Conscious nutrition: the basic principles. Should I sit on diets?

What is proper nutrition? Perhaps, it is impossible to give a concrete answer to this question, because everyone puts his own meaning in this phrase. Moreover, many factors determine the right diet (state of health, financial possibilities, religious beliefs, cultural traditions, etc.). And in some cases, only the attending physician is authorized to decide the questions of the diet. Thus, the term "conscious nutrition" will be more legitimate and relevant.

What does it mean?

Conscious food is an understanding of what, when and why you eat. The vast majority of people use food only to satisfy hunger (on the machine). At the same time, it does not matter what got into the body - a portion of rich broth or hot dog of questionable quality.

Another problem is the sudden change in diet. So, for example, a person randomly uses sweets, fatty foods, fast food, and at some point begins to observe a strict fast. Or, after reading an article in a fashion magazine, someone abruptly stops eating after 18:00. And in a few days everything returns to normal, it is impossible to fight the painful feeling of hunger.

In this connection, conscious nutrition is an objective necessity. A person should not mechanically limit himself to eating. He must understand what he is doing and why. So, for example, vegetarians for years do not eat meat and do not even feel the need for it. And why? Because they realize the purpose of their abandonment of animal food, and the restriction does not bring them discomfort. In all it is necessary to search for meaning. Even in the diet.

Why is this necessary?

Unfortunately, many people do not take food seriously. Nevertheless, conscious nutrition is a conscious life. Following this philosophy helps to awaken natural intuition, on the basis of which the amount of food necessary for the body is determined. Did you know that any products (even the most useful ones) release free radicals during processing, what causes intoxication of the body? To combat it, the body spends a huge amount of energy. Thus, the more we eat, the greater the need for subsequent meals. To this should be added a number of dangerous diseases that are the result of such intoxication.

Another reason for the transition to conscious nutrition is the opportunity to concentrate on quality. Surely, from the school family, many know that the size of the stomach is approximately equal to the human fist. It is this amount of food that will be enough to saturate at one meal (on the day there should be 5-7). Agree that this is not enough. This means that in this small amount should be present the maximum amount of useful natural products.

The main provisions of conscious nutrition

Ironically, many people eat purely mechanically, without giving this action any meaning. As a result, food loses its original meaning and begins to bring harm to the body instead of good. The basic principles of conscious nutrition are radically different from what an average person is accustomed to. The provisions of this concept can be formulated as follows:

• Eat only when you feel hungry. Three meals a day, to which we are accustomed from childhood, completely does not correspond to the needs of the body. Why overload your stomach with a hearty 3-course dinner, if you absolutely do not want to eat. But do not confuse physical hunger with emotional. If you have a bad mood, pick it up with anything, but not with food.
• Learn to hear your body. This will allow you to eat only those products that you really need. Depending on climate, health status, lifestyle and other factors, your body will require completely different foods (from light vegetable salads to hearty meat dishes).
• Enjoy the food and the process of consuming it. To do this, create the appropriate entourage in the form of beautiful dishes, napkins and other attributes.
• Concentrate on food. During the meal in your field of vision, there should be no computer, no TV, no books, no working papers. Even if you just decided to drink tea, completely immerse yourself in this process.
• Once a week, arrange a fasting day to give your digestive system a rest. If you are heavy with quantitative restrictions, just change the form of food. So, you can eat whole day only liquid foods.

Analysis of the existing diet

In order to become on the "right path", you need to understand the mistakes that have been made. If you are tuned to a conscious diet, try to keep a diary. Write down everything you ate during the day. In this there is nothing complicated, because you do not need to limit yourself to something yet. Simply, having learned to fix your actions, you make the first step to their awareness.

A few days later, you need to conduct a detailed analysis of the diary. You will notice that there is a certain set of products that forms the basis of your diet. And something in your records, obviously, seems superfluous. So, the next time you think about whether you need it. Such a diary will discipline you. You want your content to be perfect.

