With new diet schemes being introduced to the market constantly, there is a new approach to eating and losing weight that is quietly gaining a following. And, it seems that this approach has much less to do with lose weight diet fads and more to do with lasting principles. It is called intuitive eating. Eating spontaneously is all about getting in touch with the food and nutrition that your body truly needs.

Rather than setting up a "battlefield" of you against your body, which typically takes the form of hating how your body looks, counting calories, restricting food choices and basically punishing yourself day in and day out, the intuitive approach to eating encourages you to "leave the battlefield." This is accomplished by stopping, listening and paying attention to your inner voice.

Any person who has engaged in battling their weight over the years knows the frustration and confusion that fad diets cause. With conflicting advice and a constant stream of "the newest" or the "latest and greatest" diets, many people have become overwhelmed. The intuitive eating approach gives the "dieter" permission to tune out the clamor of these external factors and instead turn inside for the intuitive guidance needed for successful weight management.

The main premise of eating intuitively is acknowledging and accepting that we are highly intelligent "machines" with an innate ability to perceive what out bodies need for health and vitality. It follows then that we should know how to achieve proper weight, if we can learn to tap into this intuitive wisdom and knowledge. Since this approach is so fundamental, and so simple, some have even called it dieting for dummies.

Through an intuitive approach to eating, you are allowed to eat when, what and how much you deem appropriate. Instead of manipulating your meal plans according to a lose weight diet and judging everything in terms of calories, fat grams, grams of carbs and other such measurements, the idea is to listen to the internal cues and recognize just what the body wants and needs.

As a result, daily food choices are based on real hunger and real satiety, as determined by you rather than some external set of standards that may have no relation at all to the status and function of your body. Stepping back and looking at this approach, it is easy to see that a typical lose weight diet and even a diet detox can easily be working against the inherent, intelligent, natural programming of your body.

One of the foremost researchers in the field of intuitive eating is Steven Hawks of Brigham Young University. Hawks has concluded that the "normal" approach to dieting in America does not result in any significant weight loss in the long term. In addition he states that the typical lose weight diet strategies contributes to unhealthy eating habits, food anxiety, and can even encourage the development of eating disorders.

In a study that Hawks conducted, he found that people who learned intuitive eating methods had reduced triglyceride levels, lowered body mass index scores, improved levels of beneficial high density lipoproteins, and had a decreased risk of developing cardiovascular problems. Hawks summed up his findings by saying that they clearly support the idea that eating intuitively can be a very positive and healthy way to manage weight.

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