Intuitive Eating 101

If you’re new to Intuitive Eating, or have heard me use the phrase but are unsure exactly what it means, then you are in the right place! This blog post will break down exactly what intuitive eating entails. 

Intuitive Eating has become a hot topic lately. You may notice a lot of dietitians are leaning towards a more anti-diet approach to nutrition, while you may see a lot of influencers bash intuitive eating for allowing “junk food.” You may even notice celebrities, influencers and diet culture use the phrase “intuitive” or “intuitive eating” along with particular diets or products. As I said, it is a hot topic and because of that a lot of confusion and misinformation surfaces. So let me help explain it in an easy to understand way.

So what is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive Eating (IE)  is an evidence based, non-diet, health approach created by two dietitians, Elyse Resche and Evelyn Tribole in 1995. IE emphasizes internal body cues over external dieting rules. IE allows you to reconnect with your body and heal your relationship with food. For many of us, we have dieted for years on end. We have ignored internal body signals and put the pursuit of weight loss at the forefront. We have paid large amounts of money for dieting programs and products. We have given so much of our lives to dieting that we forget how to really know what our body is telling us. Intuitive eating, with time, helps you break the cycle of chronic dieting. 

We our born intuitive eaters. When we are babies, we know when we are hungry. We know when we are full. You especially know this if you have a newborn at home. Babies cry when they are hungry and pull their heads away when they are full. Even as babies grow and turn into toddlers, they love food. They don’t view food as “good” vs “bad.” They eat what sounds good to them. They know when they are hungry and when they are full. 

As we age, diet culture starts to creep in and disconnects us from that innate ability to intuitively eat. Think back to the first time you heard food being “good” or “bad.” How old were you? Or think back to someone limiting the amount of food you were eating. These are examples of how diet culture infects our brain and causes us to make food choices because of those experiences at such an early age. 

There’s also food deprivation because of poverty. Having food security is a privilege many of us may be unaware of that we have. Not knowing when your next meal will come can disconnect you from your internal cues as your main focus is sustaining life. 

No matter what has occurred in your life, the positive news is that you now have the choice to heal your wounds and reshape your relationship with food. The natural intuitive eater is still inside of you! Let’s find it. 

There are 10 principles of intuitive eating. These principles are not hard, forced rules. Intuitive eating is flexible, which is why it is different from your standard weight loss diet. These principles are meant for you to interpret at your own pace, in a way that suits you best. There is no failing. There is not right or wrong. Isn’t that such a relief?!

Intuitive Eating Principle #1: Reject the Diet Mentality. 

This principle is all about moving away from any diet or diet culture that has caused you to have negative thoughts, unhelpful rules, shameful feelings and/or restrictions related to food. To reject the diet mentality, you must understand how dieting and diet culture has failed you. You are not a failure! Diets don’t work, yet society still believes there is some magical diet out there, some quick fix.

This can seem intimidating and scary, especially if dieting is all you know, but having an understanding of the reasons why you are ready to heal your relationship with food and your body can help you begin this process. Maybe try journaling about where weight loss has gotten you? Did you ever “feel good” at that ideal size? Or did you want to be smaller? Has the pursuit of weight loss damaged yourself more than you know? What about relationships and memories? How much energy has been put into weight loss when it could’ve been put into something else? 

Remember, you are not the problem!

Intuitive Eating Principle #2: Honor Your Hunger.

This principle focuses on drowning out the distractions and listening to our internal cues. When you are hungry, your body is speaking to you. Food is all you can think about. If you ignore these cues, your body intensifies them until they are satisfied. You’re not a bad person for being hungry, you’re normal! 

Providing your body with adequate energy and nutrition is so important! Your body functions best when it is nourished. It’s easy to suppress our hunger while working or in school, but years and years of that adds up. So trying to get back in touch with those cues may take awhile, but they will come back. 

Intuitive Eating Principle #3: Make Peace With Food.

This principle is about giving yourself the permission to eat any and all foods that you enjoy. Yes, even the food that you have labeled as “bad” or “off-limits.” Just as I talked about above, the more you restrict or suppress a craving, the more that craving intensifies. It is truly a natural response. Eventually, you will give into that craving (because we’re human!) and if you have given that food morality, and labeled it as “bad” you will then feel shameful or guilty for giving into that craving. You then go back to restricting and the cycle repeats. 

This could explain why you feel out of control around food. These diets that promote restriction or deprivation cause our bodies to perceive a threat, and that threat is starvation or a famine. So when we give into those cravings, we naturally over eat because our body believes we need to eat as much as we can to have energy stores ready for the famine ahead. Crazy right! 

So how do we get out of this cycle and allow ourselves unconditional permission to eat? To do so, we must set aside any food restriction thoughts that we are holding onto. We must allow ourselves to eat what you want, when you want. (It’s common to fear that this will lead to massive over-eating, but I’m writing another blog post soon about habituation - basically, you stop desiring foods pretty quickly if you just let yourself eat them.) Our goal is to neutralize food. We must take any food that we have on a pedestal off and put it on the same playing field as any other food. Learning to trust yourself with food can be hard and this principle may be a tough one, but as I said beforehand, there is no right or wrong. You can’t fail. IE is about learning from each and every choice that you make. So allow yourself to live and to eat what you really want. 

