by JJ, Teacher, Australia
Back in my late 20’s, and after some very serious dieting, I experienced quite a few episodes of excruciating abdominal pain and raging fevers, so my doctor sent me off for medical investigations. These confirmed I had been having attacks of diverticulitis, but I was really taken aback when my doctor said he had also been checking to see if I had cancer.
Under the supervision of a dietitian and by feeling what agreed with my body, I stopped eating dairy and gluten. I also stopped using artificial sweeteners, which proved to be part of what had been aggravating my digestive system. The subsequent improvement in my health was a joy to feel… however, as the years rolled around and life happened, including marriage and the parenting of two sons, I continued to gain weight. It became glaringly obvious that there was more for me to notice about how I was choosing to live my life.
Around six years ago a friend introduced me to Serge Benhayon and I started attending Universal Medicine presentations. The missing pieces of the puzzle started to be revealed to me.
One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body, and not have the gluten-free goodies and dairy-free chocolate etc., that I was still reaching for/eating. I realised I was using them to ‘sweeten the deal’ my life felt to me back then, to give me false energy to carry my weight around during the day, and to keep me from feeling emotions I had buried deep inside.
I have made many changes around food since then. Since I have connected more deeply with my own inner knowingness, I am better able to feel what certain foods are doing to me – whether they support my vitality, or drag me down into feeling bloated and lethargic.
Nowadays I am enjoying living with more vitality and energy, and my body has gradually dropped size and continues to drop the excess load it carried – all without my being on a diet.
How cool is that!
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
Food has played a big role in my life. It’s been heavily ladened with cultural tastes, cuisines, expectations etc. And I noted I needed to eat the staples, in order to feel satisfied. Isn’t it interesting that certain food smells remind me of “home”, you know that comfortable feeling. And yet there is a home grander than any of our cuisines.
It is far from perfect but that sweetness is yet to be mastered. Often reaching out for it, when there is something more magnificent than a temporary taste fix. There is more to unveil about life that many haven’t even touched the sides, yet. One day far, far in the distance, we will All uncover the true meaning of living our lives from a different place than what is here now.
When we can let ourselves feel what certain foods or beverages really feel like in the body, we can then begin to make choices to support the body. This is actually a very magical moment, for the body and the being responds so well to loving changes.
Henrietta when we let go of the substances that affect us, it’s not always about foods. We come to that realisation that TV, social media, music, the list is endless, we have a choice to live life differently. Scientists are far from this realisation but humanity isn’t.
Any health concern can be a little bit of a reality check for us – we get to be face to face with the fact that our body has been communicating something to us and now it is really time to listen! But how amazing that we have the body communicating to us all of the time – it is simply for us to learn to listen to this communication and then heed it, not always that easy to do even if it is quiet simple!
There is this idea that a diet is something that we must do for a few weeks or a few months in order to lose weight but what if there is a different way of looking at ‘diets’ – what if we are being asked to have a lifestyle diet in other words eat those things that truly support us, and that this diet is not a fad, not a short term thing but actually a diet that is there to nourish us and to nurture us and that it happens to suit our body and our needs and that it changes as our body’s needs change? To me that is the Nicole diet, the JJ diet, the Caroline diet, the Henrietta diet – we all have a diet specific to us that supports us the best.
“I am better able to feel what certain foods are doing to me – whether they support my vitality, or drag me down into feeling bloated and lethargic.” And it’s not just food that can make us feel either vital or lethargic, I’m noticing certain behaviours like sympathising with people and taking on their stuff really makes me feel heavy, but when I’m able to just be me with people and love them I feel very light and vital.
“I realised I was using them to ‘sweeten the deal’ my life felt to me back then, to give me false energy to carry my weight around during the day, and to keep me from feeling emotions I had buried deep inside.” I know we all need to come to our own understanding of why we overeat or eat things that disagree with us but this is a great summary of the reason for most!
I’ve heard people say they drink alcohol to “take the edge of life”, which is what we do with food too, soothe away how we feel, stuff down emotions, comfort eat, and dull how amazing we are – there’s a lot we do with food that has nothing to do with nutrition and fueling the body!
Yes that is so apparent when you start to observe the moments you say “I don’t care I want to eat it regardless of the impact on my body”. We ‘take the edge off’, we ‘sweeten the deal’ all to bury our disappointment and our perceived lack of skills to deal with it.
Spot on Melinda and Lucy, there is so much more to food and eating than just simple nutrition and we often get sold this from a very young age too with food being given as a form of reward or comfort.
‘I realised I was using them to ‘sweeten the deal’ my life felt to me’. I love your honesty here and while reading this got to ask myself what am I trying to sweeten in my life or what is it I do not want to feel or see. One for me to be with and let unfold.
Keeping our focus on nourishing the whole body, not feeding needs and insecurities is the path to true health. We nourish ourselves in the way we walk, talk, sleep and hold our bodies. it is not just about the food we eat.
It just goes to show when we make even just a few changes in our diet and life to support us the body immediately responds.
Spot on Vicky – the body is this amazing vehicle, like a car we could say – so when you then put the correct and good quality fuel in it, performance will improve drastically as will longevity etc.
Listening to your body .. that is very cool.
What I am coming to understand is that food is required to support my body and not abuse it and the way I am carrying this out is to either confirm and appreciate myself in the steadiness of my livingness or address that which is causing me to eat foods that do not support me and my body.
Interestingly the foods we often crave and the comfort we seek from them are the ones that poison us! Harsh perhaps, but when looked into probably true. I used to crave chocolate and sugar every day, and whilst staying slim my nervous system copped it. Hypoglycaemia took hold and my energy levels were like a roller coaster as were my mood swings. I couldn’t miss a meal otherwise I would feel faint. Giving up sugar and chocolate my body felt vital and well and I could miss a meal and still keep going. I was quite staggered by the change.
Yes the body copes so much better when we are not introducing a poison as a fuel! I was the same although I had weight to tell me something wasn’t right, but the conversation was clear – feed me or I break down. Whereas when I stopped feeding it poison as supposed fuel, it was able to come back to a harmonious balance in the way it process the food I ate and there were no dramatic crash.
‘I am better able to feel what certain foods are doing to me – whether they support my vitality, or drag me down into feeling bloated and lethargic.’ In truth, we can probably all feel this, but whether we choose to listen to what we feel from our body and stop, or do we override and ignore our symptoms, is the question.
The body knows exactly what to do when it is left to its own devices, and it is us and our mind that comes in and interferes with its wisdom. We don’t need to tell it what to do, but only need to listen.
One of the greatest things I have done food wise is to leave coffee and tea behind. I had had long periods without coffee but not so many without tea…and over a period of time I was able to let that all go and just now drink herbal teas and I am really enjoying them. The coffee and tea kept me in a continual deep nervous tension that I did not realise was so strong until I had been free of these stimulants for a while. The inner calm and steadiness gradually gives way to a beautiful stillness and grace when we allow it.
Eating in accordance to what nourishes our body is simple common sense and the simpler our diet becomes the greater the vitality that is available to us.
Eating to nourish our body makes so much sense.
Soul food is what we require, so when we are eating we feel from our body and it eats differently when we are focused on nurturing our most divine connection. As an example our bodies can eat too much of a food and it will have the same ill effect as eating a food that no longer allows us to deepen our connection to our Soul. Also our sweet tooth can be a killer.
When we become honest about why we are eating foods it becomes much easier to look at the root cause rather than the band-aid. I know I was eating sugar recently because I was fighting the rest my body was asking for. So when I started to make things not so much about time, then I was able to rest more, not being anxious and not needing the sugar.
Beautiful comment, thank you HM
When I listen to my body I realise I have access to wisdom I have never found in all the educational training I have had. And, this wisdom is accessible all the time, not something I have to memorise or look up in a book.
Every ten years or so within the nutritionists society there has been a change or discovery that has suddenly surfaced so certain foods are no longer good for our diet? At one stage Doctors recommended cigarettes and alcohol then is the farcical story about sugar and fats, then we have the vegans and vegetarians who provide a dietary resume to save the planet. Maybe by listening to our bodies and not the institutions that can benefit from a dietary resume that on the surface seems to be trying to do a good service for us all but at the end of the day have a profit line and board of directors to answer to.
Yes our whole view of food is often the thing that is keeping us from truly looking at our diet. As a society we have collectively accepted that treats are ok, even though we know we don’t need the sugars, sweets and rewards truly, that we need three meals a day, that it’s normal to not be able to do anything after we have eaten because it was to heavy, that we can overeat when it is Christmas or any party and so on. When we make a shift and look at it from the point of what does my body need and what feels great in it we can have a different approach and relationship with food.
Weight Loss cannot be about fitting the picture of what the world demands us to look like – but a call from the body to discard what is not needed. I was thinking about that yesterday and how i can feel like I have a layer of fat in my body that no longer feels okay. It’s a bit heavy to carry, and feels like a layer of protection for my natural delicacy. But in that, I am actually blocking myself from feeling and expressing that delicacy so cakes and fatty foods don’t seem so appealing right now.
Diets simply don’t work because everyone’s body is different and what suits one person does not suit another. We just need to come to a sensible understanding of how and why we use food in the way that we do.
“One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body,” this I will take into my day. It is so easy to just eat what one feels to eat even if it is in the ‘healthy range’ of foods, but in the end it comes back to what is really supporting and nourishing one’s body to be vital and fit for, and throughout, the day.
Eating to nourish is the key. And paying more attention to the effects that food have on you so when you nourish you notice the effect and when you don’t eat to nourish, you can feel the difference. You become your own scientist so to speak, getting to research the truth of your body.
And it’s not just what we eat but how or why we’re eating it – as in the food itself may be a supportive one for us but if we’re eating it because we don’t want to feel or deal with something in life or because we think it’s good for us rather than tuning in with what our body really needs in that moment then it can still naturally not go down well…
I absolutely agree Fiona and it reminds me of the way that often children and old people are given sweets or cakes and pastries to placate them or divert their attention instead of the attention of love and care that will support them to deal with whatever it is that they are feeling and if needed, a food or drink that will also support their state of being.
With nearly every diet failing to produce results, its no wonder that we end up giving up and turning back to the cakes and crumpets. When we approach life and food not to diet but to live a certain quality, vitality and vivaciousness then we start to see something that can provide sustained change in our body weight and shape.
No amount of food can fill the void of not feeling connecting or met. When we look to others to fill this we are constantly playing the game of weight loss and weight gain. A roller coaster ride of ups and downs.
A very simple and turn around way to approach our relationship with food, diet and our bodies. I have always found that ideas from my head set me up to fail. My body is much wiser and more understanding.
Cutting out gluten/dairy/sugar/whatever the body feels doesn’t work is one part of the equation. But if there are other areas of life that we are taking in that aren’t supportive then that choice will trickle into our food choices eventually. Like constantly working and on the go = eventually meal times become eating crackers while walking around the house looking for my work bits. Food is just one part of life that is connected to all others.
When we start to look at the relationship with ourselves, and how we truly relating; looking at things such as what upsets, hurts, reactions we are holding on to and why, then our relationship with food changes leaving the diet of and about self-love. A love that knows without perfection what foods support it to naturally be, and so the weight issue becomes a redundant feature. We are the size of our self-love quotient.
Artificial sweeteners are not as harmless and beneficial as they are made out to be – firstly they aggravate the body which was never meant to ingest them and secondly they are a smoke screen behind which society can conveniently kid itself into believing that they support weight loss.
And that they are healthy! Healthier than sugar at least?!
I can feel with my weight being under weight, i need to have more awareness of how the food I am eating feels in my body, hence bringing more awareness and love to my body.
Our food choices tell us a lot about what is going on within us. We use food for a lot of reasons and often it has nothing to do with hunger.
The esoteric is the coolest or should I say the lightest i.e. living from the inner-most and having a connection to the body I am able to listen and understand what my body is always trying to tell me.
Since becoming gluten and dairy free I have come to see the amount of unnecessary gluten and dairy that is in all sorts of things, even eye drops and a lot of medications! The horrible thing about this is that most people are not aware of it and hence are ingesting gluten and diary they don’t know they are having.
That unfolding awareness and change to your relationship with food is very cool indeed and inspiring.
One thing I have learnt, and continue to refine, from Universal Medicine is that everything is energy and the body responds or reacts to the energy IN food as well as the biological reactions we can see occurring. So gluten or not if we want to dull ourselves going for gluten free bread or bread-like substances it’s the doughy, dulling energy we are seeking that the body reacts to.
Surgeon general’s warning: Gluten free does not mean glutton free 😉
When I gave up the gluten and dairy my IBS improved immensely, it did not matter to me that I was overweight because I knew that would sort itself out eventually, and it did. It took about four years of gradual weight reduction to reach my natural weight and to stabilise.
This blog has prompted some very interesting, varied and wise comments. I love how we can use diet to mean anything we take in or on. What has been elaborated on here is how we live, our whole lifestyle, can either make us overweight or under weight and in finding our correct weight, so to speak, we need to tune in to ourselves and honour what we know is true and even if we make ‘mistakes’ we will have the opportunity always to change and experiment and mostly let our body find it’s own harmony.
I too have discovered this ‘non-diet way of weight loss’, but like you I did not make the choice to become gluten, dairy and sugar free to lose weight, that was simply a very appreciated bonus. The reason I chose to eat in this new way was to heal my long-suffering body which had struggled to deal with these foods for most of my life. The results were life-changing as my quality of well-being sky-rocketed, as did my energy levels and my zest for life, so much so that I have never for one moment considered reintroducing them into my life.
Haha I love your last line – it is very cool indeed that true vitality and wellbeing is possible no matter what our previous choices or patterns have been, our age, gender or career.
I used to carry a lot of excess weight and it was for a long time a mystery to me as i was in general eating a lot less then those around me. I got to see that excess weight is not just about what we eat but also about prettying our sensitivity, taking on energy and holding back who we truly are.
That is currently the understanding of my recent weight gain as well. We can eat healthy by what our minds and society deem is healthy but if our body reacts, bloats etc. then thats the true marker that defines our diet and ultimately our lifestyle.
Absolutely and if we take on energy we will gain weight or bloat even if no food is involved.
It is just as much of a journey to accept vitality in the body as it is to let go of what causes lethargy and bloatedness. Because to accept the huge depths of vitality that is in you and available all of the time, one has to begin to consider the magnitude of their true power, true authority and true love.
The beauty about working with our bodies is that it is an ever refining journey as we become more aware of how very sensitive we and our bodies are and how much more there is to life when we allow ourselves to be aware and live with the flow that naturally impulses us to live in rhythm with the universe.
I can very much relate to that – about how being aware of and working with our body is an ever refining process, there is always more to learn and unfold.
Yes, there is always more to learn and unfold. There is not a boring second when we live in unison with our body.
The only diet to ever put oneself on is the one that eliminates denigrating thoughts as if we are continually putting ourselves down we are poisoning ourself more than any food can.
This is a very wise tip of a diet, thank you Kathleen.
Awesome how you are checking in with how you feel with different foods, like it’s a continual evolution rather than a static end point.
Perhaps the greatest weight we can shed is the letting go of trying to be something we are not.
Very cool! I am still learning (or sometimes not learning 😶) with my diet. Ultimately I feel it is about how much do we truly love ourselves.
The learning is part of there not being any perfection and still being aware that there is a responsibility we all hold in living with a body that supports us with the vitality that beams from within.
Sometimes I give up a certain food because I hear from outside sources that it is not good for me but willpower doesn’t cut it. I end up overeating as a compensation for ‘being good’ and I over-snack on some foods that I really know are not good. I have been learning that when I crave a certain food such as sugar or carbohydrates, it signifies something big going on in my life that I really don’t want to feel. Exploring that helps me to not beat myself up for being a ‘bad girl’ and to recognise that my overeating is a symptom of an imbalance somewhere in my way of being that day or the days before. It could be a shift of energy, something I don’t want to deal with, it could be many different things – I need to read it and make different choices and Hey Presto! the craving goes away like magic.
The revelation that we don’t just eat to nourish the body but to numb it, dull it and abuse it because we don’t want to feel what is going on for us or because we lack self-worth is an absolute gem. Even with this self-awareness I still often eat to numb or dull – simply eating to nourish is a hard one to crack. I even notice I can overeat when I am feeling amazing and can’t handle that! So each day for me is a reset and each day I observe my choices. I love Carmel’s comment to just read in that moment what is going on and commit to making a different choice, rather than saying yes to abuse saying yes to love!
