us functional. Your body wants you to be healthy, it wants to feel good. It wants to if you don’t want to feel stuffed, you don’t just like you don’t want to feel hungry, you just want to be satisfied. Start with that start with slowing down your eating. And also just like start with half of what you would normally do. And then come back and give yourself some time to just digest it. And then if in 15 minutes, you’re like, Yeah, I’m still hungry, I’m gonna eat the rest of this meal, then go for it. No judgment, no judgment, you give yourself grace, you’re listening to your body, your body says I’m still hungry. So you feed it until it’s not hungry anymore. All right. So number seven is cope with your emotions with kindness. And I love this because again, it’s especially if you’re a stress eater, or emotional eater, or whatever you are, whatever the case may be. But finding ways to comfort yourself and nurture yourself and distract yourself and resolve your issues without food is really, really important. And this is also on the opposite end as well. I know that there are people who like I think there’s a quote like don’t reward your son off with food, you’re not a dog or something like that. But it’s true because a lot of people will say like, Oh, when I, when I reached this milestone, whatever it is, I’m gonna buy myself, whatever, you know, and ice cream or whatever, right. And then they celebrate. A lot of times we celebrate things with food. And that’s okay sometimes. But just like it can be, it can go very, it can get to an extreme when you’re either doing it because you’re like, I’m celebrating this, I want to eat something and I want to attach my celebration to this food. It’s similar to what emotional and stress eaters do when you’re an emotional eater or a stress eater, or binge eater, you are eating to not feel something or because you’re feeling something so strongly that you don’t want to feel it anymore. So by eating, you’re numbing it, you know, by eating, you’re distracting yourself, right? So finding ways to cope with your emotions with kindness. And I also say I love to say with loving kindness, right, because we want to treat ourselves with loving kindness, but find ways to deal with your emotions. That was the biggest, one of the biggest things that I had to really, really come face to face with when I was healing. My emotional eating was I was just escaping all of these things. I didn’t want to feel it didn’t want to feel it, it was too, too much too painful, too deep, too intense. So it’s easier to eat Ben and Jerry’s than it is to sit down and journal on why this hurts so much, or journal on why my day at work sucks so bad, you know, or journal or process through these feelings. Yeah, right, it’s easier to just sit in front of a show that’s going to make you laugh and eat something that’s going to make you temporarily feel better. But after the fact, you’re not feeling so great. So learning to cope with your emotions with with kindness is number seven. Number eight, then is respect your body. So it’s really hard for us to reject the diet mentality if we’re unrealistic and overly critical of our body shape, or our size. And so I say this to everyone, all day, every day. All Bodies deserve Love, dignity and respect. I don’t care what you look like what size you are, I don’t care how healthy or unhealthy you are. You still deserve Love, dignity and respect. And your body does too. And one way to love yourself is by nourishing yourself properly. So that ties into this idea of, you know, when I tell people I eat what I want, when I want when I’m hungry, I eat when I’m not I don’t write, they’re like, Oh, the whole pizza and ice cream thing, right? I respect my body. And I love myself. I didn’t always but I do now. And because I respect my body. And I love myself, I would not eat pizza and ice cream every single day. Because that’s not healthy for me, right? Because I know that there’s not enough nutritional value in pizza and ice cream if there were four knows. Maybe eating right, but there’s not enough nutritional value in certain foods. And that’s why you don’t eat them every single day. And that’s why you don’t over indulge in those those types of foods. Not to say you can never have them. It’s just you have them in moderation. You have them when the time is right you have them if my body really really wants it, then I will listen to my body and give it ice cream. But when your body doesn’t want ice cream every single day you do. You might but your body doesn’t because, again, it’s how do you feel afterwards? That’s another big part of like doing Intuitive Eating is journaling is a big part of it as well. How do you feel after you eat certain foods, that’s how you start to determine, right again, listening to your body’s cues. That’s how you start to determine certain things and you’ll start to learn as much as I think I love this type of food. It’s not good for me, because I don’t feel good afterwards. Or because I feel you know, sleepy after I eat this thing, or I feel XYZ after I eat this thing. And again, we’re respecting our bodies. So when you’re respecting your body, you don’t want to feel bad. Once you learn that part. Once you learn that whole part of like, love, respect dignity of yourself and your body. You don’t want to put unhealthy trans fats, right, you don’t want to put excess sugar. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want to expose yourself to things like hypertension and diabetes because you love and respect your body.

Richard Conner 29:15

That’s great. I love that. I gotta hear the next view. And this is one of my favorites so far. And you know, I’ve gone through this personally, there are certain things that I stopped eating, probably initially because I just thought they were unhealthy. But over time, I started to realize also that they would impact me in a negative way. Like I wouldn’t feel good. So now, if that topic comes up about eating certain foods, I’m like, no, no, no, it’s not only about not being healthy, but it’s also the way I feel. So now I kind of know and understand you know why based on these principles, so thank you for sharing that.

