I firmly believe that time spent monitoring our food intake in some capacity is a useful tool. It gives us a greater understanding of nutrition and an awareness of how different foods affect us personally in terms of feeling our best and navigating biofeedback (hunger, energy, cravings, sleep, mood, etc.). This allows us to arrive at a place where we can make the best decisions for us personally and set up clearly defined healthy guardrails that allow for freedom and joy with our approach to nutrition. It gives us knowledge that we can use to find our "forever way of eating." That is, one which we enjoy and will set us up for success.

The food monitoring and awareness that I am referring to could be anything from tracking macros for a few months, to reading food labels for a few weeks, to learning what an accurate serving size is by taking 30 minutes to weigh out various items you eat frequently with a kitchen scale. For some women, the greatest level of freedom might be found in tracking as part of their ongoing plan, but for the majority of the women we coach a Dashing Dish, their ultimate goal is to move away from that practice.

Something that comes up frequently with women who have tracked for any length of time is stress over laying it down when the time comes. Whether it’s macros, WW points, calories, etc., it can be overwhelming to think about the transition to eating more intuitively when you have relied on it for so long. So, what do you do when you feel the Lord leading you away from tracking? Today I’m sharing my thoughts as well as practical strategies and tips to make the process less daunting!

First, keep in mind that this process of freedom is about trust. It comes from laying down the fear-based need for control over our body. Many worry about what will happen if they don’t account for everything that passes their lips. Look at this process as making the switch from relying on human understanding to dependence on Holy Spirit wisdom. The great news is that He will guide you in making even better decisions than you could on your own. Yes, there may be discomfort in the unknown and it will require discipline to follow-through, but there will be joy on the other side that will be worth it! Just as you believe that the Lord is going to show you His best will for you in this process, you can rest in the promise that whatever happens to your body as a result of your obedience will also be His best for it. You may have heard the saying “the looser the grip, the tighter the hold.” This is usually the place women find themselves when tracking turns from a useful tool into an obsessive crutch. Ironically, tracking—the very thing you think is necessary for physical results—is often what starts holding you back from making progress in other ways when it comes to a sustainable lifestyle approach to nutrition. When that is the case, please trust that the very thing you fear doing will actually allow everything to finally fall into alignment.

Second, know that there is more than one way to make the transition. Sometimes “ripping the Band-Aid off” is easier, other times it’s not. You don’t have to jump in full force—unless the Lord is leading you to do so, of course. Be obedient if He’s asking you to go “cold turkey,” but otherwise consider a stepwise approach. I find this to be very helpful for women who keep teetering back-and-forth between tracking and not. If you have found yourself more than once resolving to make the switch to an intuitive approach only to lose your nerve and go back to tracking, small steps may be the solution.

Remember, just like the body can be trusted to let us know when we need other things physically such as water, sleep, etc., it can also be trusted to gently let us know what its needs are for physical nourishment. At the same time, we want to come to a place where we recognize what makes us feel and function at our best when it comes to food choices. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that eating intuitively means you always have to eat everything you think sounds good or you aren’t doing it right. Mindful eating gives us a balance of freedom to enjoy all foods in moderation, while also responsibly honoring healthy boundaries. This is where Holy Spirit guidance again becomes an integral part of the equation.

Note: For the purposes of this post, I want to clarify that I am referring to ‘eating intuitively’ as a mindful approach to eating which does not involve tracking food based on calories, macros, or WW points, and / or weighing out food on a kitchen scale to ensure you are only consuming predetermined amounts. Intuitive Eating as a dietary framework involves 10 specific principles, some of which will overlap with what I discuss here, regardless of your approach. However, if you decide to take a stepwise approach to your transition, it will not be considered “Intuitive Eating” by the traditional definition, but that’s ok! I prefer to refer to the process as mindful eating. In a sense, it’s one part informed and one part intuitive. You're taking what you’ve learned through the time spent in greater food awareness and now allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you in how to apply it!

I’m ready… let’s do this! But, wait… how?
If you want to stop tracking / weighing cold turkey, but aren’t sure what to do—especially if you are someone who feels a bit lost without some kind of quantifiable thing to track—remember that mindful eating actually involves monitoring and tracking, just not in the way you’re used to! We actually need to have practical steps to implement mindful eating, otherwise it’s going to be very haphazard. Let’s take a peek into what these look like in practice so you can feel confident enough to begin your journey! This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I find the following things to be almost universally beneficial, which is why I chose to include them.