It is interesting to work backwards and explore why we seek stimulants such as coffee and sugary foods when we live in such a way that drains and exhausts us.
It is an enormous weight lifted when we realise that we do not have to ‘be something’ and that we are already ‘all that we are’ but just need to give ourselves permission to feel and then express this exquisiteness. We could even go so far as to say that true weight loss begins the moment we drop this load we have carried for countless lives and return to our inner most self.
It is very cool indeed. I dieted for about 20 years which varying degrees of success and failure and never really shifted what needed to be shifted (i.e. that 5-10 kilos I had been meaning to lose for years!). I started the process of having a very honest relationship with myself and my body, started to heal those buried emotions, and be much more loving and gentle and I lost over 15 kilos and have kept it off for about 6 years pretty effortlessly. No dieting. Very cool.
It is interesting to observe that even when we only choose the ‘good’ healthy foods to eat it becomes apparent that the way we eat becomes equally important, i.e. eating to reward ourselves or sweeten our lives.
Awareness and self-love is always the best diet.
It’s very cool JJ, to feel what supports your body and to lose weight in the process – quite revolutionary but simple.
I never trusted diet/weight loss companies. I realised that these are companies which, if their services/products worked would no longer have a market to sell to.
“Discovering The ‘Non-Diet’ Way Of Weight Loss” – JJ i love that your post highlights how this occurs and gets refined through simply developing a solid loving and sound relationship with oneself. The more i develop this (self) relationship, the relationship with food, what i eat and consume also changes too.
‘Nowadays I am enjoying living with more vitality and energy, and my body has gradually dropped size and continues to drop the excess load it carried – all without my being on a diet.How cool is that!’
Very cool JJ!
When we listen to our bodies we certainly know what the food we eat is doing to our bodies, when we choose to eat food that supports our body and our light our body just know how to gradually bring us back to what is our normal weight.
We never have something wrong with us – but always are offered and opportunity to understand what’s true. Illness is one of the greatest forms of education we have. Thank you JJ.
It’s a great learning experience to do experiments with food and see how not only what we eat but when, how and how much affects our body and also how we feel in our day.
I love this, JJ, the freshness and respect with which you come into relationship with your body and from there know absolutely how to truly care for and nourish yourself.
It is a revelation to most of the world that the foods we eat are not just about taste, or fat content, or calories, or even nutrition, but also about what our particular body needs to be able to hold the quality of who we are at our essence. There is an honouring of the essence within the body in the choice of the foods we eat.
It can be very tempting to eat the ‘gluten-free goodies and dairy-free chocolate etc.’ We give up gluten and dairy, yet energetically they are the same, when we start eating what truly supports us the weight drops off until we are exactly how we are meant to be.
What I’ve learnt recently is that what hurts is not letting who I truly am be the me I present to life. In my absence theres a void that has to be filled with emotions, reactions, dramas and food. All which take a toll on my body. Dealing with this void, filling it by letting myself out, no need for the extra food.
Everything is energy. All of our choices come from energy too. So we must adhere to an energy that is love, and no evil (even not in the littlest things).
You are not alone JJ for we all too often use food to sweeten the deal with human life.
I am hopeless at sticking to any dieting. I find it really easy to eat gluten free, dairy free but sugar is another area altogether. I think when we approach food by trying to control our weight or control what we are eating it can be challenging. What you are sharing is that you worked on your connection and through your relationship with you, you have developed deeper level of love that means you naturally shed weight over time. I am working on observing, like you have, why I am choosing certain foods and at what times I am reaching for them, in order to understand how I need to support myself more at these all times.
Yes it is a constant refinement with food. What may have worked for us one day may be the cause of bloating the next.
“Discovering The ‘Non-Diet’ Way Of Weight Loss” – I’ve seen people experience sudden weight loss when they quit a job that wasn’t quite right/true for them, or a boss that was toxic.. it’s amazing how much the body stores protection or its holds on to an energetic mass that once activated gets released out of the body, just like air leaving a blown up balloon.
After many years of trying every diet imaginable I finally discovered that diets will never work until we figure out what causes us to eat what we eat in the first place. Most of the time we are not eating simply to nourish our bodies, we are eating to fill an emptiness, our exhaustion or our emotions. With the support of the presentations of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine I have finally come to understand my eating triggers and what food is truly nourishing for my body. As a result I now have better health and more vitality than ever with the added bonus of the gentle release of the excess weight I had been carrying for a long time; no dieting necessary just a deep caring for my body.
It is so amazing to de-bunk diets… the fallacy and trap that they are, holding no authority when we actually come into relationship with our bodies and respond to what they show us truly support, sustain and nourish us. Thank you, Ingrid.
Very Cool. There is still loads I need to change with diet and the way I eat but instead of going into ‘I need to do this mode’ it is to love me more as this change needs to come from an absolute claiming within and not from the mind. It was good to write this as I can feel I have not truly done this yet for myself.
Connecting to our own ” inner compass,” and bodies feeling’s not only offers us a greater understanding for our choices but also helps us heal these behaviours and ways of being that no longer serve us too. How amazing our bodies are and when we listen and move in a way that supports them it’s fabulous to feel and see the differences made.
The truth is we do not need to eat much food at all if what we are choosing is nutritious and right for our body.
What I have found is that my body just loves to have simple food because in truth that is all it needs. If we stopped eating out of a need for stimulation or to comfort ourselves our bodies would rejoice.
Food is such a trigger for most of us yet it is never about the food per sec but about how well we are dealing with underlying hurts. The truth is however that we eventually have to deal with our hurts as no amount of trying to bury them with food works.
Very cool JJ thank you. I have found that as I deepen my relationship with myself, into a more self-loving one, I no longer have the desire for certain foods. For example, I used to love chocolate and would eat it every day. But, the desire for it dropped away one day after I had worked on some hurts I had been holding within. This interesting thing is that the less I rely on my mouth and taste buds for something savoury or sweet, the more delicious I feel in my body – and it isn’t a short term pleasure either – more of an everyday deliciousness.
I can feel this constant “trying” around my relationship with food – like, I shouldn’t be eating this or that, or how much and when etc. making it all about food when in fact how and what and how much I eat is because of the way I have been living. I love the innocence and simplicity in “I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body”. Just that is enough.
Our body knows what foods will nourish and sustain it because it has particles that belong to God in the sense that they remain in rhythm with all the flow of the Universe. However, our mind (and the spirit behind it) knows exactly what foods to choose to override this innate capacity of our physicality (universal wisdom/Soul consciousness) and influence us to reach for foods that bludgeon this awareness.
I too found that as I listened and became more aware of how my body felt, the way in which I then supported myself with food, exercise and how I went about my day changed. This not only showed me if I was truly hungry and what nourishment my body felt it needed but my weight shifted overtime too, showing me that our bodies are truly amazing and we can learn so much about who we are and how our vehicles of expression can be truly vital and full of life.
Food and eating has moved so far away from being for actual hunger and for nourishment. We have supermarkets filled with processed foods and seem to have lost touch with our own body and what is supportive for it. Food has become a consoling friend, a form of comfort, a distraction and entertainment, a reward, and even a source of self abuse. Life can becomes very simple when we have the support to deal with what is hurting us, and can then listen to the body and respect it’s needs on what kinds of foods are healthy for us, and respond to when we truly need to eat to sustain ourselves. Having support for our buried emotions and hurts can be the key for re-establishing healthy eating patterns.
What really helps me is to observe the why certain foods in certain moments without the want to change it.
JJ, I hear you about using food to bury emotions or indeed any unpleasant feeling. I’m starting to realise I’ve spent my life using food (and later more sophisticated means) to try and deal with all I feel – and not just difficult emotions, but what I’ve always been able sense around me, what I felt as a child, all of it. Today the task is all about developing the (non-food!) tools I need to be OK with what I feel.
How do we expect to feel our divinity if we are constantly beating ourselves up about what we are eating, or all the negatives in life. Its abundantly clear to me that the simpler we make thing, the deeper we can feel and therefore the more access we have to the divinity that is lying at the core of each and every one of us.
This blog made me think about my experience with diets as I was growing up. I don’t think I knew anything of them from my own home. But gradually I saw in society that dieting and diets were a normal part of life, especially for women. Wouldn’t it be much more supportive if we were encouraged to feel what we need to eat and be aware of what drives us to eat, such as needing a reward to sweeten life?
Love the self-discovery JJ: “I am better able to feel what certain foods are doing to me – whether they support my vitality, or drag me down into feeling bloated and lethargic” – it really is as simple as that and honouring what response the body does give us.
You have captured some of the fundamental reasons why we eat and it has nothing to do with hunger. Once we realise we are trying to avoid feeling something then it’s much easier to work through our food issues, rather than making it about the food.
I agree Fiona, food choices are often s symptom of something else so to try to change the symptom with diets or will power etc, without healing the true underlying cause, can set us up in repetitive cycles of constant weight gain and diet or exercise related weight loss.
When we begin to appreciate our bodies for the amazing job they do and for the commitment they have to homeostasis when we do all manner of things to upset the equilibrium and optimal functioning of all their parts we start to treat them better, to listen to what they need rather than just doing what we want and not taking them into consideration.
Our body is a true marker for the effect that certain foods have on us or the way we ate it, if it was too much or not enough, how we cooked it, if it just wasn’t what we needed at that time…
We look around the world for cures and fixes, put vast sums of money into ‘research’ to get some kind of clue, yet all the time if we just connect and surrender in ourselves everything adjusts and reconfigures as is needed. It really is as simple as that and applies to everything – thank you JJ for reminding me.
When we are willing to be open to realising that our bodies directly reflect the way we are living, and eating, we will realise that food in it’s true form is for our sustenance, to sustain and nourish our bodies. Our bodies can never lie, and it is our bodies that guide us the best as to what it needs to support true vitality. We are far from living in this way and we have come to use food and an escape, medication, distraction, control and as a destination even. Shaping our bodies through diets does not reflect or sustain true vitality, that would otherwise naturally come over time through developing a foundation of our living in connection to our body and being, and allowing the truth therein to guide us.
It is interesting how we are enticed to eat food that has no nutritional value for our body and then fret about having to drag this excess load around with us.
It is so cool and we need to appreciate how the body communicates so clearly what is needed and how to live well.
It’s definitely worth appreciating the signs and signals we get from our body and the more we do so the more we become aware of them quicker…
Not only appreciating the signs, but responding to them as well.
Food reflects the relationship we have with ourselves. I observe that I reach for something comforting when I feel my grandness and I am still getting used to feeling that, and life is continuously showing me more opportunities to feel that and to get used to it. I reach for extra food when I want confirmation about what I am feeling, but the truth is only the love within me can confirm me. So I am standing by myself patiently, no matter how many times I choose what is not love, I will keep coming back to myself.
Very cool JJ. You remind me that it’s not what we eat but why we eat that truly matters.
Thanks JJ. How easy it is to manipulate our life through what we ingest. We can grow so knowledgeable about food and use it to give us energy or calm us down. We assume control over our state of being but we miss the point because our body has it’s own wisdom. It already knows what we need for greatest health. Allowing ourselves to let go of all the learnedness and the advice that is coming to us from all angles and let our own sensitivity and connection to or body guide us is life changing and it is a beautiful way to get to know ourselves better, become more intimate with ourselves and appreciate ourselves deeply.
Yes. It is a constant evolution from one food to another. But the key is to commit to that honesty that you showed with your chocolate eating. The answers are absolutely there, glaring us in the face and offering us amazing opportunities to learn so the question is do we have the responsibility to listen and then move in a different way?
“sweeten the deal” – this is such a prefect way of describing the intention behind why we reach for those extra goodies. The trick is to see this and instead of taking the goodie, stop and ask the question “hang on, there is nothing sweeter and cuter and more amazing than me, so how have i been moving that has ended up with me feeling the need to top that up?” If we can be this honest, then actually the cookie jar comes our friend as it is the most accurate and awesome alarm bell for us!
Super-cool, JJ! I’ve made lots of changes too, with similar and positive results but have found recently I need go deeper in terms of addressing what makes me want to turn to food… the answer for me is not wanting to feel what’s going on around me. So that’s where I’m headed to next – appreciating my sensitivity and being at home with that.
I was the queen of dieting – and was super disciplined in sticking to them. However, each diet I tried was in discord with my body – achieving results on one level, but going against what my body was asking for and so not successful on other levels – and this affected my state of being. Universal Medicine changed my entire approach to eating, and for the first time my body was given the freedom to choose what to eat – over the restrictions imposed by the mind and ‘diets’.
I have tried to stop dairy and gluten many times before I was introduced to Universal Medicine, always because I thought it would help me loose weight and get the bikini perfect body I always longed for. However, after meeting one of the students of UM and having a conversation with her abut the actual effects of Dairy and Gluten on the body, not just on a physical level, but on our awareness I was truly inspired to just stop it. It didn’t feel like a battle, it didn’t feel like I was depriving myself of anything, it felt so simple and easy that I can honestly say that the thought of having dairy makes me sick at this stage of my journey to get to know the real me.
I, like you, do not have dairy, gluten or wheat and also no caffeine or alcohol and haven’t for sometime but am now getting to feel how other foods dull my light to the point where I wake up feeling like I have a hangover! This is something I am finding we constantly have to refine as we are evolving.
JJ, this is very cool. So many people would want to know how you could lose weight without dieting. The answer is so simple, self-love, self-nurture, self-care and truly listening to our body. No quick fix or pill can support us better than our own body and our loving choices. It always comes back to our willingness to take responsibility for all choices consistently.
Yes it works much better to eat foods that truly nourishes our body instead of going on strict diets and regimes. I often noticed I want to snack because I don’t eat enough nourishing foods.
It does make a lot of sense to let go of eating foods that no longer suit our body, sometimes we don’t want to let go of certain foods that are no longer supporting us. There is a level of acceptance we need to consider and take responsibility for.
It makes great sense and stands to reason that how we eat is related to how we stomach ourselves, our lives and what is before us. To eat in order to support and nourish our body is completely at odds with eating for relief, out of nervous tension or reward and yet this is precisely what is asked for by our body and clearly works.
Great comment Deborah. I notice how much of our society, advertisements and food industries promote food as a form of comfort and indulgence instead of emphasis on nourishing our body, to listen to our body and to not overeat. A lot of advertisements on TV I have previously seen openly promote how addictive their food products are and this is their often main selling point. How crazy is it that?
There is even more to learn once we let go of the patterns of why we eat and take note of how we are with people in the day that fuel our movements towards or away from the fridge.
The steadier I become the more stable and supportive my diet is. The more I get rocked, life starts to wobble then my diet goes haywire. Considering the high sugar/fat/carbs/caffeine diet that makes up the current bulk of society’s pantry that alone shows theres a dis-ease that we aren’t being as honest as we could be.
Yesterday I was listening to people’s conversation as they reached for more and more chocolate. All of them said as they reached for the chocolate that they did not want to eat the chocolate but still ate it. What is it in us that knows that having chocolate is not the answer yet it appears that we become overrun with the need for it? There is a definite sense of wanted to be rewarded/comforted/consoled that comes with eating chocolate and there is also a feeling that it is used to give us energy (a false energy). If we know these things, does it not make sense to look further and do something about the exhaustion that is underlying the need for chocolate or the emptiness that is within that makes us want to be comforted? This would be truly taking responsibility for our health and wellbeing.
Developing a true relationship with food exposes the ways we used food for indulgence and to thwart our evolution by shutting down our awareness that we are all-knowing beings in sync with the universe, and that everything is there for us when we eat according to our light within in.
I love what you experienced and shared here, it makes a lot of sense, ‘Nowadays I am enjoying living with more vitality and energy, and my body has gradually dropped size and continues to drop the excess load it carried – all without my being on a diet.’
Food is used for so many things other than true nutrition. I was amazed at how much excess weight I lost by simply cutting out the things in my diet that did not feel right in my body. Gluten used to make me bloat and feel very sleepy, so starting with bread, I gradually cut that out. Then I experimented with dairy because I was always getting colds and suffered from bad hay fever. Those symptoms are now gone.
Food is one of the oldest and most common ways of self medicating. We can uses it is many sophisticated ways to distract ourselves from feeling and dealing with tension in our bodies.
It is interesting that eating the gluten free, and dairy free products was still giving you the opportunity to comfort eat, so as not to feel, and hence the bloating remained. It does seem key to allow ourselves to feel the tension without trying to stuff the feeling down with food or distraction.