Eva Rodriguez 29:49

Yeah, absolutely. So number nine is movement. So and this is you know, very fitting for your show doesn’t matter what you do, whether it’s running, walking dance, thing, just make it a point to move your body every day. And it’s important not just physically right, but it’s also what moving your body does mentally, it’s moving the energy and I will get to woowoo. Because I can be Whoo, I will get to we will. But it’s moving the stagnant energy out of your body is very, very important that and that’s why runners get that runner’s high, the endorphins, it’s this feeling this feeling of just like, oh, like I did it, I accomplished something. And what we want to do so we want to move the body, move the energy out of your body move anything that’s stagnant, if you’re feeling something, if you’re feeling uncertain, or if you you know, a lot of us will hold tension in our shoulders, or neck, some people hold tension in their, in their abdomen, right. So that even that causes digestive issues. Moving, you’re actually moving, your body will help to move a lot of that along, and help you kind of get getting that fresh, just fresh air, just new fresh air by moving your body and by being active. But also, by moving your body every day, you want to shift your focus to how it feels to move your body. Right. So again, we’re going into the feelings listening to our body listening to those cues, how does it feel when you move your body for example, you go run, you feel energized. Focus on that, that feeling because when you focus on the feeling that you get, you feel more energized, you feel more productive, you feel accomplished, whatever it is, this is what helps you on those days when you don’t want to. This is what helps you it’s similar. It’s a kind of like remember your why these are the things that these are the little tools, right that I always say you go to your toolbox, what makes you feel better, what’s going to make you feel good, you want to go for that feeling. So that when you don’t want to do it, when you don’t want to get out of bed, when you don’t want to go put your shoes on, right when you don’t want to do it. Remind yourself how you’re going to feel afterwards and why it’s worth doing it. And that’s the shift to there. The shift is move your body and focus on the feeling that you get when you move your body. Ideally, you’re feeling better, you’re going to feel better after you’ve done whatever it is you’ve run, you’ve walked whatever, right? You’re gonna feel way better after that than if you would have stayed home, in your bed watching Netflix or whatever, eating, focusing eating ice cream, while you watch Netflix, Ben and Jerry’s. And then number 10. Number 10. Kind of like sums a lot of it up in one but honor your health is number 10. Again, you want to make food choices that honor your health, and your tastebuds while making you feel good. So you’re honoring your health and your tastebuds while you feel good. I say this so much. It’s like a broken record for me. But like don’t do things that don’t make you feel good. Don’t I say this to my son, I say this to clients, I think it’s the friends, if it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. If it doesn’t taste good, don’t eat it. Oftentimes we do things or we try to force ourselves to do things that we just don’t want to there’s a difference between I don’t want to do it because it’s not enjoyable. And I don’t want to do it because I for another reason, it should make you feel good, right? It should make you feel intrinsically good. And remember that you don’t have to eat perfectly to be healthy, you’re not going to suddenly get this like nutrient deficiency or become unhealthy from just one snack, right? Or one meal or one day of eating poorly. You know, in quotes. We were talking about the cookies, you’re not gonna just all of a sudden become unhealthy because you had too many cookies yesterday. It’s a cumulative thing, right? So, so oftentimes, we’ll we’ll get stuck on this one thing that we did, where it’s like, no, it’s all cumulative, you had a bad day. That’s all right, that’s okay, you’re just gonna, all of a sudden, all of a sudden, all the progress that you’ve made for the past six months of your health journey doesn’t just fall apart, because you just had one bad day. So it’s what you consistently eat over time that matters. It’s progress, not perfection. And also, again, like we were saying a little bit ago, not forcing yourself to eat things that you truly don’t like, just because you think it’s healthy. I always encourage people to try new things and to use something that I call the crowding out method, which is kind of like you focus on you know, if you’re going to eat the vegetables and the protein and whatever, eat the vegetables first, like eat the things that are considered you know, the, the more nutrition the nutritious foods first, so that you can still eat other things later, but you may be just won’t over indulge if you’re not quite, you know, paying attention. And that’s, that’s what we call crowding out. But, you know, I encourage people to to try different things and to keep an open mind when it comes to their food choices. But if you just don’t like broccoli, don’t eat it. You know, it’s like people try to force themselves to fall into or to follow these really strict guidelines of like, you must eat this, you must not eat that you can’t do this, you know, and if that works for you, great and if that’s sustainable, and you can do that for the rest of your life, do it. More power to you, I will support you and I will applaud you. But if it doesn’t, don’t force yourself to do or II Eat or workout or do something that you are going to dread doing. Because when days get hard as states you that will make it that much easier to be like nah, not doing it. Nope, nope, not working out today because I hate that, you know? Or you know, I’m not gonna eat a salad. I hate salads, you know, it’s like, Do you really hate salads? Or maybe you haven’t had a good salad? Maybe you haven’t tried? You know different things? Or maybe just eat something

Richard Conner 35:24

else? Or maybe you don’t have the right running shoes.

Eva Rodriguez 35:27

Right. Exactly. Exactly. So So yeah, so honor your health. That’s number 10.

