How is 2019 going for you? How are you feeling about the intentions and goals you’ve set for yourself? Are you finding them to be realistic or are you feeling you’ve bitten off more than you can chew? (metaphorically)

My wish for you is that this year brings you closer to your goals and further from the beliefs and behaviors that have you making the same resolutions yielding the same unsuccessful results. I know how that feels. For most of my young adult and later years, I started every New Year resolved to change my body. It recently dawned on me that I have spent most of my adult life either trying to take weight off or put weight on. Taking time to relish where I was never dawned on me. I will never have that time back – those minutes, hours and days. I won’t remember experiences with my daughters, friends or loved ones. My experience, both personal and professional, has taught me it doesn’t have to be this way and I will forever resolve to remain both present and a strong presence in the lives of those I hold dear.

As an eating psychology coach, my role is to guide you to positive empowerment; to help you connect with a mind/body approach to what fully and truly nourishes you; to honor your hunger for food and appetite for life. My functional approach to nutrition will guide you to understanding your unique physiology – what to eat based on the unique physiology that is crafted by genetics, history and a complex system that makes up your microbiome – the bio-terrain that is the foundation for much of your well-being.

It’s time to explore that what you eat is only half the story of good health. The other half is who you are as an eater. It’s time to bring your best self to the table.

What follows are 5 intentions that will strategically help ensure that your efforts bring you success rather than the same old results that have you frustrated, deprived and defeated by Spring.

1) Let go of the control. Do you have the need to control your appetite, food intake, fat, carbs and pleasure in your diet?  Are your control tactics still resulting in binge eating, over eating, thinking about food all the time? My professional and personal experience tells me control is anything but effective for the long-run. What it brings to the table is a generous serving of self-abuse that has you attacking your body rather than honoring it.  Instead, accept that letting go of control doesn’t mean being reckless. It means embracing empowered choice and relaxing into the flow of your body’s wisdom. Control is a product of fear-based living. Let go of the fear and watch the path reveal itself; we learn the way on the way.

2) Start each day with gratitude, even if you are not feeling very grateful at the moment for your situation or even the body you have. Accept that everything you have experienced, every high, low and in between has led to this moment. In this moment you get to take the action necessary to explore the life you are meant to live. Know you are right where you need to be. Find gratitude for the journey unfolding.

3) Stop looking to the mainstream media for your nutrition information. It appears that every week there is a new study making headlines, a new diet craze to jump on, or a new celebrity turned lifestyle guru selling a plan that has you pining for a body type you may never be able to achieve. This type of hype is part of the reason for the confusion and fear that has you stuck in disordered thinking and behaviors that do nothing to nourish. Instead, ask the question, “What does my body want?” Know that all this information, many of it contradictory, only serves to keep you stuck in those negative thoughts about what you should or shouldn’t be eating. The reality is that it’s the body that gives the signals. Include yours in the conversation.

4) Know the difference between self-kindness and self-indulgence. Show loving kindness to yourself by eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full. Find pleasure and satisfaction in your food choices, knowing your choices are healthful for your body. Self-indulgence in an effort not to feel deprived only serves to deprive you from true and complete nourishment, and ultimately from discovering the best version of yourself.

5) Today is the day to reclaim your natural instinct. Perhaps the instinct for what and how nourished YOUR body can be never developed or was thwarted by disordered messages. Take a good look at those messages and re-frame them for the here and now. Re-framing, Re-inventing and Re-joicing is indeed the fully nourished life, The Freedom Promise.