Brilliant JJ, your words remind me that there is a revelation waiting for us, in so many areas. If we are able to go through the initial discomfort – then you get to learn, grow and receive a bigger understanding of reality. The key is not to fight the uncomfortable tension you can taste at first as things come to light.
“I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body” – thank you, food is simply that – what nourishes our body. I knew about the term ‘comfort eating’ before Universal Medicine, but never saw that as the violation of our body that I understand it to be now. As I have been heavily relying on food to take the edge of life for so long, sometimes it’s not easy, but paying attention to what and how I am eating certainly brings me more awareness about how I have been living my day.
The attention is what then guarantees you the quality in which you can work and live after time, this outweighs any chocolate cake – as the vitality and joy is often what we ‘think’ we can find in foods and sooner or later we discover maybe not?
Weight loss or gaining therefor shows us not just what we eat, but what in energy (quality of energy) we choose to life from – that has either the effect of bloating us up, hiding certain things (as it does not always mean if you are slim you are better in choosing a quality of energy- definitely not). It is just that once we carry a weight or miss a weight we start to ask ourselves the question? Are we living healthy? What is there missing? Am I missing a link? And if we truly wanna dig deeper, we can ask ourselves the question: What are we missing in life, that our body shows us in all ways possible?
Are we willing to look more honestly and closely?.. mIght be worth it
I also spent 20 years yo yo dieting, and each time the weight came back along with extra kilos, which was depressing. My health conditions increased and the weight refused to come off no matter what exercise regime I chose or diet type foods I ate. Then when I cut out the gluten my health started to pick up drastically, and I wasn’t that bothered that the weight was there because I felt better within myself. Then eventually I cut out all dairy products, including dairy replacements (this part was slower) but it was well worth the effect because my sinuses improved enormously. What really helped me to cut these things out was feeling the effects they were having on my body and then I knew they were contributing to my illnesses and my weight gain. Eventually the weight came off naturally without having to diet and I have been the same weight now for four years.
I’ve been paying close attention to what I eat over the last year and for me it is clear JJ – food has relatively little to do with nutrition, and a lot more to do with how it sits in my body and affects my senses too. It seems that these senses that drive what I call hunger, are calling out not always to live and survive but to dull, deny and block. So the conversation has become for me about the quality I live, move and then eat. If I honour this, then it seems to be a great recipe for true ease and harmony in me.
Waking up to the reality of food – and that we mostly consume it to (ultimately) avoid our responsibility to ourselves and others and not to mention humanity – is the most effective diet ever.
“I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body” – we have such attachments to food and we are quite happy to knowingly abuse our body in order to have that treat, glass of wine, extra plateful…
When I notice that I am reaching for those sweet treats, I now stop to look at what am I not appreciating about what I naturally bring, before I do a thing.
I was always on a diet growing up and food has been a major way of how i thought i got through life. Today I went swimming – how is this related? Well a way of living that doesn’t support me was revealed: i was glad to get to the other end of the pool. I was looking forward to doing my x amount of lengths and then relaxing after I’d achieved my tick box task if exercise for the day. I realised i was living a reward system, so work hard and then relax and reward which cones through food usually -but isn’t because my body doesn’t actually like it. So i started swimming and really being present. I actually enjoyed the lengths and felt great strength in my stroke when i committed to being present.
So this reward thing, why do I feel I need a reward? Choosing to not be present in life invites what’s not me into my body. Life then becomes unpleasant and scary and we use this to confirm that it’s too much to really see all that is going on including this set up we’ve created. So these rewards are part of the set up. We pretend they compensate us in our choice to not be present and abandon ourselves. We lie and say we deserve them because the world is so awful yet we’ve done a good job today.
So like my swimming i can say it’s too hard swimming so far and just hold my breath and continue and reward myself. Or i can feel the energy i am choosing to swim, be as present as I can and so not need a ‘reward’ for needing to make it up to myself for abandoning myself.
It is amazing how the things we consider to be treats are actually poison for our bodies, we deliberately choose to sabotage ourselves and lie about the foods we eat.
The gluten free food industry is based on the idea that “you shouldn’t have to do without”, but the question is what is it we think we can’t do without? The bloating from too much bread, cereal and pasta, or the sluggishness, or maybe the excess weight. Gluten free can be about making different food choices like vegetables, protein and fruits. It doesn’t have to be about finding a substitute for what the body is saying was not a healthful way of eating.
Dieting definitely never worked for me. It was only ever a temporary measure, and so my weight went up and down quite drastically for years. Recently my body has naturally adjusted to a weight that feels right through making choices to eat what feels right rather than follow any rule book.
I have shifted weight, so simply, exactly no diet involved, I never been on a diet, and I don’t have rules now, I just have begun to appreciate that self care and self love in incremental moments and commitments builds a foundation, where I do not want to, to such a degree over eat and consume food that hinders my connection with myself and God.
Gluten-free is not the be all and end all, albeit a very good start. I have also found that as long as I eat from the same intention, i.e. to sweeten my life or to bury issues and numb emotions, my body suffers, it needs to bloat and makes me feel heavy and awkward.
That is very cool JJ, even if we are successful in losing weight we may not have healed the self loathing that can sit and festers. The way you have done it by feeling what foods you want is a win win and helps us to deal with whats coming up rather then burying it.
Could the secret to loosing weight be honesty in how you feel around the whole process of the relationship you have with food?
To lose weight without ‘dieting’ by choosing what naturally feels good for the body really seems the way to go. I have never been overweight, but I have eaten to suppress my emotions and this is what I need to keep check on, even over eating the healthy stuff! (Whether its extra veggies or a slice of cake if the intention is to dull and not want to feel what has happened in the day the effect of bloating, lethargy and heaviness is the same.!)
Dieting has helped me to loose weight in the past but it never got rid of the underlying self loathing that festering away in the background. That has taken a lot more responsibility than obsessing about what food is going into my body.
I have dieted most of my life and of course it very seldom works because I was never dealing with the under lying causes of why I was eating too much or gaining weight. I have thrown all the diets out of the window now and am healthier and fitter than ever by just connecting to my body and listening to what foods work for my body and what foods make my body heavy or tired.
The more I re-connected and have allowed my sweetness to be, I no longer need sweet things… I am so, so sweet I have no need to be sweeter. Very easy way to give up sweets.
The truth here is we can either eat food that supports our body and thus the evolution back to the love that we are, by way of helping us to feel light and energised or, we can eat foods that ‘dense us up’, so to speak, and thus hold us back from pulling to where we would otherwise pull to, had we not created the roadblock in the first place. More and more, with thanks to the teachings of Universal Medicine, I am beginning to understand that we do not have a problem with food, we have a problem with evolution and awareness and thus seek the foods that will thwart our progress on this Path of Return, as odd as this may logically sound.
I have been enjoying reading the commends written about diets that have been generated from this blog. The relationship that we have with food is an interesting one. In many ways the way that we eat and what we are eating is in fact killing us. No amount of dieting will help with this, as it requires us to look at why we eat what we eat, rather than just substitute one food for another. A lot of the time we eat to bring sweetness to our life that is otherwise not there or we eat because we are exhausted and drained and need something to “pick us up”. These things require us to make lifestyle changes and not just food changes.
It was great to read your blog this morning, having given up gluten and diary myself, I agree the body feels amazing, but I am aware that now and again I have replaced it with gluten free, dariy free choices, which in truth is still a similar energy and what I have become to understand is though it may feel lighter in the body, its still going to have the same effects of causing a low vitality and tiredness. So for me its now about refining further my diet, so I can feel my optimum vitality – a work in progress.
If everything is energy (which it is) – why do we believe that food is not a part of this? And therefore have ‘diets’ that do not consider energy first?
There’s a lot of talk these days about diabetes epedemics and obesity levels going through the roof. In all of this it’s assumed that we eat because we have a sweet tooth – but is that the truth? As you share JJ what and how we eat what we eat seems to have a lot more to do with emotional state and our feelings. The thoughts that we allow might be a lot harder to digest than we realise.
Yes it is amazing and sometimes we forget this, and a gentle reminder is always welcome.
Wow I think many people would like to know how you managed to return to your natural weight. But there is more to it than just the weight loss, it is you choosing to listen to your body and choosing to eat to nourish your body. Very cool that you are loving and honoring your body.
It’s actually really huge when we are prepared to see why we make the food choices we do and how we know exactly what to eat and when and how that choice can stop us from understanding why we ‘need’ to eat a particular food. What’s going on that I need to numb myself or make myself racey? If our conversations about food were more about this than ‘this or that is good for you’ the diet industry would completely change.
“Since I have connected more deeply with my own inner knowingness, I am better able to feel what certain foods are doing to me – whether they support my vitality, or drag me down into feeling bloated and lethargic. I agree JJ, this has changed how I view and understand food. By listening to my body I am more aware of the foods that make me feel tired bloated or racy and tense. I have also noticed how I can eat some foods at certain times of the day and not at other times. I can eat an apple in the morning but if I have one in the afternoon they really affect me. Our body knows exactly what foods work for us all we have to do is listen to the little messages it lovingly gives us.
It really is so cool to connect to our bodies and explore what makes us tick. How we move and then nourish ourselves from the direct conversations we have everyday can really make a dramatic difference to how we are in and with life. All it takes is time and space for us to stop, listen and observe why different reactions and or things come up in our bodies and how we can then make changes from there to lovingly support ourselves in our daily living.
Very cool indeed. There is a move in healthcare towards ‘patient centred care’ and the main ingredient for me is summed up with this line – ‘”under the supervision of a dietitian and by feeling what agreed with my body”….that patients are given options from their healthcare providers, the space and resources to ponder about and then to see what feels right for their own bodies. True healthcare.
Also …… can I add to this (as it has been more apparent to me this week than ever before) regarding the myth to how much food our body needs and that we have to eat every day or have to have a certain amount of meals a day. If we are really honest if most of us miss breakfast or skipped lunch by dinner time we feel we need to ‘make up for it’ possibly going into some kind of mild food frenzy (I can put my hands up to this one), but from experience I know this is actually the complete opposite as I can have a small amount of food during a day with lots of fluid or there have been days when I haven’t had any food (I recently had to do a 24 hour fast for tests) yet my body actually felt clearer, stronger and lighter to when I have had meals in the day. I am not saying don’t eat!! But just saying isn’t it interesting that we hold ideals or beliefs, especially around food, that are completely false particularly around the amount of food we ‘need’.
Absolutely Vicky. Sometimes at work I am not able to eat when I would normally and the initial feeling of hunger goes and I find I have plenty of energy to carry me through and then appreciate it so much more when I do eat. I feel that our body can get into a routine and it automatically signals for food even though we are not really hungry. Discovering when I am truly hungry or not is something I am gradually learning.
Yes JJ food is such a great example of how we are with life. We make the conversation all about calories and what is the nicest body shape when all the time the real dialogue we are having is with evolution and awareness. We smash our senses then complain about having a sweet tooth. We willfully misrepresent what’s taking place to avoid the energetic truth of life.
JJ you have talked about the words “inner knowingness” and that is exactly it – reconnecting to what we know from the wisdom of the body, and how we feel, as a basis for making choices. This is what has been strengthened in me since coming to Universal Medicine and it feels amazing to be able to support myself the way I do now, without giving my power away to an outside authority.
Very cool JJ, our body naturally restores back to its natural size and weight when we eat to nourish our body and live in a way that truly loves and cares for it. This is why most dieting programs doesn’t work because it teaches us to ignore our body’s messages and to treat it in a disregarding way. You are showing us that we can live in a way that supports our health, our body and our vitality and not through dieting but through trusting what we feel within our body.
This blog comes down to true diet, as it is not about loosing weight or getting rid of all that you are being told that is not good for you by a book, tv show or magazine. It is about feeling what your body needs and live accordingly. To determine if the need of that food is generally supportive or more what our mind wants. Interesting discovery and a true blessing for the body if we start acknowledging. Thank you JJ for sharing.
Even good quality food when eaten for the wrong reasons can still affect us adversely. The key is to feel in every moment what is true, rather than rely on what worked yesterday, or what we’ve been told is good for us.
Learning it is not about the food that you eat per se, but about the energy behind why you reached for that food in the first place.. Thus once we understand why we chose a particular food, either for true nourishment for the body, or to numb, stimulate or dull ourselves to not feel something – then we get to understand what is really running us, and what we can heal – so returning to us a greater freedom to make the true choice.
Bringing honesty about the relationship we have with food can be very exposing as we tend to use food to avoid awareness and the responsibility that comes with it and that is to reflect humanity a true way to live and treat our bodies.
Well said Francisco, it is very much needed what you’ve shared. As I see a majority of people around me are feeling a bit lost and in confusion with regards to what they should and shouldn’t eat instead of listening to their body. I feel that no dieting program, book or expert knows our own body more intimately than we do in relation to food. All we have to do is learn to trust what we feel and listen to our body’s messages and it will lovingly guide us to restore harmony back to our body.
“The missing pieces of the puzzle started to be revealed to me.” Oh those missing puzzle pieces that I searched endlessly for over many years, obviously in all the wrong places! It was not until I came to my first workshop with Serge Benhayon that I realised that finally I was looking in the right place, in fact they had been right in front of me, actually within me, all the time.
JJ that is really cool, when we eat what our bodies want instead of falling for the minds desires our whole life benefits, we become more alert, more energetic and more loving. Eating better is a win win for everyone.
Sometime in the future we will look back and wonder why we ate gluten and diary and why we allowed sugar to pervade everywhere. Life is certainly sweeter without those products.
Our body’s ability to heal is quite extraordinary. I too went on extreme diets from about 13, then anorexia and bulimia for 20 years, let alone all the drugs and alcohol I indulged in. At 58 my health is better then it has ever been.
I’ve always found it remarkable how my body changes shape when I let go of things, ultimate proof that our body shape is not about simply what we eat but the energy we take on too.
This is a fascinating line – about using sweet foods to keep emotions buried inside. This rings true for me in how I feel when I reach for the ‘sweet stuff’, as it seems to satisfy a deeply seated need that I have to not only avoid feeling certain emotions, but also to not let them go.
I have also found that we need to eat far less than what we think we do – food has become a huge compensation for all sorts of things we don’t want to feel or think we need to dull or ‘sweeten’ rather than the true nourishment it ought to be.
I was so big on rewards, I deserve it, it is a celebration etc….concerning food. I still can get caught in it, to be honest, but I know it is a habit and something to look at, not my normal….I feel amazing when I eat nutritious food, this is what my body really needs to prosper…the stodgy, cosy comfort, filled up an emptiness…temporarily….it put on weight, but is not the answer, the answer is found within, reconnection with the stillness an love that lies within. That is why I have lost weight, reconnection with me.
I think this is brilliant JJ – that you made changes to what you were and are eating from a place of inner-connection, so doing what’s true for your body, not eating from emotions.
This is such a great line: ‘One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body,’ if we only eat to provide nutrition for our body, our bodies feel so different, much lighter and less clogged up, the wrong foods literally weigh us down and cloud our judgement and our awareness of everything that’s going on around us. Eating correctly so that the food doesn’t impose on our bodies is definitely a science.
Food is a huge protective barrier. I am just realising how insidious and ever present is the potential to use food to hide and numb and not express. Food is so ingrained to what we call a normal part of life. Even when eating in a so-called ‘healthy’ way, I can easily fool myself about what to eat, or not.
It serves us well to truly feel what foods do or don’t support our body and apply that to our lives not just short term, as in a diet but actually find a way to eat that we can sustain and support ourselves with throughout our whole life.
Dieting seems to feed the problem, or more aptly put, it starves it. But either way, the underlying and deeper problem is not being looked at. Dieting does not often come with self love and self love goes a long way when it comes to the body.
The dieting game is a vicious one, and absolutely diabolical when coupled with low-to-no self-worth and the body image issues that go hand-in-hand with that. Trying to break the cycle of over-weight with diet – when approached via function alone – will never work. Understanding how and why we use food, and for what, is key.
There is a multi-billion dollar industry around women in particular to supposedly lose weight, but it looks at body fat removal and not lifestyle changing, loving and accepting ourselves, and so it will never be enough….a cycle will occur when we begin to fill the emptiness we feel, the not enough, the nagging issues of doubt and dissatisfaction. How we eat, is a reflection of how we feel. Work on how we feel and so how we eat will reflect something else…..self love.