Imagine that a record of your diet will be read by someone outside each day. Surely you will be embarrassed if this "critic" sees in the diary something unseemly. Thus, you will constantly adjust your diet. You will think before you eat something superfluous, because it must enter into your "food memoirs."

Basics of Nutrition

A conscious diet is a conscious life. And this is not an exaggeration, because of what we eat, our state of health and appearance largely depends. There are a lot of books, Internet resources and other sources of information about proper nutrition. But are there many valuable information in them? You already know the most important thing. It remains only to repeat and fix:

1. Drink plenty of water. Various experts advise to use from one and a half to 3 liters of liquid. Everyone determines his own norm.
2. Divide the daily norm of the products into several receptions (5-7). This will allow the digestive system to work more productively, and the feeling of hunger will be less acute.
3. Discard products with a high degree of processing. Refining, grinding, cooking and other manipulations reduce the useful properties of food.
4. Focus on unsaturated fatty acids (omega-3 and omega-6), reducing the number of animal fats in the diet.
5. If you need a diet (for example, for medical reasons), form your diet so that a day the body received at least 1200 kcal.
6. Refuse to eat before going to bed and exercise. Different sources indicate different time intervals, but you must establish your own framework, given the speed of your metabolism.
7. Before dinner, you need to consume more carbohydrates to recharge. In the afternoon, the diet should be, mainly, protein.
8. Eat more raw vegetables. This is a real vitamin "bomb" and a good "brush" for the body.
9. Never starve, because it drains your life resources.
10. Refuse bad habits.

Popular methods of conscious nutrition

The program of conscious nutrition is made purely individual0 based on personal preferences and sensations. But there are several schemes and techniques that are widely used throughout the world. Here are some of them:

• Raw food and vegetarianism. Ethical motivation is decisive when switching to this type of food. A person clearly understands why he refuses animal food or heat treatment products. But over time people get into the taste. They begin to realize the pleasant taste of plant products, and also feel their beneficial effect on the body.
• Unloading days and starvation. This is a one-off measure, which is aimed at analyzing your eating habits. It helps to put in order thoughts, and also to hear your body. During a brief refusal of food, you can feel which products, tastes and flavors you lack, and which ones cause rejection in you.
• Detox means a complete cleansing of the body. Such measures are resorted to by people who realized that they had eaten wrong for a long time. Residents of regions with poor ecology resort to this measure. Usually, this method is realized in the form of a short-term mono-diet, which implies the use of one useful product. It can be yogurt, greens, muesli, and also vegetable or fruit juices.

Change not quantity, but quality

Is it worth it to sit on diets if the statistics indicate their inefficiency? You need to understand that the state of your health and figure, to a greater extent, depends on the quality of the food, rather than on its quantity. It's not as difficult as it might seem. It is enough to combine your nutrition diary with the knowledge of the basics of the right diet. This will allow you to make the necessary adjustments.

The difference between conscious nutrition and diet is that you clearly understand what and why you are doing. By simple experiments you will be able to create your own unique eating rules that will ensure that you feel well and have normal body weight. So, you understand that frequent meals are a way to overcome the intrusive feeling of hunger, and a piece of cake is a gastronomic pleasure and a dose of glycogen for the muscles.

Tactics of the "Conscious Piece"

Skills of conscious nutrition are developed in humans gradually. To speed up this process, it is recommended to use simple techniques. For example, the tactics of the "Conscious Piece" are as follows:

• Before you start eating, carefully inspect the contents of the plate. Try to study the shape, color, aroma and texture of each product.
• Before you take a piece in your mouth, take a deep breath of its fragrance. He should give you pleasure.
• When the food was in your mouth, put aside the cutlery. This will save you from unnecessary haste.
• Fully focus on chewing. You should feel all the flavors of the products. Also try to feel how they change their texture. If you can not concentrate, chew with your eyes closed.
• Swallow food can only be when you feel that its texture has become completely homogeneous.
• Before there is a next piece, take a pause of 2-30 seconds. During this time, you should feel a pleasant aftertaste and enjoy it.

