Hi, it's Victoria here from Bam Pow Life and in this video we are talking about vegetarian/veganism and intuitive eating. Now, before we start this video make sure that you like and subscribe and share with all your friends if you think it's fabulous which I believe you will do.

Check out the links below where I have a ton of resources there for you, free things for you to continue on this journey of loving your body and eating intuitively. I did a webinar recently and someone asked me is intuitive eating something that you can do if you are a vegan or vegetarian and I thought that that was an incredible question. This is something that I've not spoken a lot about because I don't want any type of telling people what types of food to eat for any reasons whether it's moral, ethical, whatever.

I have been a vegetarian for probably about eight years now and the reason I'm vegetarian is that I've just never really liked meat, I've always been a bit grossed out by it and also because I feel quite a lot of empathy towards animal and so it makes me sad thinking about them suffer. I am an intuitive eater and I am also a vegetarian, I used to be a vegan. Now, I don't like telling people that I'm a vegetarian, my audience, just because I don't want people thinking that I'm making judgments on the fact that they eat meat. You eat meat, go ahead, go wild.

The question is, can you be a vegetarian/vegan or some sort of eating thing and still be an intuitive eater? The answer is maybe, it all depends on the reasons behind it so a lot of people use vegetarianism or veganism as a way to continue to restrict food and the reasons why they're doing it is just because they want to control their diet and lose weight. The reasons behind it are not necessarily positive for their mental wellbeing and so, for me, when I started on this intuitive eating journey I was just like, "I don't know if I can be a vegetarian anymore because is it disordered eating?"

Through a lot of experimentation and realization, I realized that I'm allowing myself to eat as much meat as I want, I just don't fancy it, I just don't want it, I don't desire it. A great example of how you can be flexible with your vegetarian, veganism, whatever it is that you're doing, is I was really sick one time, I had gastroenteritis. Really, really sick and for a few days I didn't eat anything [inaudible 00:02:41] and the very first thing that when I came out of this sickness, my body said to me, "Victoria, you want some chicken," and I was like, "Chicken? What? What the heck?" I was like, "Wow."

It was a really strong you need chicken and I hadn't eaten chicken in years and years. Chicken, I was always like, "Ah, chicken," but I listened to my body and I ate some chicken, even though it was kind of weird. I was like, "This is kind of weird," but I ate it because my body told me that's what I need. If I was being very strict with my vegetarianism, I could have denied myself to eat that chicken but I wouldn't have been an intuitive eater at that moment. For me, being an intuitive eater is more important than being a vegetarian.

Is there something negative behind the reason that you have any type of restrictive eating? If so, you may want to consider taking a pause on that while you work on your intuitive eating journey or stop all together. But if you realize that you truly do allow yourself anything that you want, even if it's something that you don't normally eat and you're just not that bothered about it or you feel very passionate about something and it's something that is positive for your brain and your mental wellbeing, then that's okay.

You really need to examine what is going on there and remember not to be preaching to others about their food choices. As a vegetarian, I never, ever tell people, "Oh, you should really stop eating meat," or anything like that because that fucks up. They're like, "Food and guilt, no." There's no right place to say anything about your diet or what you're eating or what you choose to put into your body. I don't care, as long as you are happy and what you're doing is serving you.

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