Very cool JJ! Revealing stuff when it comes to the ‘treats’ that do us no good. This is why it doesn’t help to simply cut foods out, we will simply find a ‘free from’ replacement that causes the body the same issues.
It is so inspiring that you no longer hide what you are feeling and have lost weight through awareness rather than diet, allowing your body to guide you to feel what you are choosing, with remarkable results … very cool.
I wonder how much food is consumed every day in this country alone with people looking for a reward and wanting to sweeten to deal on life.
Listening to the body is absolutely essential if we want to have any kind of real joy and success in life. If we refuse to listen and ignore our bodies messages we ultimately end up suffering. The responsibility lies with ourselves we can either eat to evolve or eat to sabotage.
Having conversations with our bodies and exploring how different foods feel when we eat them has helped me uncover many things about how I care and nourish myself and where I can deepen my own relationship with food and my body. It’s a constant process of refinement and one I love exploring.
When are we going to wake up as a society and realise that there really isn’t any diet that you can follow. That loosing weight has nothing to do with food and everything to do with how we live. There is a way of life that many don’t want to take responsibility for, there are many who are also. So those who are choosing a life that isn’t about dieting, but being healthy and fostering loving choices in how they move, walk and talk, can reflect a different way.
So cool JJ, losing weight without the diet
Completely agree with what you’ve share here. I started cutting off gluten and dairy just to see what it feels, and for me to be able to feel how much they damage the body feels absolutely amazing!
Yes, very amazing JJ, we can use food as a distraction or to numb, or we can use it to nourish and support our bodies. Whatever we choose, that energy is also consumed with the food.
Very cool indeed – None better to listen to than the body
The real benefits of dieting do not coming from dieting but from changing the energy in which we live
Very cool, it all comes back to the connection with ourselves and being really honest in the way different foods feel and affect our state of being. When we can get to this level of understanding its like we are half way there already, then with this awareness we have a choice to make. Do we keep doing what we know doesn’t work or do we make the choice to be loving with ourselves.
And just to comment too on the emotional aspects of food use – I too have also discovered how I’ve used food to feel good about life. One of the layers I’ve recently allowed myself to feel (there seems to be many!) is that my food use has been masking what I can only describe as a kind of flat feeling, a mild depressive state perhaps.There is much to unpack here for those of us who have been as addicted to food as any other drug.
It’s great to mention the false energy component of food. I’ve been experimenting with eating less the last several months and have been astounded to see how much I’d been relying on food as an energy source rather than developing my own wellspring of vitality. It’s been very exposing to see what’s been propping me up – I’ve been using food no differently to stimulants such as caffeine or sugar (two items that haven’t been part of my life for many years). Big ouch!
Making food choices that are more loving of the body is not just about being on a diet, it is about a lifestyle choice. When we make what we eat about that, it drops the whole story around our diet being a fad, or something we have to strive to keep up with.
It is crazy isn’t it that it takes someone to point out something so simple as- just choosing to eat what nourishes the body- this shows us that we use food for much more than its purpose of helping us to stay alive.
It’s incredible the stories I have heard of people losing weight when they start to connect with themselves. It turns all the ideas we have around dieting completely on it’s head. Not only are these stories I’ve heard first and second hand…I’ve actually also witnessed it! It truly is incredible and yet completely believable as it makes so much sense that we are not designed to be overweight, but we are designed to love and appreciate ourselves.
That’s awesome, I like that you mentioned how you ate treats to ‘sweeten the deal’ as that is how I use sweet too, like I deserve to have my life sweetened but if your life is sweet already then you don’t need anything to sweeten it up, so now I continue to fill my life with more of the richness of me and when I do, I don’t reach for the cookie jar, so to speak, and when I am without me, it is more difficult.
a great realisation, if we allow it is to eat what our body is truly calling for, and let go of what we have been taught food has to be.
As soon as I started to listen to my body and take action based on this feeling my whole life changed. I used to feel low, sluggish and depressed after eating gluten, when I honoured what my body was screaming at me my life changed for the better. Since then I am continuing to refine what I eat based on how it makes me feel.
Imagine how many ways this applies Samantha to our life and not just to what we eat. How does it feel when we consume a hefty plate or greed? or have a bit sized snack of jealousy? Wow, this is the diet no magazine talks about – to live and eat and be Love. Thank you JJ for this blog.
J.J. indeed that is very cool . . . dieting is out now. The new way is “to feel what certain foods are doing to our bodies whether they support our vitality, or drag us down into feeling bloated and lethargic.” That feels much more healthier and responsible.
There are more diets out there now than crispy chip packets that dot the snack section of the supermarket. There is clearly something not working here if we keep needing to re-invent the wheel on the same thing!
There is so much here to celebrate and also understand there is a long way to go in our broader community around this topic. There is so much misinformation out there around loosing weight, what to do, how to do it. So these types of blogs and people saying it how it truly is, ie. that loosing weight has nothing to do with food and everything to do with our relationship with ourselves and body.
“The non-diet way to weight loss.” What strikes me about this is what it exposes about all “diets”. All other diets ask you to do something, to give something up, to focus on something, to adopt a regime, etc. They are each giving you something outside of yourself to adapt in to. In essence you are giving your power to whatever that diet is. Asking the diet to fix you. Yet what this blog is sharing and the way to true health and vitality, the way to a naturally sized body is actually to start taking responsibility ourselves for our choices and to admit that our bodies know it all and that we have been over-riding them for so long. BUT, if we do that, then we might have to give up this, or that, or never go back, or not be allowed treats, rewards, a certain food-stuff….and we might even have to take responsibility in other areas of our lives…it may even be the tip of the iceberg to other changes. This is why I feel that diets are so popular. Because it is the classic, classic case of looking like we are making the right moves, yet still actually not taking true responsibility. A diet is a comfort blanket. “Look at me – I’m doing good here…..(but don’t look too closely)”
Very cool JJ. It’s amazing what happens when we listen to the body instead of the mind which opens us up to becoming aware of the reasons why we do what we do.
Absolutely cool JJ,it shows that we can only diet from the heart (connection to our body) and that living from our minds does not work. Listening to your body is key with dieting. And asking for help too. Like you have shared with us. Losing weight is not about diet only, even though it at times can result from that, it is about the relationship you have with your body instead of emotions. Thank you JJ for sharing this with us – and thank you Serge Benhayon for offering us another way.
I too have found that what, how and why I eat makes a HUGE difference to my vitality and well-being.
Very cool indeed! I myself used to spend a fortune each week on sugar free, gluten free dairy free treats and loved raw cacao which I would buy in bulk. Yet over time it became obvious I was using them for a distraction to what was really going on. In dealing with why I want distraction I now do not find myself attracted or drawn to these foods.
The amount of time and money invested in diets that don’t work must be staggering. It is fantastic to hear your description of how the weight is just dropping off. Something for the nutritionists out there to investigate.
The results of poor eating are much more than what is seen on the body as fat, they are a daily grind that spawns no end of issues including illnesses.
Beautifully said Heather for we all too often only see things at face value and don’t question the underlying reason why.
It’s interesting that this life is all about distracting us away from what’s really going on and what bought us to the point of over eating in the first place. We don’t get asked the questions that would support true healing, instead offered quick cover ups, that do not have us come back to the original hurt to truly heal from there.
As we drop our attachment to images around food and drink and stop focusing with our eyes, instead feeling and listening to our body, we get the impulses that support our body to be naturally attuned to what supports us. Not just filling with foods loaded with ideals and beliefs that seem to equally fill and weigh us down, literally.
The word diet to me has always felt like something that has a shelf life, a life span, a start and end. Choosing what foods feel right in your body on the other hand and continuing to just them as you develop feel like a long term lifestyle choice. Diet for me reminds my of ‘trying not to drink alcohol’ it never works because there is still a relationship with the thing you are trying not to do, in the ‘trying not to’ you are relating, so even if we don’t drink for a year we are still drinkers for it is not truely renounced in the body.
It definitely seems to be the case that wishing to lose weight has a lot more to do with how we feel about ourselves than it does about creating a dietary regime. The close link between emotions and eating heavy creamy comfort foods is worth far more consideration than the calories of food or following a specific diet. Ultimately the guide of how it feels in our bodies and what feelings arise that make us reach for a food take us a long way towards greater wellbeing, the honesty we bring to this is all we really need. Lovely to read of your changes JJ.
Love this, so simple, no complications, which we have such a tendency to do. It is just about connection with self, feeling what is there to know within us and making loving food choices comes from there. Simple.
Yes the body seems to be able to sort itself out if we honour it and deeply care for it. Sometimes this can be putting weight on as well as taking weight off but it certainly always lets us see how we have been treating it and then when we are nurturing and nourishing it it shows us how much it appreciates this.
“One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body, and not have the gluten-free goodies and dairy-free chocolate etc., that I was still reaching for/eating.” Yes gluten free or dairy free sugar free cookies, cakes etc actually do the same thing to the body. It is about the intention as you say, is it for nutrition, or is it to make life better, to soothe a feeling we do not like.. etc. The first will truly nurture the body and the second will be a extra weight to the body, sometimes literally!
Can you imagine if the whole world caught on to the concept that really we only need to eat for nutrition, whole industries would go out of business over night and life would become so much more simple.
A big one to tackle samanthaengland but the example many are living is all that is needed and if the person/people are willing to make changes than the world has the opportunity to experience the vitality and livingness that is on offer.
When we want to lose weight, we tend to only focus on food and the scales. But our main focus should be on the relationship we have with ourselves and how we are with ourselves. When we deepen our connection with ourselves and start to take better care of ourselves, our weight will change and our body will take its natural shape.
Everyday I reach for foods that ‘sweeten the deal’. It is a constant battle with my mind that tells me what to eat when my body says differently. I find that the key is to start to listen to my body all throughout the day, and to establish a relationship with my body that is not based on what I do wrong, but rather appreciating when times are great. It is however, a forever work in progress.
One of the biggest changes in my body since beginning to honour how I feel in it, has been through the way my chest and shoulders feel and look, I can feel a shield of protection I once wore has been let go of and from this a delicate, tender, gentle and graceful woman has emerged. This isn’t to do with weight loss, but my body shape has changed, so expel often remark on it. All of my body shape has changed through being honest about how I feel in my body. Yes some weight has gone, but it is staggering how a choice to honour how I feel and self-care has deeply changed the way my body holds issues, emotions and energy. It is configured in a whole different way and it is still changing and will continue to.
I have never been on a diet, I did not like the control and denial needed to do it. I have also lost weight since getting more familiar with how my body feels rather than ignoring it. It has slipped off. What is interesting in this process is how much I realised it is how we ‘feel about ourselves that creates what we see in our bodies. Me still feels like me, in fact I feel more like me than I did 10 years ago and in a way I feel bigger, I take up more space, but more in an energetic way, but my body has become smaller. I don’t think I am large, but I don’t think I am small, I feel just right for me. Good in my own skin. The diet game people play is dangerous, it is endless because it will never work. We need to deal with how we feel about ourselves, reconnecting with who we are on the inside is the only way of really feeling good in our skin and through this our natural weight that feels good for us develops.
It’s very cool. Dieting = denial. Which offers no true or lasting change (unless we manage to maintain the denial!)
So true Otto. There is no healing that can come from dieting as it is just a management technique, masking the real undealt with emotional issues underneath. Best diet is the the one of utter honesty from our body.
That actually feels good in my body to just even read that!!
I was overweight for most of my life, I started to put weight on at the age of about 12, then I started the battle of trying to lose weight. When Serge Benhayon presented that some people can use weight as a form of protection, this was the thing that really helped me to understand why I was holding the weight and to start to let it go.
Brilliant JJ, You simplify it beautifully – to eat what the body needs – eating for who we truly are, rather than everything that we are not.
Serge Benhayon introduced me to the truth of the energy I am in when I eat as well as the energy in various foods and I have gradually changed what I eat and how I eat and now, I too, have let go of a heavy load of so much that I was carrying around in my body.
Great sharing on the fact that what we eat is always coupled with our feelings and being able to connect to our body. It is never just one or the other. Feeling what our body needs and bringing awareness to that is key to vitality and wellbeing.
Why do we overeat, most of us do and in some it is obvious with the extra weight they are carrying, but for most it is not so obvious. For example, I have never been a big person or hugely overweight, yet I still over-eat and consumed many sugary and salty products after my meals and throughout the day, just, to ‘keep me from feeling emotions I had buried deep inside’. Food is so easily available and is a great distraction form numbing ourselves from our clarity and honesty about where we are at.
How amazing are our bodies? I spent many years struggling with my weight and it wasn’t until I began to take care of myself and appreciate who I was and listen to how my body felt that I started to notice true change. Learning to love myself and listening to what my body feels to eat, how to move and express has allowed me to return to my own natural weight and way to be. Thank you JJ for sharing your experiences, truly amazing indeed.
Great sharing, it’s as simple as letting go of the sweetening foods that have no nutrition value. I have also been looking more at just eating nutritious food and I feel so much more energy, I am less tired and I too feel lighter in my body, as well as I have lost inflammation I was carry in my body.
Amita, I have inflammation in my right lower leg, which is very painful at the moment. I had not linked it to any food products I may be eating….. I still eat too many nuts and recently I have been eating some raw cake, which is a delicious ‘sweet’ treat, and I think I am getting away with it because it is sugar/dairy/gluten free etc? I know I am eating this cake as a reward and treat – the same energy I was eating the normal sugary products…… Something for me to ponder on today….
Very cool. In my life I have eaten meat, been vegetarian, stopped having dairy, been on fasts, been on raw food diets, and now gluten, dairy, caffeine and sugar free and back to eating meat again. My diet has changed many times in my life and I thought I understood why I was changing it and knew what I was doing but Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine introduced a deeper and far clearer understanding than I ever had before, that is, to listen to our body (not what our mind thinks it wants!), to be more self loving and the big one … that we use food to keep hurts/emotions/feelings buried and to avoid truly being committed in and to life. What I choose to eat now is so much more supportive for me than my diets before and is coming from a place of self love. The beautifull thing is, this is always changing and evolving naturally so in ways that I know will support the whole of me more.
Very cool JJ. I too found that by choosing to eat more supportively I gradually dropped weight. Removing gluten and dairy had an immediate impact once I dropped the sugar-loaded gluten free products and just focused on eating real food. My weight then stayed the same until something shifted in me, I’m not sure what exactly, but I started to feel lighter and more vital and more weight just dropped away quite quickly. On the other hand I could feel myself falling into a bit of a rut recently and as a result some old habits have crept in and so has a bit of weight – not much, but the body feels much heavier as a result. It’s simply telling me to stop holding back and ‘hiding my light behind a bushel’.
I love that JJ, not so much about how much weight you have lost but how much better you feel. Quality of life is what suffers when we eat to deal with life and not to sustain life as we inevitably carry unnecessary weight.
Our bodies are capable of so much and can be nourished in many ways, food is a small part of this equation but one part that can really bring a body to complete dysfunction if not paid attention to.
I love how when we support the body the body supports us back. It just goes to show that the particles in which we are made up of are divinely designed.
We have so many ideals and beliefs around food. Since I was a child I thought I had to eat 3 meals a day, then after listening to presentations by Serge Benhayon I started to “feel what to eat not eat what I feel” M.B .I stopped eating breakfast as I realized I did not need it, then stopped all the snacking I did as this too was just a filler to stop me from feeling what I needed to, then I stopped eating lunch every day as I realized that was not needed either. I am still developing and playing with what is it I need and how much.
The other interesting thing that has happened is that since I have been eating way, way less, but appreciating myself more, I have put on weight. Before I was eating heaps more but had been losing too much weight.
Great to read this today Mary-Louise, because I can feel my body is asking me to eat less, but I have not made the adjustment yet, but on the days I have, I feel so much lighter and feel so much more tender and precious…. I find it is more difficult to appreciate myself also because I know I am not listening to the body which means I am not being loving or caring to myself…. for some reason I am still hanging onto food!
For me it is so easy to get into a pattern with food, wether this be an honouring one or a numbing, self-abusive one. Either way it always comes down to choice, it’s just whether I can be bothered to put the effort into nurturing and taking care of myself, or whether I let the food do the talking and pay the consequences later.
“I realised I was using them to ‘sweeten the deal’ my life felt to me back then, to give me false energy to carry my weight around during the day, and to keep me from feeling emotions I had buried deep inside.” As soon as we are open to feeling why we eat what we eat, food no longer has the same hold over us and we can choose more lovingly in accordance with what the body needs.
