Yes You Can Learn To Eat Intuitively

Intuitive eating… It’s not something we hear all that often in the diet world because it’s, not some fad diet or way of restricting, it’s more of a way to HEAL your relationship with food.   Intuitive eating is a way for you to stop dieting, stop crazy restrictions, rules, and guidelines for eating, and start paying attention to your body, what it needs, and your hunger signals.  By doing this, you will be able to take back control of your mental health, your physical health and get out of that world of constant restrictions!

Naomi Rotstein has been a friend of mine for some time now and it has been truly inspiring to see her grow before my eyes!  After years of always chasing something or trying some new diet or strict restrictions during and after fitness competitions she became exhausted with how she was feeling and literally hit a brick wall.  An injury made her stop everything that she was doing and really re-evaluate where she was in her life.  She has gone from a place of obsession to a place of peace when it comes to food and exercise!  And now she thrives on helping burnt-out fitness professionals grow, scale, and systemize their business.

Naomi always struggled with body image since high school and it’s a huge reason why she got into the fitness industry.  After school, she would go to the gym with her mom and she fell in love. She saw her body transform by incorporating strength training and spin classes and she just loved hanging out there.  It was something she did for years.  And while at these gyms, it’s there where she was introduced to the world of fitness competitions and it became something that she was just completely drawn to.

It wasn’t until an ex looked at her one morning and said he was no longer physically attracted to her because she had gained weight, and this is when she decided to sign up for her first fitness competition and entered the world of dieting and competing. From there, it was ups and downs in different diets and struggling with body image, and just constantly striving for perfection 24/7.

SIDE NOTE!!! → If you are in a relationship and someone says something to you about your weight, that is a red flag. RUN!  Because it’s not ok if they are judging your body and you’re not judging their body!!!

Competing was something Naomi had always wanted to do from years of being in gyms and seeing other women go through it and do programs like Cathy Savage, so it was there that she decided to join the competing world and join Cathy Savage. After starting, she dropped a lot of weight in a very short period of time.  If you’re like her and never really dabbled that much in strength training and never really played around with your diet at all, your body responds quickly versus someone who comes at this with a history of yo-yo dieting, and a history of over-exercising. 

This significant body change became the catalyst for her and started her on the slippery slope of over dieting and overexercising. If you lose a lot of weight and transform your body, there is always fear you go back to that place.  So, you begin to micromanage your food, your weight, and everything else in your life you can control. You are always going to feel like if you eat that piece of cake you are going to gain those 20 pounds back! 

That is when the chase for external validation continued.  To keep her “competition body” she would micromanage her food and workouts. She received so many compliments for her physique and loved the attention. 

And guys, we know Naomi isn’t the only person going through this!!! Hell, there are people listening now who are probably in the same boat as she was.  TOO MANY people are like this and we want that day of show physique ALL THE TIME and it’s just not sustainable. You may not be ready to hear this but when you chase the unsustainable you will be chasing for the rest of your life!

Naomi ignored the signs that she was burning out.  She ignored the exhaustion and not eating enough food. She ignored it until a Perforated Peptic Ulcer landed her in the hospital.  After this, there was that ah-hah wake-up moment that made her realize that she couldn’t continue to live her life like this.  At that moment she realized that it wasn’t worth it… what she was doing and how she was living her life wasn’t working for her anymore.  She didn’t hang out with friends, she didn’t date,  she was rigid with everything, and wasn’t truly living her life as a 26-year-old. She had no variety in her diet, no days off,  and she knew this needed to end. 

Like tons of us coaches and trainers, she thought she had an image to upkeep for her clients and men she went on dates with because she was a trainer!!  There was always this underlying pressure to look a certain way and do a certain thing as a trainer, and constantly told herself she couldn’t do or eat certain things.  For a lot of people, we have an identity we feel we have to upkeep.

BUT LISTEN!! Your job is the least important thing about you!  Just because you are a personal trainer doesn’t mean you don’t like cake or coloring or going to museums!  Being a trainer doesn’t define who we are.  And there are so many things about us that make us who we are!  You don’t always have to have a freaking 6 pack and you don’t have to be freaking perfect!  (and this goes for people who don’t love their job too.) 

We don’t want you to come to that breaking point of you being in the hospital, that was a sad outcome for Naomi, but we want you to have that ah-hah moment when you realize what you are doing is not working for you anymore.  What you are doing doesn’t work for you, it isn’t sustainable and it’s taking you away from actually living your life.  This isn’t going to be an overnight thing either though, because it wasn’t overnight for Naomi.   You have to do experiments to help you believe that if you didn’t go to the gym all day that you would be ok!  If you didn’t eat this, you would be ok! 

