Ever since Thursday night at the food festival, intuitive eating has been on my mind and I realized it has been awhile since my last post in the Intuitive Eating series. So I figured this is perfect timing to get things rolling again. If you missed any previous Intuitive Eating posts, or if you are new to my site, click the links below to catch up.

Intuitive Eating - Introduction

Intuitive Eating - Reject Diet Mentality

Intuitive Eating - Honor Your Hunger

Intuitive Eating – Make Peace with Food

Intuitive Eating – Fight the Food Police

Intuitive Eating – Feeling Your Hunger

Today’s topic is Discovering your Satisfaction Factor. When are you satisfied with a meal? How can you take steps to ensure you will be satisfied after a meal?

How often do we overlook the pleasure of eating? For some every experience is enjoyable, but for many we encounter food situations that can stress us or leave us overanalyzing things too much. Tribole & Resch, the authors of Intuitive Eating, state that almost every eating experience should be satisfying and enjoyable. Why? Delighting in your dining can help you naturally achieve a balance for your body’s personal needs and bring a more positive relationship to the foods you eat. Some signs you are not yet in tune with your satisfaction factor can be found in situations like the following:

• You eat something because you “should” only to end the meal unsatisfied and eat what you really wanted on top of what you already ate.
• Meal times are battlegrounds where you tell yourself you “can’t” have something. You deny any cravings (or even the chance to take a closer look at what you are craving to find another satisfying substitute) because you must eat what was planned or “safe”.
• You may list excuses for why you don’t “deserve” to eat a certain food. It may be in the form of not working out enough that day, it not being a special occasion/the weekend, or you already had one treat this week.

I certainly noticed some of those qualities in myself in past years. As I discussed Friday morning, characteristics like these jumped out to me while I was reading my travel journal. I have been there. Eating was stressful for me. It was something I had to do in order to have energy for workouts and that was the only thing that mattered about it. That whole mindset of we should “view food as fuel” can be a bad thing in my mind. Certainly we need to make choices we enjoy that will adequately fuel our bodies, but there is more pleasure to food and eating than filling up our cars with gas.

We can’t ignore the pleasure a delicious meal (healthy meals included) can bring. After all, who wants to go through life unhappy with a regular daily activity? That would drain the energy and joy right out of me. And it did for years.

Now that we have discussed ways to recognize faltering satisfaction in meals and the importance of turning it around, let’s look at three ways we can become more satisfied and revel in our eating.

1. When you prepare a meal, think about what you really want. Eat it. Don’t have a veggie + chicken wrap for lunch just because it’s your lunch that you eat every day. If you come to a day where you are craving some pasta instead, that’s okay. Wouldn’t you rather eat the pasta than force the chicken + veggies and end up raiding your cabinets for the carb fix you were craving earlier?
2. Focus on the food. When eating, don’t worry yourself with thoughts similar to “I’ll need to run longer tomorrow to make up for this” or “I’ll need to have a big hunk of chicken for dinner since there isn’t much protein in this meal”. Pay attention to the tastes, textures, and aromas of the food you are experiencing. Savor each bite.
3. Check-in with your satisfaction. While taking the time to savor each bite, consider how much you are enjoying the food. Does it taste as good as you expected? Is it as delicious as the first bite? If something isn’t bringing you the same satisfaction as you anticipated, don’t force it. Opt for another item on your plate you really want or pick something else to eat if possible.

Discovering your satisfaction factor basically all boils down to one concept. If you don’t love it, don’t eat it….and if you love it, savor it. Eat with joy. Choose foods you love. Take pleasure in the moment. End satisfied.

• What ways does food satisfy you or stress you?
• What do you think of the statement “food is fuel”?
• What do you think is the most difficult part of recognizing satisfaction with eating?

I hope you all are having wonderful weekends. I will be back tomorrow with a weekend recap. It's been a good one so far. 🙂

Something about yoga, rainy days, and finding caramel Oikos Greek yogurt on your grocery trip can make a day relaxing. That’s about all I have to say about my day so far, so I’ll focus on last night.