So much of our malaise with body weight comes from not discerning and heeding which foods work well with our bodies and which don’t. When we can finally honour this, our natural weight returns without us having to invest anything more than that honour. But the key is to be able to allow the emotions that we choose to numb and bury with dense foodstuffs to surface, so that they can be recognised and dealt with. I’ve found that no matter how excruciating at the time, this is always, always a kinder – and easier – route than dulling the hurt I don’t want to feel with a foodstuff that’s merely dulling my senses and making my experience of life heavier in the literal, physical sense.
Lovely how You share here 🙂 its so great to be more and more honest and feel more and more.
Very cool, and then to think of all those diets that are out there..
“Nowadays I am enjoying living with more vitality and energy; “love it JJ. Listening to what our body truly asks for – not our eyes or mind. We do know what is good for us to eat – but what do we choose?
I very much appreciate the simplicity of this sharing – it makes so much sense.
Our bodies are so sensitive and particularly our digestion system. From experience I know it is very easy to override and numb this sensitive area. Our digestion area is a great aid in supporting us to be honest with what we consume and the affect it has on us as it tells us instantly if is in harmony or not.
Food is an important part of our life, that shouldn’t be overlooked as just something that is there and we need, but to truly feel what we need and see that our body needs supporting, not abuse through all that we choose to eat to indeed sweeten the deal that you describe.
There is so much more to food and how we use it than meets the eye. I too am learning every day to listen to my body and to feel what my body wants and needs in relationship to food. If I eat something just because it is there and available but is not actually what my body needs that day then the body suffers. I have come to see that my body is a very finely tuned instrument that deserves to be honored and cared for.
It’s interesting how when we pay attention to our feelings, we know what foods are giving us nutrition and which ones are making us tired and lethargic. Yet sometimes we know that what we are eating is definitely going to make us tired, but we still eat it, often due to a deep hurt or emotions we are not wanting to deal with. It’s easier to numb the feeling then take responsibility. Something I am working on now.
We rely on food so much to be our comfort buddy. In those moments of high emotional turmoil what would we do if we didn’t have that chocolate bar to reach to?
1. We might admit there is something to deal with
2. The tension would be so unbearable that we would deal with the issue
3. Can’t think of point 3 at the moment 😉
Food is a vice that has been used throughout the ages.
It is interesting to notice how we need to ‘sweeten the deal’ in life with food. I can totally relate to this. I am becoming more aware of how sometimes when I think I am hungry, I am actually avoiding feeling something or moving in a way that is not living the fullness of me. In the emptiness, of course I want to fill up with food! When I connect with the vast awesomeness and power of me and move from this, it amazes me how the hunger is no longer there. I don’t need to reach for sweet or salty snacks to get through the day and have more vitality and clarity to really enjoy myself. The most simple “diet” ever.
JJ thats really cool! You listened to our body understood it’s message and took action accordingly and are now keeping the benefits. So much can be said to listening and responding to what we know is true.
Great blog and so simple to read and understand. Incredible how there is so much more to look at with food and diet than just the foods we eat and diets we have.
It is incredible how we can mask our feelings through our consumption of food, even if this food seems ‘good’. When we get honest about how we are feeling, there is less of an inclination to reach for whatever our soft spot is and actually take note and deal with what is truly going on.
JJ, that is very cool. What a change of perspective with amazing results. It’s so true that when we stop eating dairy and gluten we can simply replace the goodies with other things. The reason we are reaching for these things is still not looked at and still not felt. It is inspiring that you have gone deeper and dealt with this and are now reaping the benefits. Thank you for sharing.
I’ve felt the same experience Linda. The test is working towards understanding what foods best support you and to not play the game of perfection when making these changes.
We all know that we need to eat things that are nutritious for our body if we want to be well and healthy however to truly take this to heart and act on it as you have done is when the so-called miracles happen, like natural weight loss and a gain in vitality and joy for life. Very Cool.
I agree JJ with this line of yours -‘One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body.’ As soon as I began to nurture my body with food instead of overloading with food the weight naturally fell away just by listening to my body.
It is very cool indeed when you can realise that you “only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body”. This is where the miracles can occur as such as losing weight with no diets. That is unheard of. Thank you for sharing your story.
It is very cool to feel the body able to find its own rhythm instead of having to overcome the struggle of dealing with the wrong foods within it. It is wonderful how the body will work so beautifully when treated with love and care and not just as a vehicle to suffer the whims of the way we want to live. It took me a long time to realise that replacing gluten and dairy treats with gluten free, dairy free treats was counter productive and it was just a matter of time before my body started reacting in the same way to those. It is so much better to feel why we need treats and understand what we are trying to compensate for. It might be as simple as being tired and pushing on or just not looking at what makes us frustrated and dealing with that.
‘It took me a long time to realise that replacing gluten and dairy treats with gluten free, dairy free treats was counter productive and it was just a matter of time before my body started reacting in the same way to those’. Perfect for me to read today Amanda, as I am still fooling myself that eating diary and gluten free cake every now and again is okay…. but my body is communicating otherwise as presently I have inflammation in my right lower leg, and it is painful.
JJ this breaks what we all know too well as the diet trend.
You can find a diet to change any body part these days and to me thats scary. The fact that we are so taken by going on a food plan to change how we look is pretty crazy and reflects the state of the world crying out for more appreciation of who we are, not what we are told to be. I was a key member of diet clubs and really did put a lot of time and energy into ‘trying everything’ – but at the end of the day I was not listening to my body, arguably the most important part of the equation. i too have cut out a lot of stimulants in my diet and have brought it back to nutritious food and less of it.
No I don’t look like a supermodel, my weight has been pretty much the same for the past 10 years, but I do know that the body shape I have is right for me and it is me – it allows me to do all the things needed each day, whilst at the same time makes me appreciate parts of my body I would never have appreciated before.
Wow JJ that is huge, and thanks for sharing it with us. The puzzle pieces came to you as you started to look deeper for the root issue of the eating issue. Noticing the extra weight, which where the held tensions from lack of expression and ignoring the body for what it was communicating with you, like when eating the wrong food to numb the feelings you had from unresolved hurts and pain.This is big – a big change for you! Naturally the weight drops because you did not need to numb anything anymore and that would store the sugars in the body. The unresolved hurts and emotions, together with the wrong food choices is a double wobble that creates the overweight. So good to see that you have come out of this cycle of self devastation. Congratulations!
Nobody loses weight through a diet. We find our true weight by means of an aware way of living that includes – as a side effect – an aware diet.
‘Since I have connected more deeply with my own inner knowingness, I am better able to feel what certain foods are doing to me – whether they support my vitality, or drag me down’
The body always knows best!
Absolutely Jenny, our body knows it all if we allow it to communicate with us. I always see this wonderfully when a woman gets pregnant, the body knows all it needs to grow this baby internally and for the birth. It is all stored information that is inside us in line with the grandness of divinity. When we choose our food from this knowing that there is a bigger purpose, than all we have to do is to allow this and surrender to the all knowing inside of us. It is our choice if we allow this to play out daily with all we do.
Our bodies are amazing when we stop to listen to them and very recently I have realised that listening to the body does not get harder and harder the more we do it (from the belief that the more detailed, more focused, more energy used in an activity = the harder it must be). If anything it gets easier to the point where I only have to pause and look at a food item for my body to respond with a yes or no.
Yes indeed we can ask our body what food it needs to provide us with energy. The question is do we want to be aware of the place we are asking from, I mean are we in a reaction and emotion at the moment or are we with our body at the right moment of asking. And also are we honest with ourselves wanting to see what food does to our bodies, as many times we use food to numb us, helping to not see what we are trying to suppress with food. If the answer is yes I want to look at the reason why I am longing for food to numb me (which is sugar, gluten, dairy) to comfort me, most of the choices it is a combination of all three, than the healing can begin and the root issue of the weight problem is nominated so the body does not have to hold the extra weight any longer, when loving choices are made coming from the body.
That is exceptionally cool JJ. I can really feel that me holding myself back is what is really helping me hold onto any excess weight I have. I go for ‘good/healthy’ treats all the time to sweeten the deal, even though these treats, to someone else might look like the equivalent of broccoli, the energy in which I pacify myself with them is the dangerous ingredient.
Food for nutrition, which is true love for our bodies, not for comfort. It is simple beautiful true that I now appreciate.
Love this Samantha we either eating food for nutrition and ingesting Love or we are eating for numbness, comfort or stimulation which ultimately will always be self abusive.
Weight has very little to do with what you eat. Why do I know this? Recently I put on weight and I have been eating less then I was. Why did I put on weight? Because I filled myself up with self appreciation. Before this I had lost weight and was looking far too skinny. During this time of weight lose I had not changed my eating pattern. Why did I loose weight? Because I was not appreciating myself and was not living the real me.
That’s great marylouisemyers and such a great reminder that it’s not about just losing weight. Those that have too little weight on them have the same stuff and lack of appreciation for themselves as people with excess weight. It’s not about weight at all in the end. It’s about just what you say, appreciating and learning to love yourself which will, in turn, allow your body to fall into whatever natural weight it needs to be.
Thank you JJ for sharing your experience and tips on how to move away from needing sweeteners. Learning not to over ride my body is the one important thing for me to get!
Very very Cool JJ and also very simple – listen to the messages our bodies are giving us! I was just sharing with someone today, how sticking with a certain food just because its been advertised as healthy doesn’t mean it actually is healthy or supportive for your body. I tried for years to eat certain foods that fell in the ‘healthy’ section but every-time without fail I would have terrible and painful side affects, crazy really how I would keep going back. Now I listen to my body, most of the time, and I honour what it shows me… it’s a whole different relationship and one I keep developing and refining every day.
When I lived in Australia I always laughed when shopping and rolling my trolly into the ‘healthy food’ isle. Wondering if this is the healthy food only, what are we doing in the other isles, and why are unhealthy food for sale, anyway? It made no sense to me, and I was laughing because the irony of it, people deliberately put the sign up without noticing what they really say with it. In Germany there is a saying like; pee on your own foot (from a dog perspective) But it is the buyers choice – everytime!
So true Monika – same with Health Food stores – if that’s health food, what are the other stores selling?!
Thank you JJ – it is amazing when a piece to that elusive ‘puzzle’ is found, and the answers are within all the time. Just accessing that information can often take us to so many different routes to get there. Through being able to feel what nourishes rather than comfort eating to fill a need our bodies show us the results of this self loving act in some amazing ways.
I find the same with nuts and seeds. It’s like if I have one or two I want three or four and so it goes on. Recently I have been soaking seeds and sprouting them. Not only is it a lovely caring thing to do to rinse the seeds every day a couple of times or so but the taste in the seeds is delicious – so much lighter and alive. And it is beautiful to see how they split the hull and slowly emerge with little leaves and seem to dance around each other as they grow.
Absolutely it is the same with nuts! Therefore we can notice that it is the intention in which we eat- this fact does matter so much! Once this is clearly understood we are able to stop the cycle of self-devastation and living against our own body.
Thanks JJ, when I gave up gluten and dairy my body just found its natural weight and size, no need to diet at all. I eat what I feel my body needs, and I have learnt not to overload it.
This everyone’s dream, loosing weight without a diet! As long we eat what supports our body, it is very simple but can also be challenging at time. Recently, I have paid more attention with the salt and the sugar in the food I eat. For example yesterday I made some guacamole with garlic, chilli flakes, black pepper and a dash of of olive oil but no salt. I had a few table spoons but stopped eating it soon after. My old habits would have been to eat it with corn crips and salty guacamole and I would have finished the whole lot before I knew it! So if the food I eat is sweet or salty, I find it extremely difficult to judge the right amount to eat, and I just end up spending the all day eating and looking for the next thing to put into my mouth and so on… Great revelation for me and I need to keep myself aware of it at all time, and always question my self to cut the habit!
That’s a very very good point Alexandre. I find the same thing…the more stimulating the food, generally through sugar or salt, the less able I am to stop eating it. It feels almost like a compulsive need to finish whatever is there. Oh and eating while being distracted by TV or some other screen like device is a sure fire way to have us over eat as we are paying absolutely no attention to what we are doing or putting in our bodies.
The salt and sugar thing does the same same thing to our body – I have noticed that too, Alexandre, that is why people are getting fed salt and sugar in any form with the food products at shopping centres. Please notice this point it is deliberately in every processed food item you can buy (hidden sugars and hidden salt with different names) to make people longing for more all the time and the numbing effect that keeps humans at a cloudy state of existence and not notice what they are doing to themselves. Once we see through this game we can make different choices. We can eat for our body and our health, it is our choice.
I agree, sugar and salt is so addictive and it’s absolutely no coincidence that it’s in all processed food. We could blame the food manufacturers but when it comes down to it, they too are people and part of humanity and it is all of us who are demanding foods which will numb us and prevent us from feeling the rot we have created together.
Changing how you eat can be a very tricky thing, we become so emotionally attached to food and so when we choose to go on a diet, which is in effect ‘someone else telling you what you should eat’ – that part of us that does ‘not want to be told’!! But when we actually start to listen to ourselves, we let go of all that external pressure, an ease around making such decisions can unfold.
Thanks JJ, what you share is profound when it comes to the diet industry… and ought to be compulsory reading. l’ve always observed the yo-yo impact of diets on friends and clients, never being someone who dieted myself, and knew they were more detrimental than helpful. But we have a way of avoiding, always at huge cost to ourselves, the things that have hurt us in life, using food (in your case) to ‘sweeten the deal’ and bury as you say. Choosing to face these things and deal with them is life-changing… as you have clearly shown.
So true Judy. We know there must be a truth in life, because we can feel so much and see so much that we just know isn’t true, but don’t quite know what to make of it and how it fits in. Enter Universal Medicine, and the missing pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place. And as I begin to understand at an ever deepening level that love is at the foundation of life here, it is easier to see all that is not of love and what is at play that keeps us from knowing this. From this I can be more committed to holding what is true and what is love to the best of my ability as I can now see the responsibility we all have in bringing in the missing pieces of the puzzle, for all to understand.
Definitely fantastic results JJ, feeling into what foods support you and what drag you down, our bodies thank us and support us when we start caring and listening to them, and what a joy that is.
That is indeed very cool JJ!
I really enjoyed reading this blog, it made me reflect back upon how i have used and abused food before and the affect this had on my body. The distinct difference i feel now is the level of care and gentleness i have developed towards myself and my body. This has certainly changed the relationship i have with food as I am much more honouring of what will truly support and sustain my body rather than what will bludgeon and numb it.
It is phenomenal, how the body changes to a loving size when giving it just what it needs and take care of it lovingly.
I love what you have shared here kerstinsalzer15. If you give your body the care that it needs it will give it back with the ease in the body size you are carrying.
What you share is great JJ and one of my “hats” is a diet and nutrition advisor and I have found in my clinic that without getting too complicated and suggesting a diet free of dairy and gluten has shown immediate results in their well being. Incredible really and on the other hand I see how much is now available where these two foods appear. Who would guess you can get it in a flavoured potato crisp or chip as they call it in the United States?
What is becoming more clear now is how many people are actually gluten and dairy intolerant and many substitutes are available but the sugar content is way way too high and this is a very serious danger to our health. I would class sugar as a drug and as it was highlighted when I studied, sugar has many many harmfull effects on our body.
So true Bina, sugar is a very dangerous drug, it is incredibly addictive and has been championed by many including myself as OK in moderation till I felt the raciness, the harm and it’s addictive nature in my body. I then saw how it affected my children and suddenly it was not this sweet innocent indulgence, I could see it for the poison it is and the harm it has done to so many bodies. This is born out in the larger society by the inordinate rise of type II diabetes.
I know for me becoming aware of my relationship with food has meant that I am much more considerate about what I put in to my body. I used to use food for comfort and reward and now it is for health and medicine. It is not perfect but I am learning so much about what actually does support me and my vitality is going through the roof…
Same here Samantha, and felixschumacher8 makes an interesting point, what is the change that suddenly one day the decision to not eat something that disagrees with our body suddenly has much more authority to it? It is a foundation rather than a wobbly plank we walk hoping not to fall back into the cesspit of indulgence. I find it is the same with smoking. My sense of it is that the decision has to come from a knowing deep inside that is greater than the relief the crutch has offered.