Richard Conner 35:34

Very cool. I learned so much from this, I mean, just even these 10 principles, and I wrote all of them down, and I’m reflecting on each one, as you’re talking about that this, this is really, really helpful. And I’m sure that our listeners are gonna get a lot out of this. Because like you said, I mean, there are some folks that need to follow a plan they just need to have and then there are others that following a plan is really hard. So I’m hoping that with these principles in what you’re sharing today, we can really kind of motivate and inspire people to really look into this. Absolutely. For our listeners who are like, I hear you, Eva, but it’s so hard to get started, like what would you say to that could help them?

Eva Rodriguez 36:16

I would say first start with sounds so cliche, right? Start with your why people say this all the time, but it’s so true. Start with your why’s Start With Why do you want XYZ, right? So if you’re interested in learning how to do intuitive eating, it sounds complicated. It can’t be you know, it can’t be a process. Why is it because you just don’t want to follow these strict rules anymore. And because it hasn’t worked for you. Great. That’s your why. So we’ll always remember that. And let’s always come back to that when the times get hard. When you don’t feel like journaling about how this food made you feel right. Or when you have a moment where it’s like I just over eight. And now I feel bad right now I’m feeling it in my body. When when those moments come along, we can always just go back to but I’m doing this because this and that’s why tomorrow, I will show up again, and I will show up for myself. And I will honor myself, I will honor my body, I will honor my health. So that’s number one, I would say start start there. The second thing would just be trying to become more mindful. It’s a process. Again, I highly encourage everyone to journal and I know people like scoff at it are like Oh, who has time for that journaling doesn’t have to be a big thing. It doesn’t have to be this big drawn out food journal like today, I ate this. And this is how I felt right? It doesn’t have to be any of those things. But just to become more aware, could literally just be keeping post it notes for a week of like, what you ate and how it felt right, you can start there, you can start really, really simple with journaling. And what I love about journaling is not just with intuitive eating, but just in general, when it comes to your mindset is once you get something on paper, or just out of your mind, you’re able to approach it much more logically and a lot less emotionally. Because when it’s in your head, all you’re doing is is recirculating it inside your head. And that’s where we go into the limiting beliefs and all of these stories and this merry go round of thoughts that we have. So putting whatever you’re feeling at any given moment on paper will help you process through a lot of things. Because Intuitive Eating is very much intrinsic. A lot of us have gotten used to extrinsic and getting external validation from the diet industry, from the outside world, from the fitness industry, all of that you’re getting your information from them what they tell you what they’re saying. Intuitive Eating is all about how you feel, and what your body is telling you. So in order to understand, you have to go within instead of without. So when you’re going with thin, oftentimes, some stuff will come up and it’s a little scary, you’ll start to notice patterns. And you’re like, Whoa, I didn’t know I did that. You know, you’ll start to see different things. And it’s and it’s that’s why it’s important to treat yourself with kindness and give yourself grace and take your time with it. Really, really take your time with it. Because once you start listening to your the cues that your body tells you, it’s not just with eating, it starts to manifest in other areas of your life as well. Once you really start to like, go within yourself of like, how am I really feeling is Am I really feeling angry? Or am I just like, you know, you start to really, you’re really starting to think through every other thing that impacts your life. And again, that’s where again, holistic health comes back around, and why it’s really, really important to approach our health holistically and not just strictly on nutrition strictly on your running plan strictly on any of these things. Everything impacts the other things, once you get your nutrition to where you want it to be once you become more intuitive, once you start listening to your body. Once you even when it comes to working out movement, listening to your body is just as important when you’re running. A lot of runners that I know overrun, they’re overtraining. They don’t know when to stop, right? Because it’s like, again, you’re ignoring those little signals. Again, your body’s saying things to you at every moment your body is always telling you you’re doing too much Ouch, you’re not doing enough, this doesn’t feel good. We just ate this. But guess what, now, my stomach hurts. Once you start to really pay attention to those things, it will transcend across your entire, like holistically across your whole life. So start there I would say start with with those few things of just like taking a moment becoming more mindful taking just mindful pauses when you’re eating, eat a little bit slower. Think about how the food tastes. Think about your other senses. How does it smell? How does it taste? You know what’s, you know, let’s look at the colors, right? Think about different things. And then that will kind of trigger your mind just again, to start looking at other other kinds of correlations. And it all like a mosaic very beautifully starts to come together. Just don’t give up on yourself. Don’t give up on yourself.

Richard Conner 40:50

I hope you enjoyed this conversation and learned about intuitive eating. If you’d like to learn more and follow Eva, you could follow her on Instagram at its Eva Rodriguez. And you can also find her online at Eva dot fit. I’ll put all this information in the show notes. Again, thanks for tuning in today and have a great day.

Intro/Outro 41:11

That’s it for this episode of inspired to run podcast. We hope you are inspired to take control of your health and fitness and take it to the next level. Be sure to click the subscribe button to join our community. And also please rate and review. Thanks for listening

Transcribed by https://otter.ai