Sometimes, you have to just eat.

If you are like me, you won’t always have the opportunity to eat the “healthiest” or the “cleanest”, as they say.  Sometimes, you just have to make do with what you have. 

Ideally, we’d all have organic and natural foods to eat on a daily basis.  But, that’s just not realistic.  We don’t live in a perfect world.

Sometimes, you can’t be picky – you just have to eat.  Maybe it is not what you want to eat, or when you want to eat, or how you want to eat.  Sometimes eating is just downright dirty; like when you're on a road trip, or away from home, or when your cupboards are almost bare because you need to go to the store.  But, it’s one of those things, you know, that you have to do.  Everyone has to eat to stay alive.

However, when you sacrifice perfection (if you can't eat perfect food), you don’t end up with nothing.  In my opinion, eating is better than choosing not to eat.

 

It's good to not be so rigid with your eating standards.  For me, this means being OK with it when my Grandpa offers me a Coke, or when my Grandma offers me a chocolate chip cookie.  This means being OK when I am celebrating with my friends and family, or when I am at a restaurant.

Every meal cannot be a perfect example of eating nutritiously and intuitively.  When I first started practicing intuitive eating, it was important to stay focused for a length of time - to try to make the experience of eating a pleasant one, a successful one, and a nutritious one.  But when I got the hang of it, I realized it is also good to cut yourself some slack.

It’s OK if you eat too much from time to time.

And conversely, it’s OK if you eat too little from time to time.
It’s OK if every meal is not the best ever – balanced with fruits, veggies, proteins, and fats.
It’s OK, occasionally, to get distracted and eat the entire bowl of popcorn during a movie.
Every once in a while it’s OK to enjoy second helpings of dessert even if you aren’t hungry anymore.

Life goes on…

Life is too important to spend every waking moment worrying and deciphering what, how, and when to eat.

If you liked this article, check out these posts:

How to Stop Binge Eating

One Way to Stop Emotional Overeating

Just when I think I am done hiking, I have to climb another mountain