What interests me is not so much the fact that we can let go of these tantalizing foods, but from where comes the power to choose to do so. Suddenly there is day x and we decide not to have chocolate anymore and we succeed. After many unsuccessful attempts (for most of us – haha!). How come we try so hard sometimes and then – seemingly suddenly – it works out? What have I truly changed to come to this point? Or have I changed something at all?
It’s very cool that by getting rid of the “emotions I had buried deep inside,” and beginning to honour what foods we truly feel to eat – how we can return to our natural body shape. A timely article- I have felt there is a forever deepening of self-worth and self-love required to be honest about where we are at, and in one aspect- about food.
This is such a great statement “I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body,” We so often are out there looking for more than that, for excitement, celebration, wanting to numb ourselves ie. to not truly feel what is coming up for us, so we stuff ourselves with food even when not hungry, so not to feel what our body is usually trying to tell us something. But instead to stop and feel what our body needs, not what our head is telling us we need. So as you are saying, what nutritionally does our body need. What I have found though, is unless you are willing to feel what is making you want to go for the foods that may not be so good for you, you do tend to still go for them as the lure can be too great. But if you begin to look at why you may be going for those foods, what might be a hurt there you haven’t wanted to feel, then the choices do begin to be easier.
The food definitely hides so much in life, and challenges our beliefs around it. The body suffers enormously from the wrong personal choices. Most importantly it is not about diet but what foods work for our body to give us vitality and not act as a poison against it.
Our body really do know the foods that are both nutritious and and supportive for us. I have refined the foods I eat by listening to the signs such as raciness if I ate sugar or bloating if I ate wheat and I no longer get stomach pains or bloating and all the other discomforts and illnesses I used to get from eating foods that I liked, but my body knew were no longer suitable for me to eat.
Connecting with our body works wonders. lately I have taken the same approach as you, only needing what is truly nourishing and supportive for my body. It has taken a bit of experimentation to get there. But today I can say I enjoy cooking and eating more than ever, every meal feels great! There is so much detail in which we can observe life, and it is truly fun to do that.
Food is such an important part of how we care for ourselves. There are so many rules we are supposed to follow and yet it can be quite simple. If we react to it, if we are depleted by it…we either need to check and change why we are eating it or consider if we need to keep eating it at all.
I spent many years on and off diets, tried starving myself, eating raw foods only and using diet pills to drop the excess weight I was carrying – none of this worked. I may have dropped a couple of kilos only to find they would creep back on very quickly as I was never dealing with the issues as to why I ate too much or indulged in the wrong foods. When I began to address the underlying issues and make choices around food that supported and nourished my body and didn’t dull it in anyway, my excess weight just naturally fell away and has continued to stay off. What Universal Medicine presents around self-care and self-love truly works and has supported me to make choices that increase my energy and vitality and my ability to work full-time shift work with greater ease.
Well said Anna, in my experience of food and people’s choices around food I have noticed that we always focus on “what foods we are eating, we need to stop eating these foods”, where as we don’t actually consider “what is it about the way I am living that means I want to eat this way”
Spot on Oliver… “what is it about the way I am living that means I want to eat this way”. We have to ask the right questions of ourselves if we want to truly change.
It is great when we have a greater awareness of our body, to be able to feel the exact impact something we eat has on our body, and then we can feel if it is supportive or not to continue to have it in our diet.
You offer some great insights as to what drives us to eat other than to nurture and nourish our bodies. Thank you.
“I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body” – so simple and so obvious, yet, very often the rewarding/numbing/comforting factor is what we seek therefore dictates what/how/when/how much we eat. The beauty of what Serge Benhayon presents is that it’s never about controlling weight, but it is about developing and deepening the connection with our own body – and weight loss is a kind of by-product of that process.
Thank-you JJ, I have not been on one diet since I met Serge Benhayon and been a part of Universal Medicine, however I have eliminated foods from my diet and changed the way I eat food and feel about food. Because of this I have naturally dropped weight and changed shape. I now eat less food than I ever have but have more energy then I have ever had.
Super cool JJ – thank you so much for sharing!
That is very cool! Dieting does not work as we don’t address the issues and emotions why we eat the things we eat. When we establish a relationship with ourselves and our body, then we can start to eat differently and our body will go to its natural shape. When people tell me they want to lose weight, I always start to focus on the relationship with themselves and the connection with their body.
There are a lot of foods that I know don’t support me and yet I struggle to not eat them, but if I know they have a negative affect on me why would I still eat them?
This is a pretty common occurrence for many -we know a food isn’t good for us, and yet still continue to use it, what I’m realising is that that is the key, I am using it for another purpose, to not feel something, so to answer this question rather than try not to eat the food, I’m now taking a step back, I’m asking myself ‘how am I? Why do I feel like eating this?’ -being very gentle with myself and aware that there is something else going to take not of…
Awesome Laura, so rather than trying to employ will-power and create a battle with ourselves, you are suggesting we stand back, give ourselves a little space and allow ourselves to be curious as to what is actually playing out when we feel the urge to eat something that does not support our body. This is so much more supportive – and actually allows the opportunity to cut the cycle of feeling something – a hurt, an emotion, even tiredness or boredom – and automatically reaching for a food as a quick fix before you’ve even allowed yourself the space to clock what is going on.
Thank you for sharing JJ about how trusting your inner knowingness has supported you to discern what foods support you and which don’t. I have had a lot of resistance to letting go of certain foods which I knew were no longer supporting me, especially fruit but the more I am willing to be honest about what my body is telling me the more able I am to look at what I am trying to avoid feeling when I eat certain items and make different choices.
Using food and alcohol to ‘sweeten the deal of life’ is something that the human body just does not seem to appreciate. This is clearly evidenced by our escalating statistics of obesity. It also highlights the fact that something is wrong with how we are living in todays modern day society… and obviously, how and what foods many are eating. Like you JJ I have found by letting go of the foods my body doesn’t tolerate with professional support, it definitely allows me to ‘drop the excess load’ I have been carrying from the past. Great blog.
“One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body, and not have the gluten-free goodies and dairy-free chocolate etc., that I was still reaching for/eating.” This is great and I feel the same. I used to ‘love’ to eat chocolate but did not feel like it nourished my body in any way. It makes so much sense to just eat what your body needs to nourish it and not put things in it only for the pleasure in your mouth, whilst knowing it is not truly beneficial for the body.
Great sharing JJ, for me diet has been all about becoming more aware of why I am using certain foods and to feel the “body pleasure” of clarity and not the “mouth pleasure” of denseness after eating.
Thankyou. Re-emphasising how important food is in our lives, and that we must feel into what to eat.
Thank you JJ How awesome to hear how you took listening to your body to a whole new level. It is amazing what we can choose to eat in order to bury our unresolved emotions and issues further. Well done you for dealing with the root cause and being able to move on and evolve further. Truly listening to our bodies can not help but bring harmony.
I can relate to so much of what you have written here JJ, especially having digestion problems and the extra weight I was carrying around prior to meeting Serge Benhayon. When I started to look at my food choices and my relationship with food i.e which foods was I eating to comfort myself or bury a feeling, I started to feel how much my weight had become a protection for me and that I felt safer being over weight – then the weight naturally fell away without me having to diet.
When you first give up gluten and/or dairy you can feel that you have found all the answers, as the change is dramatic. I lost a lot of weight without trying and felt so much better and lighter in my body. However tuning into your body for what it actually needs rather than what tastes good or relieves the tension of a moment, is an ongoing process.
I agree. Its hard to address our diet if we don’t address how we feel in our body first. Carrying around a lot of weight and feeling heavy in our bodies could be a result of carrying excess emotions. Thanks for sharing your story!
Discerning our food choices is never ending. Reading this blog is perfect timing as I feel once again that some of the food choices I am making are not supporting me where I am today. It is great to be reminded – thank you.
Diets are so prescriptive and have little to do with meeting the true needs of the body. Nothing in our lives change really with diet, it’s just a temporary restriction and often feels quite terrible to follow. None of the underlying reasons for overeating are addressed. I love your blog about the simplicity of listening to and understanding yourself, and without trying the weight came off by respecting your body. In a world with ever increasing obesity this is an important blog.
One could also call it the life diet, in the sense that how we are in life and everything we do in life has an effect on us and thus we can’t isolate food from the rest of life by trying to regulate our body shape and weight with it.
Very true Esther you make a great point we have managed to isolate food from life but it affects everything we do. We eat more than our body needs and we eat the types of food that our body can’t handle and we think we are getting away with it, but it catches up with us either with weight gain or illness and disease or in some cases both.
when I stopped obsessing about losing weight and focused on eating what felt good in my body, the weight dropped off without an ounce of trying.
Yes me too Mary-Louise and after all these years of trying and trying and trying it was so lovely for it just drop off without trying at all.
I was one of those people that could eat anything and never gain weight… I was also a person that burned the candle at both ends. As I grew older and slow down a bit by not changing anything else my feet slow disappeared from sight. It is never to late to change the choices you did not make years ago. Your feet do come back into view.
I love your humor here, feet disappearing and re-appearing from sight.
That’s so very cool that you can drop the weight and not feel like you are missing out on anything food wise… because in the whole process you are loving you body. This means you 1. loose the weight and 2. you actually feel better, more joyful in your life… double bonus!
Yes it is very very cool. Especially about the food being ‘nourishment only’ bit – so liberating to eat to nourish your body as opposed to pleasing your tastebuds and head. The body so loves it and responds so well to this type of eating. It does its own little dance.
Hi JJ – I too have experienced that a diet is not a short term fix. A diet is the way I am choosing to eat every day, in every moment. It is a lifestyle. Bringing that to my food has stopped any ‘short term fixes’ and made me take much more responsibility for how I am with my body at all times.
Thank you JJ for your blog, great how the body can regulate our weight when we eliminate gluten and dairy, and accept a more loving way of being into our life .
You have named 3 of the big reasons we eat when we don’t need to: as a reward, to give us a false boost of energy and to bury any emotions we don’t want to feel. It is great that you have spoken about eating gluten free and how eventually this isn’t enough. At first your body says thank you but after a while, hanging onto gluten free treats that don’t nourish the body, feel almost as bad as gluten.
Eating because we think this is our primary source of energy is a huge false belief, I know I grew up thinking that, and often carried food for fear of running out of energy, instead of realising the quality we live in gives us our energy.
I like your list of three Fiona, and what is interesting is we can do all three with even the ‘healthiest’ of diets…it’s not just the food but your list of three that determines its benefit or impact.
So true Joel, Fiona’s 3 reasons can be used with healthy or unhealthy foods. I don’t eat many so called ‘unhealthy’ foods but I can put my hands and feet up to that I choose to eat for all of these reasons.
Absolutely Fiona, also filling the emptiness which is usually around a reward; satisfying the cravings which is usually to do with a ‘false boost’ of energy, that then leads to lethargy, falsely thinking our body somehow needs that as a nutritious food; or ‘I need it because there is a sugar that is natural for my body’ – all these and more dull our sixth sense. Plus, the whole thing about addictions around legal drugs such as caffeinated drinks and even decaffeinated which when truly felt still stimulates, plus alcohol or any drug all used ‘to bury emotions’ and thus not feel. When I first set out to change my diet over 10 years before I met Serge Benhayon, alcohol, gluten and dairy were obviously affecting me and I slowly dropped differing types and variations of these types of drugs and foods from my diet. Then the ‘gluten free treats’ were doing exactly the same thing to my body as the gluten products, the same as the decaffeinated drinks mentioned above. My feeling is that when we slowly change our eating habits our body shares more and more how different foods affect us, some in a way that allows our body to evolve with more feeling and others that can only be described as being in disregard to our natural ability to heal and thus holding us back from evolving or numbing our bodies.
Losing weight the natural way – I love it!
Sublime! That is french for ‘fantastic’. As, how truly healing is it to lose weight this way, without pushing yourself, just lovingly letting your body live its way.
Losing weight in this way is indeed healing. Rather than using exercise and food to mould your body into what you feel it should be, you are allowing your body to assume its natural shape after.
Yes DannaElmalah as this type of weight loss changes how we eat emotionally which is a driving force for many people’s weight issues.
Yes Natasa, we think that our weight problem is in the foods we eat only, but it is actually deeper. It is for example the reason why we eat certain food, the mood we are in and consume things, the way we eat and how much. Shortly said, there is more truth about weight loss..diets.. then meets the eye. This is what is needed to be looked at before being able to heal the issue.
I am amazed at how trigger food happy I am it is such an automatic reaction that whenever i feel anything happy sad overwhelmed it is somehow marked with a food item – this can be healthy or not healthy. I have been eating gluten and dairy free for about 10 years now and that has helped me to be able to connect more deeply to what is going on in my body. I am finding that it takes a reasonable amount of discipline and honesty to feel what is going on and to not shove something into my body when it is not needed especially when it is not hungry.
Absolutely – the many different ways we use food as a comfort and coping mechanism is a science in itself! It takes a huge amount of commitment to look deeper into why we eat and the effects of different foods on our bodies – but it is for sure a commitment worth making.
Totally agree Meg, can we count the ways! and to understand the effects of those foods on our bodies is a science worth exploring also. Reaching for sugar is an instant alert that something is amiss – if only we paid attention to that. The greatest discovery of all is how amazing I can actually feel in this body if I happen to give it what it truly needs in nourishment (instead of those banana pancakes and maple syrup 🙂
Well said Meg. There is definitely a science in itself when we look at comfort eating with the portion sizes that are currently displayed through eateries around the world. The commitment to make healthy eating choices however small at any given time is well worth it and the bodies responses are in no doubt clear in how this feels from the start.
I love what you write here Nicole, ‘I am finding that it takes a reasonable amount of discipline and honesty to feel what is going on and to not shove something into my body when it is not needed especially when it is not hungry.’ I find that too and have recently started to look a little closer why I feel like eating in certain moments. Is it because there is something unclear/unresolved and I do not want to look at it or feel like I don’t know how to cope with it, is it because I feel sad, irritated or the likes and am seeking comfort to have a temporarily relieve, have I not expressed something that I felt to express and now take food to override this, the list could go on and on. What I have found is that there are not so many occasions in the day where my body actually really needs food in regards to staying vital and strong. Food for that matter I need very little of.
Yes it is pretty ingrained in us to eat as a form of celebration or commiseration and also as a form of stimulation. To eat to nourish your body – its not rocket science but has alluded so many of us for so many years. I ate for many reasons but like JJ I am returning to eat for nourishment only – for my body and not for my head or mouth. And some days are better than others but it is now the way forward for me. I still enjoy preparing a nourshing meal to eat either for myself or for friends and family and enjoy the celebration of coming together but it is more about the people than the feast.
To eat only for nourishment, I like that. It is a totally different approach to eating and it breaks the belief that we live to eat and brings it back to nourishing our bodies in order to carry us through life full of vitality and strength.
I am exactly the same Nicole. The moment I react to something or don’t want to feel I have an urge to reach for food. However, I also use food to not feel my true self when I am feeling amazing. That too, paradoxically, is an uncomfortable sensation in my body. If we allow it to be, food really is the ultimate medication to life.
Absolutely Nicole, after reading your comment I took a moment to consider actually the enormous effect that not eating gluten and dairy has had on my body, and now I really can appreciate the level of awareness that I have been able to develop with a gluten and dairy free diet. For the foods feel so dis-harmonious in the body that they both cloud the mind, and the body. Making it very hard to truly feel what is going on
I also have lost a lot of weight simply by removing gluten and dairy from my diet and also feel so much better for it.
Food is always an interesting issue, many of our eating habits we pick up from when we were younger, and today it’s so easy to drop into convenience foods that are full of sugar and salt. When I went to a presentation by Serge I felt to explore letting go of gluten and dairy and have found my natural body take shape without any need to diet.
It’s amazing how with some care and attention our bodies find their natural weight and shape!
I agree Meg, and enjoying our bodies and being in them rather then bombarding them with foods that do not suit it is profound.
Absolutely Meg! Over the past few years since taking a lot more care of myself and learning to listen to my body, I have naturally lost (and been able to keep off) weight that for the previous 2 decades I had been struggling with – and without any focus on losing weight at all, but simply taking care of me!
