Raise your hand if you're happy it's Friday. I have both hands up. Although, I must admit Friday is my 3rd favorite day. Saturday is my favorite because it's the main day of the weekend. Sunday is my 2nd because of church. But Friday is still something to get excited about. What is your favorite day of the week?

Something else to get excited about? Entering my giveaway for Amazing Grass. You have until my 2nd favorite day to get those entries in, so get to it! And check the end of this post for more great giveaways you can check out.

Oh, and one more thing. I thank you for all of your supportive comments on my recent Intuitive Eating post. 🙂 Some of you mentioned writing a book on it. Lucky for you, there already is an amazing book on it, where I get the principles and some of the other information I share. This is just my personal take on Intuitive Eating, why I think it is important, and things that have worked for me. Each of the principles and tips like "the 3 mindsets to adopt to battle the food police" are credited to the authors Resch & Tribole, like I mention in my posts. But thanks for thinking I could write a book! How awesome is that?! 😀

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So, Friday's are my newly scheduled yoga days. I am still loving yoga since it helps me to feel strong and also at peace. Kind of like how my next stop on my Flashback Friday trip through Europe left me feeling. 😉 After traveling to London and Paris, we hit up the Swiss Alps in a little town called Interlaken.

Upon arriving in Switzerland, we had to take about a 30 minute walk to the hostel. Not the easiest feat with a 40 lb pack on your back. But when we arrived here...

Our Hostel

...we realized it was all worth it. I mean how can you beat having a view like those mountains from a $15/night room? Even if the room comes with some whiny girls donning matching Burberry headbands and complaining about the lack of things to do.  Don't ask me what they were doing in the Swiss Alps. Hiking was obviously not on their agenda.

Hiking was definitely on our agenda, but we decided to wait on it to have a couple full days to explore. It was already afternoon when we arrived, so we headed into town to find some dinner and do some shopping. I just loved the little houses and all the lush greenery.

You can bet that one thing on our shopping list was some real Swiss Chocolate. It did not disappoint. And now I am sad to not have any pictures of it. Why couldn't my blogging days have started sooner? The smooth, creamy, rich, dark goodness deserved to be captured in photos. Thank you Newman's Own for giving me dark chocolate to satisfy the chocolate craving this post is giving me.

Various Chocolates

Although this was before my blogging days, I was still one to appreciate high quality fresh food. There was a ginormous co-op there that was open to the public. We took full advantage and stocked up on fruits, cheeses, yogurts, breads, gourmet salads, and some all natural granola bars. I was in foodie heaven. Apparently I am more foodie than I originally thought. I spent an entire PAGE of my journal talking about this store.

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The next couple of days revolved around hikes. We always started early to get in as much time as we could. Only problem with that is it would quickly warm up so we would wear shorts, and my jacket was a little big. Left some things open to the imagination of those Swiss men.

There were so many trails to explore. And we found our way to many beautiful sights. Here are just a couple pictures from a river we stopped by for some lunch.

Now, this part of the trip hands down had the most beautiful sights. Except for one. After getting back to the hostel from our last hike, I went to the restroom to discover a little visitor. A tick. Where? None other than UNDER MY PANTIES! It apparently decided to hop on during a previous potty break in the mountains. A girl's gotta pee, ya know!  So take note: guard your girly bits when squatting in the wilderness. Or buy one of these.

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Who knows how long it was there? But it was burrowed in and not coming up. I was thanking my lucky stars that my friend & I were roommates and have seen it all before, so there was no embarrassment asking for her help. We just laughed about it. Until we couldn't get it out and discovered the best way to remove that sucker was to burn. it. out. Yea. We had to bum a cigarette off the clerk and hold the tip up to my hooha to smoke that little bugger. In the end, we dominated it, but to this day that was the longest couple of minutes of my life. Crotches should not be on fire in that way, ever. Nevertheless, I can assure you I will never forget my hike through the Swiss Alps. They do say pain and beauty go hand in hand. 😉

• What was the craziest thing to happen to you on a trip?
• What is the best chocolate you have ever had?

