Avocado Toast and Intuitive Eating

By Unite Fitness Retreat Nutritionist, Brooke Bouwhuis, RDN

Breakfast – a toasted slice of whole grain bread smeared with smashed creamy avocado….Ummmmm

Or maybe….

Tomorrows breakfast upgraded – A crisply toasted slice of sprouted Ezekiel bread smeared with smashed perfectly fresh creamy avocado topped with a fried egg (yes, the yolk too!), bite sized snips of sundried tomatoes, leaves of fragrant fresh basil drizzled with balsamic vinegar. Game on, yes please!

How on earth can drooling over avocado toast make any sense on a wellness blog?

Plenty when applying the principals of Intuitive Eating.

Intuitive Eating is learning how to trust yourself – instincts, feelings and emotion, rational thought- in making food choices that satisfy.  Choices made even while be inundated with billions of options both natural and heavily processed every day.

Some may say Intuitive Eating is eating as much as you want anytime you want. That simplification is a bit warped. Intuitive Eating is more in line with channeling your inner toddler.  Picture any toddler that has ever been in your life. Is it possible to get them to eat one more bite to clean their plate?  Toddlers eat when they are hungry, and they stop when they are full. If given a stack of Oreos and they are hungry, they will eat them. If given a baggie of grapes and cheese cubes and they are hungry, they will eat those too.  A toddler can’t control what is handed to them by a grown-up. If given healthy choices, they will eat healthy food until they are full and then they will stop. If given heavily processed junk, they will eat that until they are full and then they will stop.

Adulting and Intuitive Eating is a bit more complex than choosing heavily processed junk food over healthy options. As adults we are bombarded by the convenience, accessibility and availability of super tasty treats, snacks and junk food that find themselves around ever corner of our lives. Intuitive Eating bridges the gap between eating whatever one might feel like eating / body acceptance movement and the wellness community. Enjoying forbidden foods and still eat healthfully? It is possible.  At the core of dieting is deprivation, rebellion and gaining more weight back after the diet is over. The core of Intuitive Eating is trusting your body and its signals, seeing satisfaction in eating, engaging in physical activity done for the sake of feeling good and rejecting the dieting mentality.

Avocado toast is no longer a forbidden food. Learning more about the Intuitive Eating process will eliminate it from being a food that is craved sinfully and is no longer tied to binging or feelings of guilt.  Avocado toast will simply become a delicious, satisfying meal with no strings attached.  Each new blog post for the next little bit will bring steps of clarity regarding implementing the practices of Intuitive Eating into your life. It isn’t rocket science, but it is complex as engrained thoughts and behaviors and undone bit by bit.