In tune with natural rhythms

I never better understood why people can’t fast or have a diet without starving, feeling bad, and yoyo-ing, until I had to go onto a forced diet myself.

So many times people asked me how is it possible to not eat for two days in a row when I fast, for example, and I thought it’s all about doing the right steps before, after, and during. That would be things like taking fibers (psyllium husk) throughout fasting so that the toxins that became free can find their way out rather than recirculate in the body and give one a headache or nausea.

But little did I know about the importance of going for a fast when I feel like my body actually needs a break and a reset, rather than forcing myself - as most people do.

So here is what enlightened me:

These past few days I had my kitchen not very accessible, as there was someone painting the kitchen and dining room walls and ceiling. I could barely eat anything, and it had to not need any preparation or cooking.

I chose to have some bottled broth and soups, some bananas, and that was pretty much it. I thought I could use this context as a digestion ease, not a full fast, but at least some basic nutrition to give my body a bit of a rest from processing complex foods. But my mind wasn’t much into it, my personal and work life were intense those days, and definitely, my body didn’t ask for it - just the painter did.

And then I found myself in full starvation mode, both during the days of kitchen inaccessibility, and a few days after, leading even to a rampage on fries, burgers, and sweets. My body was just asking for more and more, like a hungry beast.

And it was a hungry beast. When the body doesn’t ask itself for a pause of sorts, ranging from eating or not eating something all the way to a fast, then it perceives a lack of nutrition as a period of concern, and the next thing it does when it eventually reaches food is stock up now, just in case.

Hence intuitive eating is very important.

Being in tune with the body’s needs, and following its rhythm, are very important aspects.

When we want to fast or do any food regime, it’s important to prepare for it but let the timing for the body to set, rather than us pinning something on the calendar with our rational mind. It’s also important to have an introspection before, during, and after, and listen even more to the body while pursuing a fast or a diet. Otherwise, we are just forcing it, and starvation and stocking up after will hit back hard, and it will all make it useless.

Intuitive eating appeared previously in my life in another way too. I’ve done a bio-resonance test and treatment a few years ago, and it turned out that my body was sensitive to quite a few foods, including supposedly healthy ones like olive oil, and it was taking a lot of energy to process them. Using the test, I avoided the foods I was sensitive to for a while, and I also treated myself with the same machine to decrease my sensitivity to them. The results were astonishing: I lost 10kg over 3 months, got into my best shape ever, and increased my energy, without doing much but avoiding the no-go foods my body was reacting to.

The more interesting part is that actually that list of foods I was sensitive to was actually the same list I would intuitively avoid. I never liked olive oil, lettuce, and a bunch of other things, but my mind knew they are healthy, so I would have them.

My lesson was to truly trust my body even over research on food, it always knows what it needs and doesn’t. We are all different.

Since then I’ve also opened up to listening with my intuition to what herb supplements my body is pointing me to. My curious mind is always there to check if the intuition is valid, and I always study the benefits of the newly preferred plant. For example, I kept “bumping” into passion flowers lately. They came up when I was looking for plants I can add to my garden, especially as I wanted one that can climb beautifully on the fence. Then I got curious about it, and I learned that taking passion flower supplements might help with ADHD, which is something I have.

I’m now reading more on the topic of intuitive eating. I just started this book called Gentle Nutrition by Rachael Hartley, and I’ll explore more. I will use all this knowledge when people book retreats with Barcelona Health Club and define fasting, diets, and regimes, together with them and their intuitive bodies, not just their minds.

As a side note, I’m also investigating lately the need we have to sync with nature’s rhythms.

I bumped into some interesting explanations of why we need to eat local and seasonal foods, because apparently the info taken from light, processed by the plants and that reaches our cells eventually, is better when it’s from our season and region, otherwise we get conflicting inner messages, and become more chaotic internally in a very subtle way. In an era when anxiety is trending, it’s better not to add this to the mix.

I’m still in detective mode on this, and will cover more about it later. In the meantime, I personally got myself into more serious gardening, and I hope that this year I can eat my own tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers. Nothing as advanced as the image below, but one can dream.