Nutrition with Anna LLC

11/24/2023

We've made it to the last principle! Intuitive Eating Principle 10: Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition.

This principle is about understanding that the big picture is more important than the details. We tend to get bogged down in the individual food choices that we make (which cereal is healthiest? what protein powder is recommended? what are the "superfoods"?) instead of considering whether or not our diet is ADEQUATE, BALANCED, and has VARIETY. Those factors are much more important!

Part of gentle nutrition is taking feedback from our bodies and applying it when making food choices. For example, we might notice that we feel better during morning workouts when we've eaten a hearty snack the night before. Or looking for signs that indicate that your fueling isn't adequate (like frequent injuries, amenorrhea, fatigue, or trouble sleeping).

Another part of gentle nutrition is applying evidence-based sports nutrition principles. For example, drinking enough fluids, pre- and post-workout nutrition, and balanced meals. These evidence-based principles should be thought of as guidelines, not rules.

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11/08/2023

11/05/2023

Intuitive Eating Principle 8: Respect Your Body

This principle is all about respecting your "here and now" body. It's about ending the comparison game. It's about letting go of the idea that you can force your body to look like another person's by eating like they do or exercising like they do (for example, following fitness influencers...).

Keep in mind - you don't have to LOVE your body to RESPECT it. Respecting your body means treating it with dignity. It means giving your body the nutrition, rest, and comfort that it needs.

What can you do to show your body respect?
👉 Dress comfortably! Wear clothes that fit your body (not clothes that you are trying to squeeze into from 10 years ago). Clothes is supposed to fit your body, not the other way around.
👉 Stop weighing yourself. I've said this before and I'll say it again - the number on the scale says nothing about your health & wellness.
👉 Stop comparing your body to others.
👉 Don't try to shrink your body for big events! You may have heard about Kim Kardashian's 16 lb weight loss to fit into Marilyn Monroe's dress (insert eye roll here). Yo-yo dieting is bad for your health! And is simply not a way to respect your body.
👉 Speak kindly about your body. There's no need to join in on body bashing. Respect what your body does for you.

Follow along as we continue through the principles of Intuitive Eating!

11/01/2023

Intuitive Eating Principle 7: Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

This principle is all about finding kind ways to deal with the various emotions we experience in life - disappointment, boredom, anxiety, loneliness, excitement, anger, etc. We're told that emotional eating is something to be ashamed of, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. If you remember from the second principle (honor your hunger), emotional eating is one of the types of hunger.

Food is fuel, yes. But food is more than fuel - it has emotional associations. It's OK to let food bring you joy or comfort. But if you immediately experience a rush of guilt for eating for emotional reasons, the positive emotional associations are wiped away.

There's a continuum of emotional eating. Let's walk through this continuum:
👉 Sensory gratification is on one end of the spectrum. It's eating foods that bring pleasure and satisfaction. For example, enjoying a slice of your favorite cake on your birthday.
👉 Comfort is next on the spectrum. Eating comfort foods is part of having a healthy relationship with food. For example, drinking hot chocolate after a cold winter run or eating chicken noodle soup when you're feeling sick. Food shouldn't be your only comfort - but it can be one!
👉 Distraction is next on the spectrum. Sometimes we eat to distract ourselves from uncomfortable feelings. Like mindlessly eating chips when you're feeling anxious about an upcoming presentation.
👉 Sedation is second from the right on the continuum. This is eating for the purpose of numbing yourself. It involves a feeling of being out of control and zoned out.
👉 Punishment is last on the continuum. This severe form of emotional eating involves eating large amounts of food to invite feelings of self-loathing.

If your emotional eating falls on the intense side of the continuum, it's important to come up with other tools for coping with your emotions and seeking counseling if necessary. Identify other ways to nuture yourself - such as taking a bath, talking with a friend, doing yoga, meditating, or listening to music.

Follow along as we continue through the principles of Intuitive Eating!

10/24/2023

Intuitive Eating Principle 6: Feel Your Fullness

This principle is all about eating to a point of comfortable fullness. Why does this matter? Because if you aren't eating enough to feel full, you are likely falling short of your energy needs. And if you are eating past the point of comfortable fullness often, it's worth trying to figure out WHY that is happening.

Sometimes athletes overeat at meals later in the day because they don't eat enough early in the day. This has nothing to do with poor self-control or willpower - it is your body's way of trying to catch up on energy that is needed.

Being uncomfortably full puts you in a physical condition that makes it difficult to put in good quality training sessions. Therefore, it's important for athletes to not let themselves get TOO hungry or TOO full for the most part.

