Yesterday I had a fellow nutritionist in my office.
She had driven up from Florida, and was in an extreme state of distress.
She had been eating extremely healthy for 10 years but was still feeling awful. Through a medical intuitive reading, I had helped her identify that she had liver flukes and a bad bacteria.
When I did her medical intuitive reading, I did not know that medical tests had proven that she had E. coli.
Her distress was not about the parasites or the infection.
She was upset because her husband had been studying nutrition and he wanted her to try an even more strict diet to get rid of the parasites and infection. I had recommended herbs and other gut healing supplements. Another practitioner had recommended an even more rigorous eating plan.
Already, if she went on vacation, she was not able to eat the food at her sister’s house. The thought of eating even more strictly was very much upsetting her.
The demands she had been placing on herself to cook healthy for her entire family and eat a perfect diet had already made the mere act of eating a highly emotionally charged experience.
I asked her to rate herself about how well she had been eating over the past 10 years.
“Oh about 90, 95 percent,” she said.
“Take your power back,” I advised her. “Don’t let anybody else tell you how to eat.”
I did a healing for her to take her power back from all the people she had given it away to. I recommended that say a prayer and ask for her highest guidance, then go into meditation for 15 minutes and actually listen about what to do.
There is no substitute for listening to your body.
I explained to her that there is an actual eating disorder called orthorexia.
People who have orthorexia become so fixated on eating the exact right perfect food that they develop emotional distress over eating.
I said that I feel the first emotion we all ought to have about food is gratitude.
“Dear God, thank you that I have food to eat. Thank you that I am not starving in Africa, that my children actually have food to eat and that the neighboring tribe is not going to come over after dinner and murder our village.”
If you listen to your body, you will know when to stop eating. If you really pay attention, you will know what foods are right for you, what supplements are actually making a difference or if something you are eating has gone bad.
I was recently about to eat a piece of meat but all of a sudden I knew it had gone bad. It didn’t look bad, I just knew. Learning how to listen to your body is a life skill.
We can all learn about the benefits of organic food, healthy cooking and the like, but at the end of the day your body knows best.
One way to develop the skill of listening to your body is by practicing yoga. Be quiet and you will know.