Intuitive Eating -- For Real

Two Sunday mornings ago, all I wanted for breakfast was berries – strawberries, blackberries and blueberries, ideally with yogurt and granola, and a buttery croissant on the side.

We were all out of fruit at home, and our favorite dive diner has delicious eggs, but yogurt parfait isn’t on the menu. As we laid in bed thinking of where to go, we decided on Coral Tree Café. There’s one not too far from our place, and actually we’d never been there together for breakfast.

On our way there, windows open, the air so perfect it hugged every finger floating out the window, we noticed that Cheesecake Factory was serving breakfast! This caught our attention because CF has a big patio and the day was just so yummy that we wanted to take it all in by eating outside. So right then and there our journey to Coral Tree derailed.

Big mistake. Good weather aside, we should have stuck to our original plan. Sorry, Cheesecake Factory, we've enjoyed many delicious dinners at your restaurants, but your breakfast was awful. I’m not sure how you can make eggs so tasteless, and when I asked if I could get strawberries instead of bacon with my eggs, the waitress said, “We don’t have any fruit.” Seriously? Seriously. No fruit for Sunday brunch. I could write a very long post about how disgusting our breakfast was, but I’ll spare you. All I’ll say is that sitting on the patio in beautiful southern California weather didn’t make up for the pathetic breakfast we begrudgingly made our way through.

I share this story with you because I want you to know that every meal isn’t going to be perfect. Some meals may be so dissatisfying that you stop eating them with hunger pangs still in your belly. Other meals will be so disappointing that you’ll want to stop mid-way through, but you won’t because you’re hungry and there’s food in front of you, and you have to get to Costco, get the kids fed and bathed, finish a PPT and put the next meal on the table. So you eat it.

And if you’re like me two weekends ago, it may very well ruin your entire morning. In fact, my mood didn’t turn around until about 3 in the afternoon…….when I got home from the store with a palette of strawberries, a container of blackberries, my favorite yogurt and a new box of granola. Guess what I ate for breakfast every day last week?

So, just remember that even a “seasoned” intuitive eater like myself sometimes has gross food. And sometimes it even ruins my day. But, it’s all a part of this journey. Every meal is a learning experience. You’ll notice that my disappointing meal at CF did not lead me into a binge-fest (though it did lead to a week’s worth of yogurt parfaits for breakfast, and I enjoyed every bite!).

One other little nugget for all those nay-sayers out there who say, “Intuitive eating? Doesn’t that mean you can eat anything you want? All I’d ever eat is donuts and cheeseburgers!” Guess what, sometimes all you’ll want is fresh fruit.