However, you haven't "failed" if you eat past comfortable fullness. It happens sometimes for various reasons...such as missing an opportunity to eat and becoming overly hungry or really enjoying your food and choosing to eat past fullness.

Here are some helpful tips for tuning in with your fullness:
👉 Pause during meals and snacks to check in with your body
👉 Free yourself from pressure to "clean your plate"
👉 Limit distractions during meals
👉 When you have determined you are full, DO something to reinforce that decision (i.e. put napkin on top of plate, clear your plate, put away leftovers, etc.)
👉 Get comfortable saying "no thank you" to food pushers

Follow along as we continue through the principles of Intuitive Eating!

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10/16/2023

Intuitive Eating Principle 5: Discover the Satisfaction Factor

This principle is all about eating foods the "hit the spot". Choose foods that sound good to you and build a balanced meal or snack around those foods. Food is not just fuel - it's also supposed to be an enjoyable part of life. While athletes should consider how the food they eat may impact their training, they also need to acknowledge how the food they eat contributes to overall health - mental, emotional, and physical. You deserve to be satisfied, not just "fueled".

Eating in an enjoyable environment can help increase satisfaction. This can mean eating at the table with your family, using dishes that you love, removing distractions from your eating environment, or even lighting candles for a romantic dinner.

Why does satisfaction matter for athletes?
👉 Since satisfying meals contain multiple components and macronutrients, they better support training and recovery
👉 When we create satisfying meals, we're more likely to meet our energy needs
👉 Variety is necessary for satisfaction, and it's also necessary for preventing nutrient deficiencies - which can lead to fatigue, injury, and illness
👉 Eating satisfying meals frees up mental energy to focus on other tasks (like training) rather than thinking about food all day long

Follow along as we continue through the principles of Intuitive Eating!

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10/04/2023

Intuitive Eating Principle 4: Challenge the Food Police

This principle is all about shutting down the thoughts in your head that tell you that you are "good" or "bad" depending on what or how much you ate. The food police gets its information from diet culture, and the rules and regulations that it tries to inforce are unreasonable, not backed by science, and often unhealthy. When the food police is loud, it is nearly impossible to eat intuitively. You aren't able to give your body what it really needs when you are experiencing all these judgmental thoughts.

Here's a few things that will help you to challenge the food police:
👉 Challenge the thoughts in your head that tell you whether something is "good" or "bad"
👉 Ignore diet messages on food labels & in advertising
👉 Discontinue subscriptions to magazines that promote black & white thinking
👉 Unfollow social media accounts that promote diet culture
👉 Say "no thanks" to people offering unsolicited nutrition advice

Why does challenging the food police matter for athletes?
🌟 Less energy spent worrying about whether the latest diet is one that you should try (intermittent fasting, gluten free, keto, etc.)
🌟 No more underfueling, which decreases performance, increases risk of injury, sickness, and amenorrhea, and lowers energy levels
🌟 No more overanalyzing each and every food choice that you make, or feeling the need to punish yourself by restricting food later or overexercising
🌟 You can give your body what it needs (sugar for fueling exercise, for example) without guilt or shame...leading to well fueled workouts & performances

Follow along as we continue through the principles of Intuitive Eating!

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09/24/2023

Celebrating with my client! 🙌

I love to hear about my clients' wins. This client is a long distance runner who had bonked in all of her most recent races. She wanted to know what she might be doing wrong.

I learned in our initial conversations that she had been avoiding simple carbs and sugary foods. She was trying to focus on higher protein foods instead. She was fueling with scrambled eggs or Greek yogurt before morning runs and races, and wasn't doing any intra-run fueling since it seemed that all of her options were full of sugar.

We discussed that all foods have a time & a place in a healthy diet. Higher protein foods are great to include in meals and in a recovery snack. But carbohydrates (especially simple carbs/sugars) are exactly what she needs before and during a long run/race. These foods will provide her body with energy to use throughout her workout or race. The idea that the healthiest food option in some situations isn't always the most nutritious food option was a new concept to her! Foods don't need to be labeled "good" or "bad" because it simply isn't that black and white.

When she replaced scrambled eggs with a bagel before long runs and brought fruit snacks and Nuun endurance with her for during the run - she began feeling stronger through the end of runs. And she set a new half marathon PR!

Can you relate? We can come up with a plan for fueling YOUR performance and incorporating all foods. Click the link in my bio and select "Let's Work Together" to fill out an application to work with me.

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09/22/2023

Intuitive Eating Principle 3: Make Peace with Food

This principle is all about giving yourself unconditional permission to eat ALL foods! What?!?! Are you thinking that can't be healthy? Or that you'll never stop eating ice cream? Read on.

