Your Guide To Intuitive Eating

“A gut feeling is actually every cell in your body making a decision.”

— Deepak Chopra

You’ve probably heard the expression “listen to your gut”. That’s because a primal connection exists between your gut and your brain called the gut-brain axis, and it is one of the most powerful relationships in your body. So powerful in fact, that the enteric nervous system (your gut) is often referred to as the body’s second brain. This extensive network in your gut is comprised of 100,000 billion brain-like neurons that impact more than just your gastrointestinal functions — it also affects your intuition.

While we all have this innate body wisdom found within us, there are thousands of environmental and nutritional toxins that hijack these messages to our brain, disrupting our normal feedback loop and making signals harder to read. For example, when your diet is overrun with processed foods, preservatives, and pesticides, the resulting gut imbalance disables healthy gut-to-brain signaling, causing a ripple effect of confusion and chaos that manifests as fluctuating moods, uncontrollable cravings, mental fog, anxiety, skin breakouts, and suppressed immunity. This is yet another assurance that food is information. We’re either feeding on information that can promote health and healing or cause imbalances and disease.

Food is information. We’re either feeding on information that can promote health and healing or cause imbalances and disease.

On the other end of the spectrum, a healthy gut is innately intelligent and intuitive. It’s your sacred inner voice that tells you how hungry you are, if you need a glass of water, more or less of certain nutrients, or a nap. When you’re eating a plant-rich, fiber-rich, wholesome daily diet made by nature, you’re cultivating a diverse and healthy gut microbiome which enables you to tune into your body’s natural intelligence and receive these messages crystal clear.

But trusting your intuition doesn’t come easily to everyone. Many of us, from a young age, were taught to look outside of ourselves for guidance in almost every area. Rather than listening to our body’s innate wisdom, we often look toward something a little more tangible, a little more evidential, a little more ‘proven’. While it is certainly beneficial to gain insight from experts, if you find yourself continuously doing what others say is ‘healthy’, or what society deems ‘successful,’ you will likely have a harder time following, and finding, your inner truth.

There are two steps to following your intuition: taking the time to hear what your inner voice (which resides in the gut, not the mind) has to say, and then trusting it enough to heed its advice. When we pause and truly ask ourselves a question with an unbiased perspective, our bodies respond clearly – and with our best interest in mind. Your intuition wants what is best for you and it knows how to bring you there.

Your intuition wants what is best for you and it knows how to bring you there.

You are always the best judge of what feels right, and what doesn't. Only you know your body best. Tuning in to you body's innate wisdom and trusting what it’s telling you is the gateway to your most vibrant health. So instead of giving your power away to the next diet trend, quiet the outside noise so that you can tune in to that deeper inner voice. Ask your body what IT wants to eat, ask how it wants to be nourished. You might be surprised with the response — and the result.

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