Another important rule

A modern person simply needs to master such a skill as conscious nutrition. The rules will help you quickly reorient and get used to the new diet. One of them can be described as follows:

• Take your usual plate and fill it with food so that half of the bottom of the promise remains visible. This number of products should be eaten slowly, guided by the tactics of the "Conscious Piece".
• If this amount of food was not enough, you can refill your plate. But this time already 80% of the bottom of the dishes should remain free. This portion of products should also be eaten slowly and consciously.
• If this is not enough, it is permissible to fill the plate for the third time, as in the previous paragraph.

How to develop awareness?

In theory, everything looks simple enough and attractive. But in practice it turns out that it's not so easy to switch to a conscious diet. The book, written by the authors and followers of the methodology (Teak Nath Han, Liliana Chang), leads such recommendations:

• Combine eating with meditation. During the time you eat, all the surrounding stimuli no longer have to affect you. You must immerse yourself in a state in which you feel only your body and its reaction to certain products. So, you can understand how food affects your mood and physical state. Such experiments will help to form the right diet, which is right for you.
• Practice deep breathing. If you feel a strong hunger that makes you, literally, pounce on food, stop and take a few breaths. Only when you feel the inner balance, you can start eating. If you feel that you are starting to break away from the "conscious piece" system, start to breathe deeply again.

Intuitive nutrition: 10 principles

People over the years torture themselves with diets in vain attempts to lose weight. So it was with Dr. S. Houks, who for a long time suffered from fullness. And only intuitive food helped him not only to lose more than 20 kg, but also to consolidate the result. Its meaning is not to deny the body its needs (as in the case of diet), but to listen to your body, giving it everything you need. The essence of intuitive nutrition is revealed in 10 principles:

1. Do not sit on diets. This is not only useless, but also terribly harmful.
2. Respect the feeling of hunger. We need food as a source of vital energy. Restricting yourself, you will sooner or later tear yourself apart, causing irreparable harm to health. Accustom yourself to what you need only to satisfy hunger.
3. Discard the power control. A painful calorie count should remain in the past.
4. Do not fight with food. An awareness must come to you that a person can and should eat. If you refuse to yourself in gastronomic pleasures, you will certainly tear yourself away, which will lead to overeating with all the unpleasant consequences.
5. Learn to feel satiation. When eating, you should listen to your body. Periodically pause at a meal to feel comfortable.
6. Look for satisfaction in food. Take an example from Asians who, for the most part, have miniature figures. You should enjoy each piece. Then the quality will change the quantity.
7. Separate your feelings from eating. We are accustomed to seize the stress or celebrate the joyful events with something delicious. Try to concentrate on your feelings and their sources, not associating them with food.
8. Learn to respect your body. To begin with, accept the set that is given to you by nature. Only after you love your body in its original form, you will be able to find the strength for self-improvement.
9. Train for the pleasure. Focus on exactly those exercises that charge you with energy, rather than exhausting the body.
10. Take care of your health. Choose only those products that bring you benefits and gastronomic pleasure.

System Feedback

More and more people who are monitoring their health and figure are switching to a conscious diet. Feedback about this system is as follows:

• It turns out to lose weight, without imposing strict restrictions on food;
• The ability to enjoy food is developed, taste recipes develop;
• The work of the digestive system is greatly improved, since the habit of swallowing food is not lost without chewing;
• The feeling of heaviness is lost because of the overfilled stomach;
• Over time, a painful craving for food disappears;
• A sense of satiety quickly appears, and the feeling of hunger becomes less acute.

Conclusion

Conscious food is a real discovery for those who dream of a healthy and beautiful body. Following this concept, a person ceases to be a hostage to food. He gets the opportunity not only to control the process of nutrition, but also to receive from him genuine pleasure.