As you may remember, last night Peter & I hit up the annual food festival in a local town. We basically spent three hours straight eating. At least that’s what it felt like. I’m in no way complaining. It was a wonderful time. Veggies may have been lacking and there could have been more variety in the choices, but trying out delicious food from restaurants we haven’t been to before and on the cheap makes it all worthwhile. Let me share my food rendezvous with all of you.

We got to The Avenue, which is a quaint shopping area where the festival was held, at around 6:30. We parked and made the long trek to the entrance where we were greeted with large crowds.

We bought our sheet of tickets for $10 that fed the both of us (as well as miss M) for the night.

That’s right $10 for 2 people for the food you are about to witness. I’m glad it wasn’t much more than that. While all of the food we tried was delicious, they didn’t have much variety. There were about 20 food stands and the majority of them were either BBQ, Hibachi, Mexican, sandwiches, or a dessert. We decided to pretty much hit up one of each of those places.

The first place we came across was for a cafe called Nature’s Table that just opened in our area. I didn’t realize it is part of a franchise in Florida. I liked the information I received about it and I may have to visit there one day. Peter & I sampled a mini chicken salad wrap from their stand.

After that we made our way around some of the other stands. We eyed a cupcake we knew we would be coming back for later in the evening and found a balloon for Makenzie. She loves balloons and this helped keep her entertained through the night.

Then, we stood in line for awhile so I could get some sushi and Peter could get a hibachi sample plate. I was really drooling over the rainbow and tuna rolls they were featuring, but since the whole raw fish thing is a no-no for me right now I settled for a California Roll. It’s no high quality sashimi, but it satisfied.

To let that food settle for a bit, we meandered the festival a bit more. I checked out some artwork and Makenzie grooved to the live band that played some top notch tunes. You play some classic Bon Jovi without murdering it and you win my heart. That’s all there is to it.

Now that our tummies were ready for more food tasting, we hit up our last stop for our main course type dining. We opted for some BBQ to get a pulled pork taco with spicy slaw.

The cabbage from the slaw was my veggie for the evening. Sad, but true. Apparently broccoli and sweet potatoes aren’t big hits at food festivals. That’s what green monsters are for the day after. All about balance, right?

It was now time for the second stomachs to open. You do know the dessert stomach is a separate entity, right? It is for us. We picked up a cupcake and a gelato cone. The cupcake was a basic vanilla with buttercream frosting. The cake was moist and delicious.The icing was dense and creamy and even had sparkles!

We hit up the gelato line at the end of the night. The line was long and we worried we were going to miss out. We kept ourselves occupied with lots of pictures.

Finally we got our taste of the good stuff. Ice cream always makes me smile. This…it made me grin from ear to ear. I chose the lemon sample cone. Makenzie got a sample of vanilla as well. It’s amazing how much bigger things look in kid’s hands. I promise it was not some huge waffle cone.

The small cone was the perfect topping to the night. I left a little more full than I normally end meals, but not stuffed and happy with everything I tried. I would say it was a successful night. I look forward to going again next year to either this one or another local event that is very similar but with different restaurants.

I did notice something during our food tasting extravaganza. When tasting the foods, I would really take time to savor them and I ate slowly throughout the night. I was able to be more in tune with my hunger this way and fully enjoy the experience. I also tried everything that really appealed to me. I didn’t have guilt for choosing some fattier items (hello? pulled pork, cupcakes, and icecream??) and I didn’t just eat things because they were there. It just goes to show you can make progress in intuitive eating and honoring your body and your tastebuds. It takes time, but it is possible.

• When is the last time you had an “aha” moment from a dining experience and a way your eating habits have changed?
• What is your favorite flavor of icecream? Mine is normally choc chip cookie dough. I had never had lemon before but it was AWESOME!
• What are your weekend plans? We’re hanging out with friends tonight and tomorrow night.