Yes you. When you’ve spent a lifetime giving your power away to scales, diets and nutritional facts, it sounds impossible that you can become your own best nutritionist now or anytime in the future. But if there’s one thing this work has taught me, it’s that lasting freedom comes from that journey back to yourself. No amount of nutritional science knows your heart, your life or food preferences. Nobody knows you like you, yet we think we’re not equipped to make our own food choices.
This journey back to eating intuitively is daunting at first. To live a life without rules or control seems impossible to most. Clients normally react (just like I did years ago) that by ALLOWING yourself the foods you really want, you won’t be able to stop eating ‘the bad stuff’ plus you’ll gain even more weight! This way of thinking is totally understandable when your ability to CHOOSE your own foods has been taken from you.
Yet we understand this sense of choice on so many levels. When it comes to holiday destinations, one person prefers Europe and another Asia. When it comes to careers, one person prefers working with people and another working solo. With most things we have personal choices, so how is choosing your food different?
Years ago I spent a month in Italy for work. Before leaving I told everyone that I was going to eat gelato every day! In my world there was never enough gelato, plus where better than Italy to indulge in the real thing, right? And so I did. The first day I walked miles to find the best gelateria, it was pistachio gelato which I’ll never forget. The second day I walked that long distance again to try another flavour. The third day I realised I don’t feel like walking the long distance, so settled for a little espresso nearby instead. And so it went on. Every day I told myself I can have gelato. And most days I didn’t. All because it wasn’t forbidden, and I could have it anytime I want.
I’ve had clients who consumed french toast for breakfast the first couple of days into this journey of discovery. Others who finally allowed themselves danish pastry because it was a childhood treat of love. The only “rule” about eating what you want, is that it’s not stuffed down your face whilst driving, or eaten in secret because you think it’s not allowed. It takes guts to do this when your whole (fat) life is consumed with this façade of only eating healthy foods from whatever diet regime you’re currently following (low-carb, vegetarian, vegan, paleo, weight watchers, etc).
When you rediscover this sense of internal power it is so worthwhile! We are born as natural intuitive eaters, but lose it through all these rules and restrictions around food. We learn to finish the plate of “whatever is allowed” because our freedom of food choice has been taken away. We don’t honour our own hunger, or respect our fullness, because it’s only about what’s allowed and what not.
It comes down to TRUSTING that your body knows best. Weight loss is a form of healing, and your body knows how to heal provided your rigid judgmental self gets out of the way. How? You build this self-trust one meal at a time. You allow your own food choices which in turn allows your body to find its healthier happy weight.
Allowing is the ultimate surrender to universal flow. You stop trying. You start allowing. There is ultimate freedom in that.
Gerda believes it’s time for a fresh take on eating disorders. That it’s not only underlying emotional/psychological problems that’s to blame, but also dieting, restrictive food choices and the overconsumption of highly stimulating foods. Gerda teaches brain based reasons and survival body mechanisms to heal binge eating, overeating and bulimic disorder. She offers new perspectives on how to be free from unwanted habits by understanding how the body-mind-soul connection works to facilitate change. Using spirituality, psychology and brain science, Gerda loves teaching women how to have FREEDOM in food and life choices, so they can finally be HAPPY and THIN at the same time.