Begin to focus on improving other things.
You can shift the focus you currently have on tracking food to a focus on building and practicing habits (you can even track these if you'd like). You can also track your body’s biofeedback signals. This allows you to do something that moves the dial towards improvements while simultaneously helping you to move away from the need for high control with food. A few examples of habits to build that can positively impact your nutrition or behaviors with food include: increasing water intake, getting to bed 30 minutes earlier, pausing for at least 10 minutes before getting second helpings, cutting off caffeine 8 hours before bedtime, aiming for a variety of colors on your plate, including occasional servings of “off limits” foods that you enjoy in sensible portions, adding a daily quiet time into your morning routine, setting aside 20 minutes to meal plan for the upcoming week, etc. For practical help troubleshooting habits, see this post. A few examples of things to track as far as biofeedback are: hunger (more on this below), sleep (both total hours and quality), energy (highs and lows), mood, cravings, or strength PRs (personal records) when lifting weights at the gym. When tracking these, pay attention to correlations between your habits and biofeedback so that you know how to make decisions or adjustments to set yourself up for success. For example, what foods keep you full and energized for hours and which seem to cause things like an energy crash, uncontrolled cravings, and/or irritability? Or, perhaps you notice that you sleep better on the days you exercise, and you also have less cravings after a night of quality sleep. See how good habits translate to feeling your best and improving outcomes? Journaling to identify connections and/or triggers can be quite helpful.

Monitor hunger and fullness throughout the day, as well as before, during, and after meals.
This can be especially helpful if you feel completely out of touch with physical hunger signals. Start gauging your hunger level on a scale from 1 to 10, where 10 is completely full and stuffed to the point of feeling ill, and 1 is absolutely ravenous to the point of eating whatever you can get your hands on. Most people will need to eat when they reach somewhere around 3 to 4 and stop at 7 to 8. This will of course vary by how frequently you eat and / or how large of a meal or snack you plan to have at any given time. The purpose of this is to begin to understand your body’s hunger cues and practice eating in a way that honors it. See this post for more information if you struggle with hunger.

Use if / then guidelines (i.e., create bright line rules) for eating habits and food related decisions.
At the beginning of your transition, this can be a helpful way to proceed when things might seem overwhelming without the crutch of tracking. Having clear actions to take will help you to avoid giving in to the temptation of reverting to tracking when you start to feel uneasy. See this post for more information on what bright line rules are and how to set them up. As outlined in that post, the goal of these guardrails is freedom, not restriction. Long-term, creating a system of knowing exactly what to do based on your preferences, circumstances, and even your weaknesses will help you make informed and intentional decisions. This plays a key role in mindful eating.

Create well-rounded meals and balanced snacks.
This approach will help you to feel satisfied and energized, without needing to measure or track. At meals, start to build your plate around your understanding of portion sizes and nutrient density. Rather than counting, weighing, measuring, or tracking, simply eyeball what you know you need in terms of lean cuts of protein, non-starchy/fibrous veggies, starchy carbs, and healthy sources of fat. Choose snacks that have a fair amount of protein and then tailor carb/fat amounts to your energy needs.

What if I’m just not ready to go cold turkey?
If you want to take a stepwise approach to moving from tracking to eating mindfully, consider the following options. Note that you can use one at a time, or combine as many of them as you would like at one time. You can also start anywhere in the intensity level (1, 2, or 3), if you are comfortable enough to do so. Additionally, I would encourage you to incorporate the strategies above simultaneously, if possible. However, you can shift to utilizing them afterwards if it seems too overwhelming.

Intensity Level 1:

• Stop weighing / tracking the things you have every day. If you consume it consistently, it’s not worth spending energy on because it won’t change anything you’re already doing or the outcomes you’re after.
• Continue to look up, weigh, and track the nutrition information for items you are not familiar with so that you gain awareness, but don’t waste your time on things you know the values of by heart.
• Stop weighing / tracking low calorie items. They aren’t going to make or break anything.

Once you see that no major changes have occurred with implementing the above, and you are comfortable, move on to eliminating weighing / tracking what remains) either by going cold turkey, or using one of the following intensity level 2 approaches).

Intensity Level 2:

• Track in your app, but stop weighing and measuring on the kitchen scale. I guarantee you if you’ve been doing this long enough, you can eyeball your servings very accurately and there is no need to weigh your food.
• Alternatively, use your kitchen scale to weigh out your food, but stop plugging your food into the app. You’ll be eating as you always do, just without actually tracking.

Once you see that no major changes have occurred with implementing the above, and you are comfortable, move on to eliminating weighing / tracking what remains) either by going cold turkey, or using one of the following intensity level 3 approaches).

Intensity Level 3:

• Stop tracking one meal or snack per day. Once comfortable, move on to not tracking two, etc., until you’ve stopped tracking every meal and snack over time.
• Alternatively, you can stop tracking one or two days a week, then once comfortable, add another untracked day, etc., until you’ve stopped tracking all days over time.

Hopefully this gives you some insight for where to begin the next phase of your journey. While this transition process may look differently for everyone, you’ll know what’s best for you when it leads you in the direction of freedom and doesn’t stem from a fear-based desire to control!

If you have questions, feel free to comment below, email me any time at Kaci@DashingDish.com.