Intuitive Dieting
With summer comes the sun, the heat, vacations and relaxing from everyday monotony. For many of us the sweet coming of the summer is accompanied by the bitterness of buying a new swimsuit and a critical glance at the mirror. Publications aimed at women report in unison the best diet to get in shape and chisel a Rubenesque body into Barbie doll mold. And many of us, year after year, fall into the trap of self-deception and denial, believing that four weeks of discipline and restrictions will make us feel more satisfied with ourselves. The desperate need to feel beautiful, or rather thin, causes us to blindly believe anyone who promises us a quick and easy solution, and completely negates our notion of common sense.
Paradox
Even as bodybuilding began to take off in the late seventies, bringing with it a wave of aerobics videos, thousands of new gyms, and nutritional research with constantly appearing, contradictory studies, surprisingly, the average weight of the population in developed countries has only increased. Beginning with the supermodel phenomenon in the nineties which held as an ideal a sculptural and iconic body, leading to the new ideal which results in skeletal parade down the catwalk of androgynous bodies, we can’t help by being stunned by the huge gap between our canonical ideals of Beauty and the reality of our bodies.
Even as they, under protest “do nothing but expand. The pressure of this new ideal is everywhere. The emaciated bodies of these girls, and the famous actresses who have apparently entered into competition with them, smile at us from advertising, magazines, television and movies, day after day …
Back to the roots
It is as if all that education about the body and nutritional indoctrination have led us to a state of complete dissociation from the same, generating massive dissatisfaction in most people with their physical state, and in worst cases, serious health problems, such as eating disorders and obesity.
This does not mean that medical and food suggestions are without warrant or value. However, we should also try getting back in touch with our common sense, perhaps a bit overshadowed by so much pressure and information, and above all, our own intuition. Because no one knows our bodies as well as we do. Yes, if you listen carefully, you know what your body needs to stay healthy.
Eat well, what you like, but without going overboard. And don’t let anyone or anything take away your drive to enjoy the summer and your well deserved vacation. Rent apartments in Lisbon, and enjoy the sunshine and the incredible delights of Portugal.