Good point Ariana – when was the last time I was actually hungry? (rather than eating because the rest of my family were, or it was a meal time, or just in pure comfort – snacking)
“I realised I was using them to ‘sweeten the deal’ my life felt to me back then.” I’ve used little treats to sweeten the deal throughout life – either to celebrate, or to commiserate… all the while not appreciating that they are making me feel less, and so I don’t feel as much of me as I could when I’m awesome, or what is troubling me when I have stuff going on. They just distract me from what is happening, and confirm the pattern of burying how I’m really feeling. That makes no sense, yet I’m not alone in this – we could all do with some re-education like yours JJ
It is amazing how a bigger understanding of what is true regarding food and health can make possible such amazing turnarounds. Imagine if the world were listening! There would be no obesity epidemics (in the EU this is something on the horizon).
Great JJ, what I got from your post was that our relationship with food, is about the relationship we have with ourselves. I’ve also too found that what or how much we eat is directly related to how we feel whether this is emotional, and therefore eating emotionally then gaining weight, or living, expressing ourselves through the complete joy in getting to know our true selves again…when food no longer acts as a substitute to fill or numb-out on, but more as nourishment to confirm – to keep the joy going!
Very cool JJ. Yes, eating according to what we feel in the body is a whole different relationship to have with food. I know in the past, I have eaten to satisfy my taste buds, for comfort or to numb myself so I don’t have to feel what is going on. Now my relationship with food is very different in that I eat to support my body and am constantly feeling into not only what to eat, but when to eat and how much.
Yes Ariana and food is but one form of numbing what is truly going on for us and too hard to deal with at that moment.
Eating according to what feels right for my body has been important, but also being honest and asking myself ‘why’ I’m eating a particular food has also made a big difference, because food can still be easily used for comfort even when it’s dairy, gluten and sugar free.
Very cool JJ! It is both amazing and disturbing when you stop to consider the number of reasons we choose to put food into our mouths – I would hazard a guess that hunger would only be the main reason less than 50% of the time! We eat because we are bored, to be social, to connect and spend time with friends and family, to celebrate, to console ourselves when we are sad, lonely or stressed… Food has become so much more than a means of nutrition to fuel the physical body. We can use food to fuel us to live life, or use food to medicate and hold us back from true connection and living life in full.
Wow Ariana that is so true what you wrote in your command and it is sad that we as a society have forgotten to be aware of that.
Food intake is such a big indicator of our health and how we are dealing with our issues. As you say JJ – listening to our bodies before, during and after we eat our food is the best diet anyone can go on, not to mention the way we actually eat our food. Thank you.
JJ. beautiful to read you found the missing puzzle piece when meeting Serge Benhayon. That it is not simply leave the gluten, diary and sugar out and a miracle happens: overnight overweight is gone. For me the most important factor stays ‘why’ I eat what I eat and ‘how’ I eat and prepare my food. I feel a huge difference in my body if I connect to my own sweetness and eat to nourish myself and stay light.
That is awesome! “I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body”, what a whole different way to look at food, and nutrition. Thank you!
Hi there, just re visited your blog a few years later and I sat and realised that the whole eating and adjusting what you eat is an ongoing process. What used to be considered healthy for me a year ago, actually now makes me bloat or feel lethargic and heavy. Its not that its a “bad” food as such, but for me I am enjoying not feeling weighed down with food so making choices to feel vital are easier and easier.
I can completely relate to what you have said JJ, I lost 12kgs without even trying to lose it by being more self aware and eating what I needed, not what I wanted.
Great sharing JJ thank you. You really shine a light on how there is so much more to diet than the foods we chose to eat or not. Universal Medicine has very much brought awareness to how we eat and why we are eating. No matter what foods we consume if it comes from a need to not feel or to fill an emptiness or lack within ourselves the body feels and registrars this. To bring awareness to this and choose to eat to nurture and truly nourish ourselves is something the diet and weight loss industry is hugely missing.
Simple and beautiful. Just a dash of Serge, self-awareness and commitment, no diet required. Love it.
Lots to feel here, as you make a great point about eating for nutrition. Food can often be used as a substitute for truly feeling what is going on and I feel I too need to take a deeper look at my own relationship with food. Thanks for all that you have offered here.
What you’ve shared here JJ calls out the ‘struggle’ and ‘complexity’ in most diets. You’ve illustrated how simple it can be when weighloss comes from learning to eat purely for your body and not for any form of emotional support.
You have highlighted a truly valuable point through your experience JJ – thank you. About how our bodies always reflect how we are living. Whether it is in the choices we make with the foods we take in or the emotions we take on or a combination of both, our bodies are always communicating to us what is truly needed or what needs to change. We just need to pay attention, be honest and honour our connection to our bodies. This is a relationship that I am continuing to develop and I enjoy having the opportunity to deepen this relationship every day.
Very Cool. I still at times can tick the gluten free/dairy free box and have certain goodies ” because it is gluten, dairy and refined sugar free. Your blog is a beautiful inspiration to me.
from my own experience weight can be related to so much more then what an how much we eat. For a while in my early twenties I was seriously overweight after struggling with my weight for a decade already. I was not eating anything different than my friends around me and yet I was weighing two times as much almost. Through Universal Medicine I have come to learn that the most important factor of my weight has been the relationship I had with myself and from that how I ate, and why I ate. Everything is energy and therefor everything is because of energy and so our weight is because of the energetic quality we live, shop, cook and eat in.
“I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body” so true and I can very much relate to this. I have always been slim and never had weight problems, but I numbed myself with food and took energy off me by the way I ate. For me to understand that food is only to truly nurture my body was an amazing revelation.
Its an ongoing path of discovery to make the link between eating and emotions, I can feel more strongly all the time how I might crave to eat a certain food. When I am craving something that isn’t nourishing for my body then I can make the link to an emotional need or an exhaustion in my body. It is cool to be able to grow my awareness of this and I have Universal Medicine to thank for bringing this concept to my conscious thoughts. It makes food choices a lot easier when you know what is going on behind the scenes and why certain foods can seem so appealing.
I dropped 2 dress sizes when I let go of the protection I was holding against the world. I got used to feeling like I would get hurt if I really let people know me or if I expressed love back to them. When I changed this way of viewing life the weight dropped off effortlessly with no dieting. I dieted for years on and off before I realized what the weight was really about and the diets never worked, my weight would yo yo, this does not happen now and I have been the same weight for years and I can feel it is the correct weight for me.
”Since I have connected more deeply with my own inner knowingness, I am better able to feel what certain foods are doing to me.” These could very easily be my words, as like you I have discovered that listening to my body and not feeding it foods it does not want, has made an enormous difference in my overall well being – and that includes the gradual releasing 20kgs of weight over the last few years. I feel so much lighter and not just weight wise.
How right you are Ariana. What I have found from my experience quite recently is that most of the time I ate, because it was time to or because I felt my appetite. The result was to feel full up and with that not to feel anything else except the full stomach. Old habits die gently, but now I am finding it easier every day to just listen to my body: if it needs food, when it needs food and what food it needs. This can mean I will have four meals or just 1 meal during day and feels so very different and light in my body.
Thank you JJ for writing so simply and clearly about the changes you have made about what you eat. I have slowly learnt to eat what is truly nutritious for me by listening to my body and not what is on the label or what scientists say. This has changed my whole outlook and understanding of what ‘nutritious’ means… I am learning to let my body be the marker of what I put in my mouth and less what my taste buds are calling out for.
“Discovering The ‘Non-Diet’ Way Of Weight Loss” is such a great title and such a true one. As you share it is but to listen/feel what different foods do to ones body and to choose between having a short-term pleasure of the taste but with unpleasant consequences or to choose the long-term benefits. Having done that I feel so much more vital and alive I would never go back to choosing the short-term pleasure of the taste.
Thanks JJ, I love how you shared that one of your greatest moments was when you realised that we really only need to feed our body the nutrients that it needs – that there are so many fillers and unnecessary foods out there that have no purpose in nourishing the body. It is a big realisation and another big challenge to put into practice as we suddenly are faced with the cravings and the wanting to reach for certain foods that we know are not really needed or good for us. Food and diet, I have discovered are constantly evolving for us all. There is never a moment where we can think that we have worked it out and can stick to ‘this diet’ now – for the next day it moves on and the body needs different nutrients in different amounts or different combinations. I love how it keeps me on my toes so to speak! Your simple words are so true!
Thanks JJ. What resonated with me most about what you have shared is that when we are trying to ‘sweeten the deal’ with life, then already the motivation for why I am eating something is not true. If I am holding something against life, or feeling that it’s too hard, or upset or not coping, then it’s like life owes me something or I need some artificial recompense or reward to keep going with all that struggle. Or if I’m tired or exhausted then it’s sugar I’ll go for, rather than honestly saying – well how have you been living that you’ve ended up so wasted!
It’s to realise that there is something already amiss, and that needs to be felt and understood. But if I don’t want to feel it, then I will reach for foods that my body doesn’t actually truly want, and will instead choose something to race, stimulate, reward, dull or numb myself – which is just to avoid facing what is truly going on and indulge the comfort instead. This also only compounds the issues as my body feels much worse and even less able to cope. I have found though that when I’m true to what my body wants to eat, it comes alive and aware and so much better able to deal with whatever comes.
I also have made great experiences in leaving gluten and dairy out of my diet and listening to my body in what to eat. My state of wellbeing has improved enormously.
I felt the same Ariana. When I stopped eating for all those reasons the extra weight I was carrying just dropped from me.
Great to read about your experience with diet and food. How the fact of following a diet does not nessersarily mean that it is good for you or make you loose weight. I love how your write about a different angle and how it could actually be seen as changing the way of consuming food and supplements. Pretty cool. And awesome to actually see that we do not only loose weight by diets!
Thanks for sharing JJ, a great reminder to keep going deeper into why we crave certain foods, or more food than we actually need. I’m going to take closer notice the next time I start snacking, because I know that a lot of the time I am not eating because I am hungry but as a way not to feel what my body is actually saying or as a reward or a distraction.
It is so great when we find again the joy of living our lives JJ. I found this also inspired by the presentation and workshops from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. By becoming more lovingly with myself and by making conscious choices about how and what to eat, not eating for the pleasure in my mouth but for the pleasure in my body, has brought me a life that is more vital and sparkling than it ever has been in my life.
Thanks for your awesome blog JJ. It can really be that simple, can’t it…
Yet until I came to the work of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, I hadn’t known how to really listen to what my body needed (truly) in terms of food either. I’ve never had a weight gain issue, but have most certainly felt the effects of foods that have been heavy, numbing, bloating, etc. The difference in my diet today is quite marked to how it was 8 or so years ago, and I have to say, I feel fabulous for it, and continue to refine and take more care with my food choices as time goes on – not in any stringent or abstaining way whatsoever, but just by lovingly listening and taking care.
I had felt for years that dairy products and sugar had an adverse effect on my body and my general health, but I liked cheese, milk, cakes etc etc, so much that I over-rode these feelings and kept on eating them. After I came to Universal Medicine, I took Serge Benhayon’s presentations to heart with regard to what we put in our bodies, and I feel so much better for that decision. Giving up gluten is one of the best decisions I have ever made – after finally doing it, I lost weight and also lost the feeling of bloating I now realise gluten was giving me.
JJ I am going through a big shift with food at the moment so reading this is very supportive, I am using food to dull me, I have the same energy addiction with eating sunflower seeds as I did with cigarettes. An intensity to avoid feeling and deepening my awareness of what I do feel. It feels horrible and yuck to be here again, but just goes to show that whether it be chocolate, cigarettes, coffee or sunflower seeds it’s not the actual thing that is important to remove but to heal what it is that is driving the ill choices.
Thank you Vanessa I can relate to the awareness that it is the way I have been eating things like sunflower seeds I need to look at and heal because it is a repeating pattern ‘to avoid feeling and deepening my awareness’ and until I address this it doesn’t matter how healthy my diet looks I will still have the same issues.
We have become a culture obsessed by diets and have lost focus on healthy nutritious eating designed to support our body function and energy levels. Counting calories is not the answer as is neither thinking we can starve ourselves thinner.
Food is something we use for comfort, when we are bored, in celebration and indulgence and not many of us have a healthy relationship with it. Learning to eat foods that work for our body not only keeps us healthy and makes us have more energy but actually allows our weight to self regulate without having to go on a strict calorie controlled diet.
I explored many diets and exercise regimes and none of them worked or were sustainable. It was only after dealing with my relationship to food that I have been able to better understand why I eat and what works for me. The side effect of this has been that my weight has levelled out.
I found this great article on why diets don’t work and found it very supportive.
I can certainly relate to that – having lost sight of the fact that food is there to support my body many years ago… it has become a prop for so many other things! Good reminder Rachel.
It must be very freeing for our bodies to eat food in this way. No more eating from what we think we need to eat. A welcomed change to give our bodies what truly support and nourish them.
Awesome Ariana. Your words made me wonder about the difference between eating in reaction to how I feel, and eating in support of me. Perhaps that’s why we sometimes have odd weight despite eating ‘healthily’? It seems it’s not simply about the food we eat but the way we eat in relation to life.
Awesome JJ. We can remove certain foods, but if we don’t address the energy behind our eating patterns – our habits will remain exactly the same. Now this is truly food for thought.
very cool JJ!
JJ that is extremely cool. Yes it is amazing how we can kid ourselves that we are ticking all the GF DF boxes, and still be allowing old dysfunctional patterns of eating to be robbing us of a deeper connection with our true light selves. Eat light to be light.
It’s very cool, the simple path you have chosen to having a healthier diet and thus feeling far better. The way the food industry is set up can often be confusing and misleading. My experience of artificial sweeteners is that they tasted sickly and made me feel nauseous. This left me in no doubt that consuming them was harmful to my health. The guide you used, JJ, of eating only foods that are nutritious, is such a simple common-sense approach to food, as it removes a lot of the mystery around what is in what we are eating. It is also much easier to respond to how our body feels than apply rules of what we can and can’t eat.
JJ I can relate to letting go of excess weight and returning to true vitality from choosing foods that support my body. A big part of this for me was dealing with the fact I was hurt and living in protection.
Hi JJ
Isn’t it great to realise that we only need to eat what supports us, simple. And that diet and low calorie foods don’t work. Our body responds to healthy food that brings vitality and naturally knows the weight we should be.
Very cool indeed JJ and inspiring! I particularly related to this part – “I realised I was using them to ‘sweeten the deal’ my life felt to me back then, to give me false energy to carry my weight around during the day, and to keep me from feeling emotions I had buried deep inside.” I didn’t physically have weight I was carrying around with me, but boy oh boy I had plenty of emotional stuff I was hanging onto and eating to cover that up… that made me feel heavy, drained and like I could fall asleep standing up. Along with making changes to what foods I eat, I’ve also let go of many unloving emotional carry-ons I used to live day in and day out with, before meeting Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine. I now feel much lighter in my body.
Thanks JJ and Aimee. I can relate to what you have both written.
Eating to sweeten my life and for comfort so as to not feel what my body is trying to tell me. It is still a work in progress to truly honour my body and only eat foods which nourish it.
Your blog has inspired me to go deeper with my commitment to me feeling vital and healthy.
Thank you for a beautiful simple example of the power of the teachings of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, based on common sense. Eat foods that are actually nutritious, not ones that “sweeten the deal” in life. I also appreciate the depth of these teachings that understand the root causes of habits and behaviours that run us against such common sense and despite our best intentions. It is this deep understanding of love as the basis of who we are, that keeps me exploring that I actually do not need to give up sweetness, just choose the true source of it within.
Now that is the sweetest fact I have read for a long time Simon.
Hi JJ. In my early 20’s I was at 128kgs. I had tried many diets and going to the gym but to no avail. As I got older and my diet started to change I lost some of that weight but still only to a point. In my early thirties I met Serge Benhayon and my path of healing began. Through the introduction of Esoteric Healing my life has had considerable change for the better and now my body is far slimmer that the 128kgs days.
One of the lines that jumped out for me was “One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body” – one of my greatest moments too. And like you I have experienced some amazing changes in my body and in my life as a result of changing how and what I eat. Just imagine the change in the overall health of humanity if this message was heard and acknowledged all around the world. The food manufacturers of course would not be delighted, but then maybe it would give them an opportunity to put people before profits and provide real food instead of chemically created food and drink that has few, or no, nutritional components and is totally addictive.
I, too, fell into the trap of substituting non dairy and gluten free products, in the belief that I was doing my body a favour, without any thought of dieting, just a willingness to get rid of the bloated feeling in my gut. However, these substitutions did not help my body at all. I realised I was not really listening to my body. I was still eating sugar substitutes, yeast and additives, so I still had the feeling of being bloated. Since Universal Medicine, I listen to what my body is telling me and I eat what it really needs. The weight fell off at an alarming rate but has now stabilised to what is right for me.
