What are Your Attunement Disruptors?

People are often surprised that I don’t tell my clients what to eat, when to eat, or how much to eat. I don't because I don’t have a clue what their body needs and wants at any given time. They are the expert of their body, not me!

My role is to help my clients connect with their body’s innate wisdom and trust it to guide them to the most nourishing, satisfying and supportive choices for their unique being. Part of this process includes exploring their attunement disruptors.

Attunement Disruptors
Attunement disruptors are obstacles that interfere with your ability to clearly hear—and appropriately respond to—the messages your body is sending you, including its sensations of hunger, fullness and satisfaction.

Here are a few common attunement disruptors:

• Dieting: When you’re dieting—no matter what the plan or program is called—you prioritize a set of external rules over your internal cues.
  
  For example, ignoring your body’s hunger signals because you’ve reached your calorie, point or macro allotment for the day; disregarding your fullness cues and overeating because you aren’t allowing yourself to eat again for many hours; or avoiding a desired food because it’s off-limits.
  
  

• Food Rules: Even if you’re not on a diet, you may still have a diet mentality and be adhering to a set of food rules, such as no eating after 7 p.m., no snacking, no seconds or no carbs. Your food rules dictate your eating decisions instead of your body’s needs and desires.
  
  

• Distracted Dining: Eating while multitasking (e.g., TV watching, emailing, texting, gaming, driving, etc.) inhibits your ability to tune into your body’s fullness cues.
  
  Distracted eating can also leave you feeling unsatisfied when your food is gone. Even if you're full, you may find yourself understandably seeking more food in search of satisfaction as satisfaction is an essential component of the eating experience.
  
  

• Eating Habits: Ingrained habits, like distracted dining, breakfast skipping, inflexible meal times and a clean-your-plate mentality, can cause you to override your body’s cues.
  
  

• Chaotic Lifestyle: If your days are intense, chaotic or overscheduled, perhaps due to juggling constant work and/or caregiving demands, your busyness may prevent you from hearing and honoring your body’s needs.
  
  

• Performative Eating: You’re disconnected from your body when you change how you eat when eating with others, such as not eating what or how much you actually want.
  
  You might do this to meet social or cultural expectations, please other people, project a certain image, or avoid potential judgment or criticism, which is completely understandable if you’ve been food policed in the past.
  
  

• Inadequate Self-Care: Not prioritizing foundational self-care practices, such as restorative sleep, joyful movement, stress relief and screen-free time, makes it difficult to hear and respond to messages from your body.

Start Small, Be Flexible
Addressing your obstacles to body attunement can take time, especially if your inner wisdom is clouded by a dieting mentality, food rules, weight stigma, fatphobia and other deeply embedded beliefs and behaviors, such as always putting other people’s needs before your own.

I encourage you to take small steps and to focus on what would feel the most helpful and satisfying to you.

It’s also important to be flexible in your approach otherwise you may find yourself creating a set of rigid rules that make you feel bad and guilty when you break them, such as “I can only eat when I feel hungry” or “I’m not allowed to eat in front of a screen.”

Sometimes, your work schedule may require you to eat at a specific time or while catching up on email. Or, you may want to enjoy a pizza while watching a movie, which can be a really pleasurable experience!

Being mindful of your attunement disruptors most of the time will help you reconnect with your body and become more aware of and responsive to its messages, needs and desires. As a result, you will cultivate a more trusting, intuitive and peaceful relationship with food and your body.