wtf is intuitive eating anyway?!
Intuitive Eating is becoming *quite* the buzzword as of late. Some diet companies, influencers, and trainers are trying to co-opt it, while others and some healthcare professionals want to condemn it. So wtf is the big deal and what exactly does it mean to “eat intuitively”?
According to co-founder Evelyn Tribole, RDN, it’s “a self-care eating framework, rooted in dignity and respect for all bodies.” And I have to be honest, I absolutely love that description of it because it really captures the foundation behind the framework: self-care, respect for ourselves and our bodies, with an emphasis on making it accessible to all. That being said, if a person or company tries to sell you intuitive eating as a way to lose weight…run. Run the other way as fast as you can because that person or company either does not understand intuitive eating at all or they are willfully trying to deceive you by using it as a buzzword.
Intuitive eating is a relatively simple concept that isn’t necessarily easy to practice. Without going into alllll of the principles just yet, intuitive eating is rooted in attunement. This means getting in touch with our bodies and minds - hunger cues, cravings, nutritional needs, movement, and even how we think about and process information from diet culture on a day-to-day basis. Each of these has a place in building a respectful relationship with our bodies, minds, and food. Intuitive eating takes time and just like we refer to yoga as a practice, intuitive eating should be thought of as a practice, as well. There will be ups and downs along the way, and that’s normal and expected! We are often working through years or even decades of diet culture propaganda telling us that weight is the proxy for health and if we aren’t actively trying to control our weight, then we must not care about our health.
That said, it’s easy to misinterpret intuitive eating as being “anti-health”, and I see this a lot from health professionals: “You want me to tell my clients to eat whatever they want?! But what about health?!” And it totally makes sense that they would think that, especially as those spaces, including the medical community, are where the idea that weight = health is most reinforced. This is referred to as the “weight-centered paradigm for health” and aside from the fact that there is a body of evidence that tells us that weight loss doesn’t work and that it creates an incredibly harmful stigma for people in larger bodies seeking care, it is still the prevailing paradigm in medicine. It’s important to note that weight is not a behavior and is something that we likely have waaaaay less control over than we think we do. Shifting our focus from weight to habits - things we can actually do - that are accessible and sustainable over the long term is what *actually* impacts our health. And that is one of the ways that intuitive eating can come into play.
So without further ado, let’s dig into the actual principles in a bit more detail! There are ten principles that guide the intuitive eating framework and each one has its own role to play:
Reject the diet mentality. So what exactly is the “diet mentality”? Diet mentality is the concept that you cannot be trusted to make decisions about what you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat. Being in a diet mentality means that the diet ultimately makes your decisions for you and it effectively reinforces the notion that you should be ignoring satiety cues, cravings, and placing a moral value on foods, sometimes even entire groups of foods (hi, keto!). In exchange for following a diet’s rigid rules, you are promised health, wellness, and never having to diet again! Spoiler alert - if diets actually worked, you wouldn’t always need to be on one. Rejecting the diet mentality allows you to take back control of what, when, and how you fuel your body in a way that feels good for you so that you actually never have to diet again.
Honor your hunger. Whew! This one is a doozy! Diet culture will sell you on 50 different ways to avoid your hunger - drink water, go for a walk, chew gum, wait 15 minutes, if you aren’t hungry enough for an apple, are you even hungry?! Like, when did hunger become the enemy?! It’s literally just your body’s way of telling you, “Hey! I need more energy now!” The ironic part of this whole dance that diet culture does is that restrained eaters (aka dieters, who try to avoid their hunger) actually end up eating more and feeling worse than if they had honored their hunger when they first felt it, fueling the restrict-binge cycles that are typical with dieting. Hunger looks different for everyone and part of honoring your hunger is figuring out what it looks and feels like to you so that you can eat and give your body the fuel that it needs!
Make peace with food. I know this one can feel loaded as hell and I can totally understand why. We are taught from a young age that some foods are good and others are bad. But if you make peace with food and give yourself unconditional permission to eat, won’t you go totally crazy and eat ALL of the things? And then won’t you gain weight?! This is a very valid fear, especially in light of the messaging we receive about food and weight on a daily basis. And to be fair, it can 100% feel this way when first embarking on your intuitive eating journey. That’s why it can be so value-added to work with a coach on intuitive eating. Together, we can make sense of the moral judgments that have been ingrained in your mind when it comes to food and dismantle those fears through a tailored process, so that you feel empowered to appreciate all foods for the value they bring to your life. It’s a game changer when you can recognize that eating birthday cake with a friend brings you joy and that is just as valid a reason to eat it as it is to eat nutrient-dense veggies at lunch.
Challenge the food police. Whether we are conscious of it or not, we all tend to have food rules and the food police is the collective term for who enforces those rules. It could be anything from a health professional who lays out what foods are “good” or “bad” for you, a friend or family member who comments on what you are eating, or it can even come from within yourself via conditioning you have received through your experience with diet culture for decades. Regardless of what food rules you find yourself following and who is enforcing those rules, the bottom line is that having those food rules places a moral value on food and ultimately on you, depending on which foods you choose to eat. An important (and sometimes scary!) step to eating intuitively is to challenge the food police so that you can remove the learned moral judgements on food and your body.