I have discovered something totally contrary to a normally accepted belief. Last year I lost so much weight that the doctors were really concerned. I was sent to a dietitian and encouraged to eat more carbohydrates and dairy alternatives, (as I refused to start eating gluten and dairy again as I know what they used to do to my body), I tried that, but my body got really clogged and my weight did not go up. However, returning to a nutritious diet of many green leafy vegetables, some root vegetables, lamb, chicken, fish, and eggs, with the occasional buckwheat crispbread or very small portion of black or red quinoa, I have come from 47 kilos up to 51 in the last 4 months. The less I eat, and the more simply I eat, brings me back to a weight more natural to my body size and frame.
I have discovered exactly the same thing as you have joanchristinecalder, it is just feeling what our bodies need and not about a diet with rules what to eat or not. It is about the knowing that we know what to eat to feel vital and lovely. I had made my way of eating about rules, no this, no that. Now I allow myself to eat what I feel is nourishing and a nutrition for my body and I am experimenting with it. Just like you I gained a few kilos on a so called health diet as you have described in your comment.
I am discovering something else Annelies. I have been losing weight again, back down to 47 kilos, and yet I feel more substantial in my body. A while ago my body showed me the way I had been living through back and leg pain which put a stop to my life and most exercise. I went into a bit of comfort eating and eating too much for the amount of exercise I was doing in a day. However, it didn’t take long to bring myself back to feeling me and listening to my body’s choices of food again, and my body stopped wanting it so much. Now I am back with small, nutritious and not so frequent meals, and watching the scales to see what happens. I feel it is important to recognise that how we feel about ourselves makes a difference to our weight loss and gain.
Yes we trick ourselves into believing that the gluten free dairy free sweets are ok, but it is all the same in the end. How lovely to now choose true healthy food that supports the body for vitality. Many so called “healthy” people do not look vital at all.
I too have found that being more aware of why I’m eating has been really supportive, and also using my body as the final authority in what is truly nourishing for me; not just relying on information from outside sources.
Just Magic JJ. It says a lot about all the weight loss fads and diets out there – of which I’ve tried countless times – but to no avail. I’d gain weight on a diet as oppose to loose weight – how clear is that! So I struggled for ages with what to do and how to drop weight. But the reality was all I needed to do was choose nourishing foods and not fill my body with bad foods. So for me it could never be a diet – it’s a lifestyle.
Well done JJ. It’s a gradual journey, but it’s heading in the right direction.
For many years I ate very poorly and irregularly, not really considering my body. I never really had a weight issue but I did have a true lack of self care. How very basic is it to look after and feed your body well, yet many of us choose not to. It was only through Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I came to a similar understanding to JJ when she states,”One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body.” How simple really.
It so true that we eat to “sweeten the deal” in life. This is what I have lived and sometines still fall for (not with chocolate anymore though) when I feel my day has not been enough. What I have learnt from Serge Benhayon has completely changed my relaionship with food which has resulted in a weight loss of 27 kg.
Thank you for sharing your experience of this,
Well done JJ! I believe the word “DIET” should be removed from the dictionary because it’s a temporary way to lose weight. Diets are often broken, and can be difficult, or even sometimes unhealthy to maintain”.. To me, A “lifestyle change” refers to a more permanent way for weight loss as it looks at the whole, including why we might eat what we do – just as you have done.
Thank you JJ. It’s interesting how you talk about eating to ‘sweeten the deal’ I know I have done this so much. Even when I decided to stop eating gluten, dairy and sugar I could still find foods that would satisfy this. Like you my food choices have changed a lot as listen to my body’s messages and inner knowing of what will support me or what will cause tiredness, bloating and heaviness.
It is cool JJ that by connecting to yourself your body has found its way to return to the size that belongs to it without you having to follow any special diet or excessively exercises.
The non diet way of losing weight is the way forward, I was carrying around a good few extra stone before knocking dairy and gluten out of the park. I continued to eat quite a lot after I stopped gluten and dairy and still drank alcohol for a while but the pounds just fell off. It just proved to me that my body couldn’t deal with these foods.
Very cool indeed. I find my body is always telling me what nourishes and supports me and what drags me down if I listen to it – and this can change each day. When I listen and go with it’s guidance I feel vital and have much more sustaining energy.
It seems like a loving and natural way to live – and the weight loss and vitality is a bi-product of that and not an end result. That is beautiful in itself – as if there is no end goal – there is an ongoing commitment to the way you live.
I agree diets do not work – I tried for years all sorts of fad dieting from counting calories, counting points, vegetarian, milk shake diets, special ready made meals, colonics, raw food, eating chalk, colon cleansing herbs to mention but a few. It was a relief to give up the yo yo dieting and reduce my weight naturally without any pressure.
In order to diet you have to override what your body is telling you you need, it is going against everything your body is crying out for. It is so empowering to realise that we can all feel exactly what our body needs just by tuning in. Awesome.
I can relate to what you have written JJ, ‘my body has gradually dropped size and continues to drop the excess load it carried – all without my being on a diet.’ I too, have experienced weight loss and feel that I’m now my natural weight, all without trying and being on a diet, but by really feeling what did and didn’t feel good in my body and the effects certain foods were having on my body. And also by me being honest about why I was having certain foods e.g for comfort or reward.
Very cool JJ, yes it is quite something to get more of an understanding on what is truly good for the body and what is not. I remember as a child that I would very easily pick up a chocolate bar and eat that anytime but something healthy, I was not as drawn to and yet my body would crave for lots of green veg. No surprise that when I did start to listen, my body started to reward me with feeling much more vital.
It shows great willpower and a dedication to one’s own health to choose foods that are in line with what the body truly needs.
Thank you JJ, a great blog. By gradually taking gluten and dairy and sugar out of my meals and snacks, it has allowed me to start to feel what other foods were not really supporting me. I could relate to the ‘reaching out’ for food, for me it was like a crutch when things were not going so well or as a reward when things were going well.
You take away all the myths and confusion around dieting, food, health etc.. the simple yet powerful statement “I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body” is life changing. The problem that then comes is the fact that much of the packaged foods that we rely on is not providing that true nutrition. But at least knowing the fundamentals, people can start to make a choice instead of being caught up in the “slim fast” diet or next magic “weight loss pill”.
After having a back tooth removed, I was advised to avoid eating seeds, nuts and multi-grains. Boy has this has led me to a huge realisation! I am eating a diet that ticks all the boxes nutritionally, BUT I’m still eating things in a way that stops me from feeling my emotions.
I have loved green apples all my life and so enjoy crunching into them and since realising eating GF and DF was the only way for me to eat for wellness and my body, I started including nuts in my diet. I’ve blithely munched, crunched and chomped my way through apples and nuts for years now secure in the fact I was eating healthily, until the day after the tooth’s removal when I realised I was feeling a bit edgy when morning tea time came around. This feeling was more noticeable by lunchtime and I suddenly realised I had been soothing my feelings down with the munch, crunch and chomp of green apples and nuts.
On Day 2 after the tooth’s removal, I suddenly realised that I wasn’t feeling the edginess I had experienced the previous day. Morning tea had passed and I hadn’t given my usual green apple and nuts a fleeting thought. I noted the same in the afternoon. Absolute magic had happened, such is the power of realising what we are doing to ourselves that is not truly supportive!
I can now see I had used the munch, crunch and chomp to stop me from feeling how frustrated I was feeling. I had found a ‘nutritious way’ of burying my feelings and been deluding myself that I was eating healthily – something I now know I need to keep an eye on and check to see if there are any other ways I am letting this happen.
That’s great that you have felt such benefits from cutting out gluten, dairy and those sugary treats. I couldn’t agree more that we can either eat and make ourselves feel bloated, heavy and lethargic or light, bright and vital.
Very cool, thank you for sharing with us. Food is an interesting tool that we can pull out of the box and fall into the illusion that it can fix all sorts of things. As you say to “sweeten the deal” or bury our emotional stuff.
“One of my greatest moments was when I realised I only needed to eat things that provide true nutrition for my body” now that’s a true honouring of your body. Beautiful.
Using food to bury emotions is something virtually all of us have indulged in at one time or another. Understanding why this is happening creates the tipping point where we can truly and fully choose to eat differently, based on what our bodies actually need for health. The effect of your choice to eat in this way JJ is dramatic and powerful and I am sure could support those who feel helpless in the face of their perceived need to diet through constricting intake and using willpower.
What a great piece JJ and a great confirmation that diets don’t work but that feeling how you choose to nourish your body does. Our bodies deserve to be looked after tenderly and respectfully. It is a great marker of where we are at.
I agree Maryline, diets don’t work and never will simply because we are following a set plan devised by someone else. Only we know how our bodies react to certain foods. By feeling what to eat rather than what is prescribed we can start to truly nourish our bodies.
So simple, no diet fad needed just a genuine awareness of what is nurturing and what is not. Lovely.
Hi JJ, this is very inspiring.
Sometimes it’s just a matter of changing the simplest of things that aren’t supporting our bodies. I remember going to a talk on nutrition, and we were all asked what we had for breakfast. I ‘thought’ I was very healthy, but to that question I had to answer chocolate croissant almost every day, she then explained that this was a sugar spike for my body to start the day with, and even though I would eat healthy the rest of the day, my body would struggle to get the balance back. I’d somehow conveniently missed something key with the chocolate croissant part of my diet in thinking I was healthy, until someone pointed it out to me.
Its very true Laura and it shows just how much we kid ourselves that everything’s okay because we eat fresh vegetables everyday! I’ll just ignore the chocolate bar and the mocha coffee, coz I only have them once a day! I used to kid myself so much it is laughable looking back. Its a kind of game, weighing up the good stuff against the bad stuff and deciding that as the good stuff slightly outweighs the bad, I have a good diet! When I look back I can see that my body had so much to deal with. Some substances poisoned my liver, some things crashed my pancreas, or sent my adrenaline out of control. All my food choices became a weird game of countering the effects of my last choice of food or drink. Bonkers!
It is actually very insidious the way we lie to ourselves, and like you say Rowena, it becomes a sort of game. I’m also noticing how the food around us is promoted as being good or healthy for us, and yet it is so often the opposite, it might be vegetarian, or gluten free, or have some fruit or nuts in it, but basically it is full of sugar, salt and completely not supportive for our bodies. The more honest we can be the more we can expose ourselves and those patterns of hiding and harming we are in.
Super cool. With attending the presentations of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon, over the years I too have lost a lot of weight and it is still an ongoing process. More and more now I am letting my body tell me what to eat and when to eat rather than doing things by rote.
This is a great point, I now find I don’t eat when I expect I should, as in the breakfast, lunch and dinner times, but only at the times I feel I am hungry enough to need the food, and only the amount that will give me the most energy. Often with this, less is more (energy). I have also found with time that I am much more attuned to what food will nourish me and thus fill me up as opposed to that which is maybe convenient or appealing to the taste buds.
Agreed, very cool, I relate to the “false energy” you talk about, no diets required when we eat foods to nourish our bodies.
Thanks JJ for your blog – I certainly can relate to how my body began to really change with weight ‘melting away’ once I stopped dieting! With some experimenting I began to feel how gluten, dairy and sugars cause discomfort in my body – from bloating to sinus and raciness playing havoc with my sleep patterns.
Yep super-cool!
That’s very cool. Thanks for your simple, honest article.
Thank you, my reply has turned in to its own blog coming soon… ‘Men don’t do diets’. Thank you.
That’s a good point, sjmatsonuk – I don’t often see diets targeted in the media towards men… all the diets I see advertised online or in magazines are (subconsciously) telling women they aren’t thin enough to be considered beautiful by society. What a dark marketing technique…
I really enjoyed the light way you have written this. It is so true. As I am becoming more honest with my food choices, feeling what my body wants, and listening and not overriding that ( still a work in progress) I have dropped 10kgs in a 2 ½ month time period. I feel better about myself, have more energy and am enjoying how I feel.
Lovely blog JJ, I can relate to having health issues when I was on the gluten and dairy products and also, the constant dieting to keep myself from getting larger. Giving up gluten and dairy for me was easy because I found the relief received to my stomach was worth giving these things up for – never looked back.
I loved the fact that I no longer had to diet and the weight naturally, over four years came off and has stayed off now for three years. I am slowly building a different relationship with food and listening more to my body when a food does not agree with me in some way. As a result I have more energy and my stomach is at ease.
That’s MEGA COOL! Its a big consciousness to break – dieting to loose weight. I personally never had the will power to diet, but choosing to go gluten and dairy free and gently relinquish the substitutes and truly feel what happened to my body when I ate particular foods was a revelation. My body just let go of the weight very gently and at first without my noticing. Now maintaining a good body weight is very natural and easy and my relationship with food continues to evolve. Its no longer about loosing weight but eating to feel truly nourished and energised.
Thank you – I have found from my own observation that so many people at school want to diet and talk about loosing weight as they are self conscious, but when you truly connect with them it’s not the weight that makes them uncomfortable (many of them are actually extremely skinny), it’s the fact that they are missing their true selves and can’t express in full as everything they try to express is to impress other people and fit in with the crowd.
What an incredible reflection and level of awareness you bring to other girls (and boys) at school.
Thank you Susie, I agree, when we feel empty from not ‘expressing in full’ all sorts of dietary problems can happen.
Hi JJ, same same, it is a constant process of refining what I really need to eat, and it turns out I don’t actually need to eat much on some days and on others I need more protein etc. But the key is everyday my body knows exactly what I need to eat to feel vital and awesome.
I too lost over 2.5 stone and have stayed the same weight for 8 years, never feeling deprived as you can eat the gf df sweets etc. but as you say – soon it became apparent something more was going on in the reaching for comfort. I am still working through that one, but as I express more and relax I seem to be less pulled to the “I want something else” the something else, was me! It really is so simple!
“I want something else” the something else, was me! It really is so simple!” Love this Vanessa!
Thanks for sharing JJ. Since renouncing gluten and dairy I too have shed a few kilos (without trying) and have more vitality and more energy than I did 10 years ago.
Lovely blog. Thank you.
Great to feel and expose how we have complicated our eating habits so much that foods true purpose to simply nourish the body is lost to so many. How something that has the potential to nourish and heal our body is now used in such an abusive way, in epidemic proportions is startling.
Serge Benhayon, Universal Medicine and the student body have brought amazing awareness to this issue. It offers a huge learning, healing and service to humanity. Thank you for highlighting this so well.
The widespread acceptance of artificial sweeteners in a variety of foods eaten every day and also in many softdrinks, is ever increasing. It’s as if people have always known sugar is the ‘baddie’ it is currently being exposed to be, yet they are missing the ‘traitor’ lurking in the cupboard and fridge when it comes to artificial sweeteners. I wonder when this will be exposed and become common health knowledge as well?
Yes very true Judy, some of the artificial sweeteners do more damage than sugar. Having been a huge sugar addict I now know that it arose from missing my connection to my own inner sweetness. The more I have focussed on re-connecting to my true essence, the less I have gone for the sugar. Its a great feeling to no longer be searching for the sweetness in food as I can now feel it within.
Thanks for sharing, this is such a challenging one for many, and your honesty is healing.
Yes thanks so much for this post JJ. Your sentence that describes your moment of magic in that you – “only needed to eat things that provided true nutrition for my body” – is a great reminder in eating and dietary habits. Makes complete sense.
You have to love this one: Discovering The ‘Non-Diet’ Way Of Weight Loss… Classic.
I agree it is a great one – a non diet way of weight loss.
Thank you JJ !
This is a great documentation of how it is not just the gluten and dairy that affects us but the energy with which we eat and which is driving us in our eating choices. Thank you so much for strengthening this in me – my body is saying ‘whew’ as a part of me was still in denial about this, even though I have ‘heard’ it many times and have a pretty good diet. Thanks JJ.
I love your comment about feeling what certain foods do to you, do they, support you and allow you to maintain your vitality or drag you down with feelings of being bloated and lethargic. Listening to your body and how food makes it feel seems like common sense when it is spelt out as simply as this.
I found that once I started looking at why I was eating what I was eating it was easy to let certain foods and habits go. During that time I have shed a few kilos but most amazingly my body shape has changed. I am slimmer yet curvier and feel full of life.
Pretty cool!