**Other awesome giveaways: Janetha's, Sami's, and Lily's!

Click the following for the first parts of the Intuitive Eating series:

1. Introduction
2. Reject Diet Mentality
3. Honor Your Hunger
4. Make Peace with Food

That brings us to Principle #4 of Intuitive Eating - Challenging the Food Police.

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What is the food police? It is that inner voice that tells you you can't have certain foods, should be following particular dieting rules, and have to pay time in the prison of guilt for not eating the "right" thing. Almost all of us have a food police voice in our heads. It comes from all the information that we get over the years and adopt as law for how we eat. Starting at a young age you might have had rules in your house that you had to clean your plate or that certain foods were bad for you. Then in high school and college, you might read fitness magazines listing off all of these ways to get quick results for a flat stomach, including a 1200 calorie/day diet and a new lemon juice or cabbage detox. As you get older, you might research all the diet tips like limiting carbohydrates, having no fat in your diet, and that you simply MUST eat NO sugar.

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Have you ever realized that we often describe food in terms of morality? Foods are sinful, tempting, good, bad, evil, and the list goes on.

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Having some dessert or eating a hamburger is not going to cause us to shoot straight to hell! However, the inverse may be true. Labeling food good or bad could have us focusing so much on food and allowing it to have power over us is what will feel like hell. So why do we go there? Why do we suffer for eating? Something that is natural, a need, and should be pleasurable?

Intuitive Eating discusses some mindsets that we should adopt to help us challenge the food police. To stand them down. Let's take a look at them.

1. The Nutritional Ally - There are many people who will claim to have rejected the dieting mentality, but still use eating healthy as a way to diet and "be good". Without a doubt, nutrition is important. I am not denying that and neither do Resch & Tribole, but you aren't eating intuitively if you are making yourself follow rules on how you should eat.

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Without a doubt, foods like the above should be limited as much as possible. But not ever allowing yourself to have something you enjoy because it isn't the healthiest option out there is still living under the food police. Choosing healthy items with no other agenda (such as eating a big bowl of veggies because you enjoy them instead of because they are good for losing weight) is the key. You have to continue to honor your hunger and eat enough of the healthy items, but not be afraid to have a lower nutritional value item if you truly desire it.

Katie recently wrote a great post about the difference between mental and physical cravings. If you listen to your body you might think you are craving a cookie, because mentally it sounds good. But if you consider your physical cues, you realize an apple still sounds just as good, so you can choose the apple. That is still intuitive eating. Choosing the apple only because the cookie is "bad" is not. It's a fine line, like so many things in life, but one worth figuring out. Plus, by eating intuitively, you will figure out foods from across the spectrum that you enjoy and will naturally come to eat them in a balanced manner.

2. Be a food anthropologist, which simply means be observant of your eating habits.

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After you eat consider all the facts. Don't put judgments or labels. List out what you ate, like you would in a food journal but it is simply stating facts, not saying you did "good" or "bad". List out how you felt before, during, and afterwards. What led you to eat what you did? Did it truly satisfy? Was it emotionally or physically driven? Think about when you ate. Were you hungry because you had a small breakfast and therefore ate sooner than normal? And lastly, how you ate. Was it a free-for-all stuffing session because you were overly hungry? Was it a social experience where you savored every bite? Was it in a rush before leaving for work? Writing down all of the facts will help you consider what ways of eating and foods work best for you and your body, a key part to eating intuitively.

3. Be a food nurturer. This can be summed up in a nutshell. Consider your feelings and your emotions. You deserve respect. Allow yourself forgiveness if you ever feel guilty related to your eating habits. Take a look at the facts and then move on. Nurture yourself and build yourself up.

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Are you ready to take a stand against the food police? Unlike in the real world where challenging the police will get you a fast ticket behind bars, challenging the food police will set you free. Free yourself today.