That time I forgot I had birthday cake in the fridge.

One of the benefits of practicing Intuitive Eating in our lives is that food is just food. There is no good or bad food, all food is neutral. This along with having unconditional permission to eat all the foods are a few of many characteristics of Intuitive Eating, which you can find the 10 principles here: Intuitive Eating Principles.

I love celebrating my birthday with my family. We usually pick something fun to do in the city and it so happens that my birthday is around the holidays so we get to catch all the decorations and lights which makes for perfect picture taking.

We catch the 147 bus to downtown and spend the entire day drinking coffee, shopping, and eventually settle down to a fancy dinner in the evening.

We did get a birthday cake of course, a three layer chocolate cake (always chocolate) and blew out some candles. Of course we always had leftovers. I had a slice, and moved on.

Three days after my birthday, we still had cake in the fridge. As my family continued to eat cake for breakfast, I completely and utterly forgot we still had cake. In fact, it was almost gone! I went ahead and helped myself a slice to go with my coffee that morning.

I laughed when this happened because before I learned about intuitive eating, I would overeat dessert since I wasn’t really allowing myself to have it. But because I have been treating myself to desserts more often, sometimes even daily, having cake on my birthday was just another day of treats for me. I was able to have that slice of cake and move on.

This is the power of Intuitive Eating, not waiting until your birthday to have dessert. Not feeling guilty for having sweets, but letting it be a part of your world on a daily basis, if you want.

Giving unconditional permission to eat ALL the foods and more often will actually let you not binge on that said food later. It is no longer put on a pedestal and your body learns that you will have dessert anytime, since you allow it to have sweets regularly. This goes for any food that you have tried to “keep out of the house” which actually backfires once you DO bring it in the home.

Want to experience this kind of food freedom? I have a free guide on how to kickstart your food freedom journey. It has great quick tips to get started.

Click here for your Free guide: How to Kickstart Your Food Freedom Journey.