by Anna Ng
Spring is here! Planning to do a little spring-cleaning? Join Healthy Aggies in a mental reboot to spring clean your mind! No matter what you are trying to achieve, it all starts with your mind. Freshen your outlook on food and nutrition and check out these tips to help you spring into good health and wellness.
- Respect Your Body
Want to feel better about who you are? Respect your body and accept your genetic makeup and individual beauty. Replace negative thoughts and critical comments with positive body affirmations (e.g. I am strong and beautiful!) Avoid images from social media outlets that portray the “ideal” body image and set realistic expectations to be the ideal you!
- Honor Your Hunger and Fullness
Learn to listen to your body signals that tell you when you are hungry and comfortably full and nourish your body with adequate energy. Pause in the middle of a snack or meal and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level? This can help prevent reaching excessive hunger and/or overeating to support conscious eating.
- Make Peace with Food
Do you feel “good” for eating a bowl of salad or “bad” for eating a piece of chocolate cake? These unreasonable morals associated with food and nutrition can provoke guilt and other negative feelings. Permit yourself to eat the foods you enjoy. Telling yourself that you cannot or should not have a particular food can lead to feelings of deprivation that can build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing.
Most foods provide nutrition (some more than others) and there is no reason to deprive yourself from foods that you enjoy unless they are spoiled, rotten, or contain allergens that you are sensitive to.
- Honor Your Feelings
Discover ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Emotions, such as anxiety, loneliness, boredom and anger, can trigger eating and food may provide comfort but most likely will not solve your problems. Address the source of your emotion and clarify the current issue to find a resolution. Explore the counseling services on campus to help you cope with effectively at Student Health and Counseling Services.
- Exercise – Feel the Difference
Get active and focus to how physical activity feels rather than the calories you burn. Thinking more about how energized you feel after exercise can make a difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning bike ride or hitting the snooze alarm. Find a fun and enjoyable form of physical activity and feel the difference!
- Protect Your Health – Gentle Nutrition
Choose foods that nourish your body and satisfy your taste buds while making you feel your best! You don’t have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. Health and wellness does not come from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating; it comes from making consistent healthful and mindful choices over your lifetime. Progress not perfection is what matters.
Have questions about food and nutrition? Contact our nutrition expert Linda Adams via email (Linda.Adams@sodexo.com) or at the Nutrition Hotline (530.752.9604)!
These tips were adopted from the Ten Principles of Intuitive Eating.
Sources of information:
https://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/10-principles-intuitive-eating
Healthy Aggies at UC Davis 