Episode 18 Just Listen To Your Body (Part 4 of 4)
Welcome to episode 18 of Wellness Wednesday’s Audio Series.
I’m Nissrine, registered holistic nutritionist, mindful nutrition & wellness coach for female entrepreneurs who are looking to prioritize their health and wellbeing without fad diets and wellness trends.
I created this series to bring a fresh perspective to nutrition and wellness, one that is centered on and lead by you.
There’s a plethora of information out there and it can be really hard to know what to do and eat to feel good in your body.
It’s easy to get caught up in fad diets and wellness trends, often questioning, doubting and second guessing your decisions when it comes to the way you nourish and care for yourself.
I wholeheartedly believe that; reconnecting with your own innate wisdom to know what your body needs to thrive is the first step to a life-changing transformation and true lasting wellness; and that progress is made by taking small steps, mindfully, intentionally and consistently.
Today’s episode is part 4 of a 4 part series all about listening to your body. If you haven’t yet listened to the first three episodes, I encourage you to do that first, and then come back to this one.
In the first episode I explored what it means to listen to your body and how to do it by strengthening your interoceptive awareness. In the next two episodes I went on to share tools, the hunger scale and the mind body scan, to help you strengthen that interoceptive awareness and reconnect with yourself on a deeper level.
In today’s episode, I’m sharing another important tool to help you further reconnect with your body and better understand what it needs to thrive, and this is the Food & Mood Journal.
While the hunger scale and mind body scan are excellent tools that allow you to reawaken your innate wisdom so that you can start actually hearing your body’s signals, they don’t necessarily tell you what to do next. While the answer should be intuitive, sometimes it’s not, and that’s where the food & mood journal comes in.
For example, the hunger scale will help you reconnect with your hunger and satiety cues so that you know when it’s time to eat and when it’s time to stop without relying on an outside source to give you a rigid eating plan and tell you when and how much you should eat.
The body scan will further help you by allowing you to differentiate between physical biological hunger cues and the psychological triggers of hunger and encouraging you to honour your physical hunger with food while finding more appropriate ways to cope with your psychological triggers of hunger.
The food & mood journal is a tool that allows you to connect the dots with your eating habits and patterns, your food choices and your physical and emotional state and mood. It will bring to light the patterns and choices that are serving you and the ones that are not and will help you make sense of what your body needs to thrive and feel it’s best.
Be careful with this though, the food and mood journal is not intended to be an obsessive tracking tool designed to shame you for your food choices.
It’s a self awareness tool and self-awareness is the best way to know what works for your body and what doesn't.
You can't eat with intention and wisdom and know how to nourish and care for yourself if you aren't in tune with your body and aware of how your choices and patterns are affecting you.
How to start a food & mood journal
To start your food and mood journal, use your reflection journal, a regular piece of paper, or your cell phone’s notes app to create the following 4 columns:
What you ate
Where, what time and with whom you ate
The mood you were in and what you were doing when eating
How you felt physically & psychologically before and/after eating
It’s important to make note of moments when you are in touch with your hunger and satiety cues for three reasons:
to know what they feel like for future reference.
to track changes in your ability to connect with your signals over time.
to celebrate progress as it happens.
After a few days, take a look at your entries and make note of anything that jumps out at you:
are you overeating, undereating or under nourishing regularly?
are your meals balanced?
are you snacking often and mindlessly, even when you’re not hungry?
are you eating too quickly?
are you often distracted when you eat?
do you remember the taste of your food after you eat?
are your meals satiating and satisfying? Meaning do they fill you up and please your palate?
do you feel good after you eat?
how do your food choices make you feel? (which choices feel good in your body and which do not - this pattern will emerge over time).
Understanding how your food choices and eating habits and patterns are affecting you and your mood will help you correct them. Not in an obsessive controlling way, but simply as a means to feel better in your body.
Next, reflect on your eating triggers:
did you often eat out of habit and not necessarily answer the call of physical hunger?
did you often eat because you were stressed or sad?
did you often eat because you were bored or out of habit?
did you often eat out of a sense of obligation? Because you felt bad turning down food that was being offered to you even if you weren’t hungry? For example, someone brought cake to the office, your neighbour dropped off cookies or your mom made your favourite dessert and you ate them out of obligation.
There’s no right or wrong. While ideally we eat for physical hunger, non physical triggers of hunger happen sometimes and to everyone. It only becomes problematic when you habitually use food as a coping mechanism.
When used alongside the hunger scale and the mind body scan as well as mindful eating practices, the food and mood journal will :
Bring awareness to your eating patterns and food choices and how they influence you and your relationship with food; physically and psychologically.
Shed light on which foods make you feel your best and which ones leave you feeling less than great.
increase your level of awareness of why you eat, so you can begin to address the psychological triggers of eating without judgment, shame or guilt.
In time, you'll naturally gravitate toward the habits, behaviours and foods that serve you most, while shedding those that do not.
On that note, I'd like to thank you for tuning in and remind you that if you’re looking for support with your nutrition and self-care and making it a priority, you can book a complimentary wellness consultation with me, to chat about your goals and how to get you there. At the very least, we’ll have a nice chat and you’ll get some clarity about the wellness journey ahead of you.
Last but not least, If you’d like to be a part of my pilot program, entitled (re) Awaken Your Innate Food Wisdom, a self-paced mindful nutrition program with 4 weeks of group support to help you prioritize your nutrition & wellness without fad diets and trends, get on my mailing list to get an exclusive invitation once I’m ready to launch it.
It will be a journey to learning more about your body and what it needs to thrive; it’s a mindful approach to nutrition that will improve your relationship with food; and a wellness education program that will guide you for life so that your nutrition and self-care will always be a priority.
To get on my mailing list, all you have to do is subscribe to this audio series or download my simple 5 step framework to nourishing meals in minutes and you’ll be the first to know when the pilot program is ready for testing.
I’m going to pop all of the relevant links in the notes below, so go ahead and click on and subscribe to this audio series or download the free guide to get on the list.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and share with a friend and be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Wellness Wednesday Audio Series, where I a share a short audio clip each week to inspire you to reconnect with yourself on a deeper level so you can start nourishing and caring for yourself, more mindfully and intentionally.
Until next week,
Stay healthy, happy and safe,
Nissrine
A Simple 5 Step Framework To Nourishing Meals in Minutes
You’ve got your hands full and more than enough on your plate. Take the guess work out of what and how to eat and make meal preparation a breeze, even when you’re short on time.
On that note, thank you for tuning in.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe and share with a friend and be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Wellness Wednesday Audio Series, where I a share a short audio clip each week to inspire you to reconnect with yourself on a deeper level so you can start nourishing and caring for yourself, more mindfully and intentionally.
Until next week,
Stay healthy, happy and safe,
Nissrine
P.S. If you’d like to be a part of my pilot program, entitled (re) Awaken Your Innate Food Wisdom, a self-paced mindful nutrition program with 4 weeks of group support to help you prioritize your nutrition & wellness without fad diets and trends, get on my mailing list to get an exclusive invitation once I’m ready to launch it.
To get on my mailing list, subscribe to this audio series or download my simple 5 step framework to nourishing meals in minutes and you’ll be the first to know when the pilot program is ready for testing.
It will be a journey to learning more about your body and what it needs to thrive; A mindful approach to nutrition that will improve your relationship with food; and a wellness education program that will guide you for life so your nutrition and self-care will always be a priority.
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