Research shows that depriving yourself of foods you enjoy or foods that you label as "unhealthy" will only make you crave them more. Your desire is heightened, and will often result in constant thoughts about forbidden foods, binge eating episodes, and disordered eating.

It probably seems scary to allow yourself access to all foods. Maybe you never keep candy or chips in the house because you think you'll eat it all. However, when you repeatedly expose yourself to these foods, they lose their appeal. This is called habituation. You may overeat chips at first, but then you will realize that your body feels better when you eat more balanced snacks. The chips will always be there - you can eat them when you wish. Your body won't crave these foods constantly - but instead enjoy eating a variety of foods, both nutrient dense foods and fun foods.

Here's a few things that will help you to make peace with food:
👉 Stop labeling foods as "good" or "bad"
👉 Identify the foods that you consider "forbidden" and challenge yourself to incorporate those foods back into your life
👉 Unfollow social media accounts that tell you to "eat this, not that"

Why does making peace with food matter for athletes?
🌟 Less binge eating (which gets in the way of quality workouts)
🌟 Increased ability to focus because obsessive thoughts about food decrease
🌟 Increased enjoyment on vacations, at parties, and when dining out
🌟 Easier to meet your high energy needs due to less restriction!

Follow along as we continue through the principles of Intuitive Eating!
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09/21/2023

Outside of physical hunger, there are other types of hunger that are just as valid!

Swipe right to read through examples of practical, emotional, and taste hunger.

It's important to not turn intuitive eating into the hunger/fullness diet. If we refuse to eat unless we feel our stomachs growling, we are simply applying another "rule" to eating. Learning to recognize ALL types of hunger is key to building a healthy relationship with food.

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09/19/2023

Intuitive Eating Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger

Say hello to listening to your body! You were born with the intuition to know when you need to eat. But rules about when and how much to eat creep in - and we often listen to these external rules rather than our internal cues. Honoring your hunger means trusting these internal cues. When your body is asking for energy, it's important to respond. As an athlete, do you really want to deny your body energy when it is needed? That energy can be put to good use - fueling your activity, repairing muscle, replenishing muscle glycogen stores, fueling your brain, strengthening your immune system, and healing injuries!

It's important to note that there are a few different types of hunger - & all are important!
🌟 Physical hunger is when your body needs food for energy! Athletes need to trust their bodies when those hunger cues are present (gnawing or growling stomach, loss of focus, headache, fatigue, lightheadedness, irritability, etc.). This is true even if you feel like you are eating more than those around you, or that you just ate and "shouldn't be hungry". Your body knows best.
🌟 Practical hunger is when you need to plan ahead. This means eating a pre-workout snack even if you don't feel that hungry because you know your body will need the energy during your workout. Or, eating a recovery snack post long run, even though it doesn't sound appealing because you know it is needed for full recovery. This type of hunger is really important for athletes, who need to think about what their bodies need and time their intake appropriately.
🌟 Taste hunger is eating a food because it sounds good or it's a special occasion, even if you don't physically feel hunger. This would include enjoying a slice of birthday cake for your friend's birthday even if you aren't feeling hunger cues. Honoring taste hunger is part of having a healthy relationship with food.
🌟 Emotional hunger is eating comfort foods when experiencing uncomfortable emotions. While food shouldn't be the only way to cope with emotions, it is OK to eat emotionally. This will be discussed further in Intuitive Eating principle 7.

**Continued in the comments**

09/12/2023

Celebrating with my client! 🙌

I love to hear about my clients' wins. This particular client is a collegiate athlete. She came to me looking for solutions for a number of problems - poor sleep, exhaustion, lack of mental energy/focus, and poor running performance.

In our first session, she told me she'd been using a food/calorie tracking app to log her meals & snacks for over a year. She told me that she liked it because it ensured she was "eating good" and "not overdoing it". I challenged her to stop tracking her foods and instead eat a meal or snack every few hours, choosing how much to eat based on her hunger levels. She doubted she could stop and felt that if she managed to, she would eat way too much.

Finally, during our fourth session, she shared that she had stopped tracking her foods and was trying her best to eat according to her hunger/fullness cues. After a few weeks of doing this, she had two realizations. One - she had no idea how freeing it would be to stop tracking her food! She no longer had to mentally keep tabs on exactly what she ate or spend time entering it all into the app. Two - she was sleeping better, thinking more clearly, and feeling less fatigued at practice! She realized that the calorie goal the app had set for her must have been much too low.

Can you relate to her experience? Are you stuck tracking your calories and potentially hindering your athletic performance and quality of life through underfueling? Let's talk! Click the link in my bio and select "Let's Work Together" to fill out an application to work with me.

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