Discover the satisfaction factor. Have you ever wanted ice cream, but thought “no, I need to eat something healthier”? So you have yogurt instead, only to find yourself back in front of the fridge 30 minutes later because it just didn’t quite hit the spot? This is so so so common and is also where satisfaction comes into the mix! Oftentimes, if you allow yourself to eat the food you want in the first place, it allows you to savor and enjoy it and then simply move on with your day - sounds nice, right? This is why it’s so valuable to explore the fun and fuel foods that you enjoy and how to work them into your routine in tandem, so that it doesn’t feel so overwhelmingly all-or-nothing and you can create satisfying meals and snacks!
Feel your fullness. This goes hand-in-hand with principle 2 of honoring your hunger, as they are opposite ends of the spectrum. The interesting thing about this one is that because of dieting, we can often find ourselves stuck in binge-restrict cycles where we first don’t honor our hunger until we can’t take it anymore and then overeat, completely ignoring our fullness. Both ends of the spectrum end up being super uncomfortable and each one perpetuates the cycle. Can you relate to feeling this way? Getting in touch with your body and observing what fullness feels like to you is the key to understanding this side of the hunger-fullness spectrum and breaking out of the binge-restrict cycle that leaves you feeling so shitty.
Cope with your emotions with kindness. Emotional eating is a very common coping mechanism, so if you find yourself comfort-eating, please know that you are not alone. Eating to soothe emotions does serve a purpose, or you wouldn’t do it - it provides a temporary reprieve from whatever you are experiencing and you know what? That is 100% normal and okay. That being said, it’s the big picture here - it can become more problematic if you start to notice that it is the only coping mechanism that you have when life starts to throw you curveballs. Intuitive eating encompasses so much more than just eating - it’s rooted in self-care, remember? Together, we can explore your experience, note the what, when, and why of potential emotional triggers, and ways to cope with stress and high emotions with kindness. I want you to feel empowered so that in the future, you can navigate difficult situations in a variety of different ways and give yourself grace if and when you choose to find temporary comfort in food.
Respect your body. We live in a culture where our bodies are demonized and policed for their size and we are taught that it’s our fault. This creates an emotional shitstorm, to say the least, and so many of us have spent decades trying to force our bodies to look in a way that just isn’t part of our genetic blueprint. We would never spend that same time and energy trying to change something so encoded into our DNA like shoe size. Imagine how different your life could be if you were able to focus your energy on respecting your body and giving it the care that it deserves? - building habits that nourish you and feel empowering rather than draining. This is what body respect is all about and it’s important to recognize this principle because it can be easy to dismiss something like intuitive eating as anti-health - just eat whatever you want, right? - rather than as a means to achieving better health, both physically and mentally.
Movement - feel the difference. How many of us have worked out to burn calories, make our bodies look a certain way, or to punish ourselves for something we ate? Just like our relationship with food can get a little sideways, so can our relationship with exercise. And just like there is science to the benefits of nutrition, there is research that shows a clear benefit to movement. These benefits range from improving mental health and mood to higher energy and sleep quality, just to scratch the surface. Here’s the thing. If you are only exercising to punish yourself or to earn your food, it might not be sustainable in the long run because you don’t enjoy it. Just like it’s important to find food and eating patterns that you enjoy, finding ways to incorporate movement into your routine that you enjoy is the key to sustainability over the long term. The fun part is trying different things to see what resonates and is enjoyable for you!
Honor your health through gentle nutrition. I bet you are wondering why this one is listed last! And that was completely intentional by the founders of intuitive eating. While this is a big one and the most profound response to the “...but what about health?!” arguments, it’s important to find some degree of success navigating the other principles before tackling gentle nutrition. Done too soon, it can lead to more food rules, moral judgements, and shame…ultimately derailing the intuitive eating process. Once moral value is removed from food and you are in tune with our body’s natural cues and how foods make you feel, it will be a natural next step to integrate gentle nutrition. For the most part, we know the basics of nutrition, but incorporating them without going overboard with food rules can be the challenge and this is where coach support is a gamechanger. Gentle nutrition becomes something you want to incorporate, not because you have to, but because you know that you feel uplifted, focused, and energized when you do.
As you can see, there is a lot more to intuitive eating than just “eat whatever you want!” And everyone is different and may need support on different principles, depending on their unique experience. That is where an experienced coach comes in clutch. I’ve certainly been in your shoes and have my own experience that I navigated on my own and I only wish I’d had a coach by my side while I processed my history of dieting, food rules, and navigated moving forward as an intuitive eater. While you are the expert on yourself and your experience, my role is to guide you through those past experiences and support you as you work through the principles you need so that you can move forward, find freedom, and focus your energy on living your life.
Don’t let dieting take up any more of your time or energy - click here to book an initial consultation and let’s take the first step toward food freedom together.