What is intuitive eating?
Intuitive eating is a non-diet approach that helps you tune back into the signs and signals of your body, break free from dieting and food rules, and will heal your relationship with food and your body once and for all.
I know. This sounds crazy! We are so used to seeking external ideas and rules on what to eat, when to eat and how to eat, that the idea of trusting our body is not only scary, but it’s also so alien.
But the truth is we were all born as intuitive eaters. As babies and small children, we ate when we were hungry, and we would stop once we were full. It is only as we grow up that we learn mixed messages about food. We learn that certain foods are “good” or “bad”, we learn that foods are used for reward or punishment, we learn to clean our plate because of starving children in the world, and we learn about diets, calories, and macros. It is these mixed messages that enable us to lose the ability to eat in tune with what our body wants, as we have become so reliant on the external messages, that we have blocked out our internal signals and we just don’t know how to eat anymore.
Becoming an intuitive eater is about re-learning to eat the way that you were born with. It is about getting in touch with your physical and emotional needs, hunger/fullness signals, and eating foods that make you feel good and that give you pleasure, satisfaction and nourishment.
What does intuitive eating do for you?
It enables you to be free from dieting, food fears, worries, binge eating and emotional eating so that you can have a chill relationship with food and enjoy eating again.
It teaches you how to respond to your inner body cues of hunger and fullness as well as any emotional needs, so that you don’t spend every single second of your day obsessing over food and thinking “is it time to eat yet?”, because your body feels nourished enough to make the right decisions for you.
It enables you to change the way that you think about food, and how to eat foods for nourishment, pleasure, and satisfaction, rather than by food rules, calories, or macros. Your body will be able to tell you exactly what foods, and how much food, you need to stay nourished.
It teaches you how to let go of black and white thinking, make peace with foods, and have a flexible approach to eating so that you don’t go into full screw it mode and eat everything in sight if you break your food rules, or go over your calories or macros for the day.
What intuitive eating isn’t
It’s not a weight loss model and it’s not a diet.
It took me a while to understand that intuitive eating is not a diet, or a weight loss plan, it is a way of eating that lets you stop obsessing over food. The goal of intuitive eating is to have food freedom, not weight loss. Some people may lose weight with intuitive eating, some people stay the same, and some people might gain weight. We are all unique and we don’t know how our body will respond. But by nourishing your body and tuning in to its wisdom, you will settle at your set point weight that is right for your body, whatever that may be.
Eating cakes and donuts all day
When coming from a period of dieting, it is natural in the early stages of intuitive eating to eat all the foods that you have previously deprived yourself of. But once you give yourself unconditional permission to eat these foods, which means allowing yourself to have them whenever you want without any guilt or shame, these foods will eventually lose their power over you and you won’t crave them as much anymore. It is called habituation theory. I experienced this with peanut butter, I ate jars and jars of them at the beginning, but now they can sit in my pantry for months!
Anti- weight loss
Intuitive eating is not anti-weight loss. Intuitive eating and pursuing weight loss are not compatible. This is because when we focus on weight loss, it takes us away from being in tune with our body, as we focus on external rules rather than listening to our wisdom. As an example, we order a salad because of the calories, rather than choosing the food we were craving. Or, we have calories left over for the day, but we aren’t hungry, so we eat past fullness anyway. Or, we are hungry for dinner, but we don’t have any calories left for the day, so we ignore our hunger signals, and we don’t eat. Bottom line, you can’t be in tune with your body and pursue weight loss at the same time.
My experience with intuitive eating
I want to be totally honest with you. When I first came across intuitive eating, I still wanted to lose weight. I secretly hoped that it would let me be free from dieting but also let me lose weight at the same time.
It took me a while to understand that I couldn’t heal my relationship to food and pursue weight loss at the same time.
So, I made a choice to put weight loss on the back burner, and give intuitive eating a go, and I told myself I could always go back to it if I wanted to.
And here I am now, and intuitive eating has expanded my life in ways that I never thought were possible, and I have never looked back.
I got my hunger and fullness signals back after years of ignoring them, and I learnt to let go and let my body guide me for the first time in nearly two decades.
But I also got my life back. Becoming an intuitive eater meant I could go out for spontaneous pizza nights without having a breakdown over the calories, drink cocktails with the girls without any guilt, I stopped thinking about food 99.99% of my day and I was present in conversations with loved ones again.
It wasn’t until I became an intuitive eater that I realised how much dieting and pursuing weight loss had been holding me back from living.
Benefits of intuitive eating.
Intuitive eaters have better health outcomes than dieters. Those who eat intuitively that don’t follow any diets, or food rules and that eat a variety of foods, have improved health outcomes such as lower cardiovascular risk, decreased cholesterol, lower triglyceride levels, a healthier relationship with food, higher self-esteem, and greater life satisfaction. They also take pleasure in food, and they have an improved nutrient intake as they mostly consume a greater variety of foods than dieters (who tend to stick to the same foods day in and day out).
But is intuitive eating right for me though?
Intuitive eating is for everyone, but that doesn’t mean that it is right for you. The most important thing is that it respects body autonomy, and everyone has the right to do what they want with their body and approach their eating in a way that works for them.
If you are recovering from an eating disorder, then intuitive eating may not be right for you at this moment, I would advise working with a non-diet dietician who specialises in eating disorders to guide you.
If you want to feel confident in your food choices, stop obsessing over food 24/7, and not feel guilty for eating anymore, then intuitive eating might just be right for you.
If you would like to learn about intuitive eating and exactly how to implement it into your life, my book Be You Be Free will help you.