Once Naomi came to this realization that she would be okay, she started learning more about intuitive eating.  Now intuitive eating is exactly as it sounds.  Like I wrote before, it’s about actually listening to your body.  Throwing away all restrictions you have for yourself and giving yourself grace.  It’s called “Eating a cookie on a Wednesday.” and Naomi uses this as a way to allow her clients to let themselves LIVE A LITTLE during the week instead of saving that “cookie or wine” or the weekend when we tend to go off the rails.  It doesn’t happen overnight, but it takes work, trust, and giving your body permission. 

She teaches her clients to treat all days of the week the same.  Think of a food you “save” for the weekend, so whatever you are going to have on Saturday she wants you to have on WEDNESDAY!!  Your body doesn’t know the days of the week!  So, you are giving your body permission to eat these foods on days of the week that are not normal for you!  And the same rule applies to exercise as well. Remove one day or cut the workout down to spending less time on it.  Just because you only workout for 25 minutes doesn’t mean it is not good enough!!

Listen magic makers, when you eat the cookie on a Wednesday, you are building respect, you are building trust and you’re building permission with your body!!

Naomi and I really want to reiterate this too, do not try and change things all at once.

We are not suggesting overhaul your entire way of eating.  She is just suggesting you literally eat a cookie on a Wednesday, or whatever it is you SAVE for a weekend! (ice cream, wine, cookies, whatever it may be!)  Your body doesn’t know the days of the week, so it is NOT GOING TO KNOW if you had that cookie on Wednesday or Saturday!!

With intuitive eating,  listen to your body and honor where you are in your season of life or what your body needs right now at this moment.  And that is it. It’s what my body needs right now in this freaking moment. 

• Pay more attention to your times of the month and cycle synching and food.
• Pay attention to nutrition and exercise during those times of the month because your body will tell you things. (Naomi’s body craves warmer foods and smoothies during her period.)
• Get in tune with your body and how it’s feeling.
• What do I have to eat and how does it make me feel.

So where do you start on this intuitive eating process’

The most important thing for you to do if you want to really get in tune with your body and eat to fuel and feel better vs restricting is to work with someone. This is really hard to do it alone and without accountability or support, it can feel like too much. Get with women that are sick of diet cycles or find a coach or dietitian that is an intuitive eating dietitian!!

There are tons of resources online as well and on Instagram to find coaches who specialize in this!  One great resource is this book by Evelyn Tribole called Intuitive Eating (A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach).  Do your research and look for help!

Do you want to be in a place where you love yourself and your body!’

Are you willing and eager and want to put in work to gain a better relationship with your body and with food’ 

Do you want to stop obsessing over food and exercise and restrictions and rules and depriving yourself of things you truly love’

If you are in a place where you are constantly thinking about food 24/7 and always thinking about the next diet. I highly encourage you to look into this. Do a little google search on Intuitive eating and see how you feel when you read more about it!

This may be something that you have been searching for, but you just don’t know it yet!

What is 1 thing that makes you feel magical”

“Might be cliche, but my clients. The people I work with, the people I help whether it is personal training clients, coaching clients, and helping other trainers and coaches.  I love just learning about people and how they learn and how they learn best and helping them reach a goal and really understanding their why and trying to put out content and create things and products and anything I can to help those people.

To help my clients. They make me feel magical. I wake up every day and think of how I can help my people today. 

If I can help someone to love their bodies more or intuitively eat. That’s incredible. If I can help someone create an online business where they are making more money and creating more freedom in their schedule and avoiding burnout. That’s incredible. Like I want all of those things for people!!!”   – Naomi Rotstein

LINKS

Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/FabFitSquad

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/fitgirlmagic/

Website: https://kimbarnesjefferson.com/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fit-girl-magic-healthy-living-for-women-over-40/id1476883661

CBD oil  https://kimbarnesjefferson.lpages.co/cbd-page

Naomi’s Website: https://www.naomirotstein.com/

Naomi’s 90-day business Course: https://1fitfuture.mykajabi.com/1fitbiz

Naomi on IG: https://www.instagram.com/naomi.rotstein/

Naomi’s Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/1fitfoodie-podcast/id1458389270

book I was talking about https://amzn.to/3mpXUYB

the podcast https://kimbarnesjefferson.com/are-you-ready-to-break-up-with-overtraining/ ep. 74