Intuitive Eating Principle #4: Challenge the Food Police. 

This principle goes hand in hand with principle #3, but this principle focuses more on the voice in your head telling yourself you “can’t eat that” or you shouldn’t have “too much of that.” The food police also can play into what time you eat, serving size, no snacks, etc. These daily reminders make it tough for us to truly eat what we want because do we even know what we want?!

Questioning that voice in your head helps to truly remove any morality left in your eating choices. After we question those thoughts that pop into our head about food, we then need to focus on nurturing more positive self-talk. We can then hear that voice in our head and view it as a nurturing parent or friend, rather than a harsh teacher or judge. We can eat for self care and nourishing purposes. Not because of rules we have created that need enforcement.

Intuitive Eating Principle #5: Discover the Satisfaction Factor.

This principle focuses on eating for pleasure. When was the last time you actually ate for pleasure? Many culture value pleasure above health and have better health outcomes compared to Western culture. There are many factors that play into health and I truly believe pleasure is one that is usually put on the back burner. 

Intentionally eating for pleasure decreases our chance of overeating or binge eating. It can enhance our mental health as we aren’t worrying about what to eat or the negative emotions to follow. When you don’t get the pleasure you are seeking, your brain can misinterpret this as hunger, which leaves you eating more in an attempt to find that satisfaction. 

Intuitive Eating Principle #6: Feel Your Fullness.

This principle correlated with honoring your hunger. If you can pay attention to your internal cues around hunger and act on those, your fullness should fall into place. Think about it. How many times have you let yourself get so hungry to the point of being ravenous? You make yourself food and then shuffle in as much food as you can without thinking about it. You then stop eating when you are past the point of comfortably full. If we think about what started the snowball effect, it was not listening to our hunger cues. 

Rebuilding that trust with your body is huge in making strides towards honoring your hunger and feeling your fullness. With time, and with trust being built, your body will naturally start to notice when you have hit that point of being done with a meal. You won’t have to keep track of it. 

Intuitive Eating Principle #7: Cope With Your Emotions With Kindness.

This principle is about finding coping mechanisms outside of food. So many people use food as a coping mechanism. Food is tied to a lot of different emotions. For birthdays we have cake. For celebrations we have nice dinners. For funerals, people bring over casseroles. Maybe you make grandma’s secret cookie recipe because it reminds you of your time with her. Food plays into so many different memories and emotions, and that’s okay. It’s okay to eat your favorite dessert if you’ve had a hard day. The problem is when food is your only mechanism for coping or distracting yourself from certain emotions. Finding healthy and alternative coping mechanisms are super great, in addition to working with a licensed psychologist. Intuitive eating can help identify whether you are physically hungry or emotionally hungry and from there find ways to emotionally eat in a more healthful, helpful way. 

Intuitive Eating Principle #8: Respect Your Body. 

This principle focuses on the importance of listening to your body, caring for your body, speaking kindly to your body and appreciating your body. Having the ability to be compassionate to your body can help bring physical and mental peace. 

Diet culture keeps us at constant war with our bodies. We are always trying to lose weight and change our bodies to fit into societal standards of beauty. Ya know, #thinspiration? But just as we can’t change our shoe size, we can’t change our bodies to be permanently smaller. It’s just not natural, yet diet culture makes us feel less worthy or adequate because we can’t meet these unrealistic expectations.

You don’t have to love your body, but you can learn to respect it. Respecting your body doesn’t start when you feel good about it. It starts when you realize your worth is everlasting. A healthy relationship with your body can’t exist without compassion and respect. 

We must speak to ourselves with kindness. It’s easy to focus on the negatives and to speak poorly to yourself for how you look, but what if we shifted that focus to something more positive and more real? A good way to do that is by practicing gratitude. Think about all of the amazing things your body does on a daily basis to keep you alive. Write down or say aloud how grateful you are for a healthy body, or how grateful you are for your imperfections. Your body size is NOT the most interesting thing about you. Have compassion and patience with yourself. You are worth it. 

Intuitive Eating Principle #9: Movement- Feel The Difference. 

This principle of IE is about flipping the switch on how we view exercise and physical activity. What if you moved your body in ways that brought you enjoy or brought you happiness? Typically when we think of exercise we think of high-intensity, #nopainnogain, don’t-quit type of mentality, but movement doesn’t have to be that way. The high intensity workout usually stems from burning as many calories as possible for weight loss purposes. When we only move our bodies for weight loss, we once again suppress our internal cues that could be begging for a rest day or a low intensity workout.

Yes, physical activity and movement are vital for health. There are so many positive outcomes that affect our health when we move our bodies. Moving our bodies for self care rather than punishment is how intuitive eating helps to reframe exercise and gives you the space to feel the difference. 

Intuitive Eating Principle #10: Honor Your Health With Gentle Nutrition. 

The last and final principle is about nutrition! I know you all have been waiting for it. This principle is the last because we must first heal our relationship with food and rid ourselves of the diet mentality before we can begin integrating nutrition.

Gentle nutrition includes your body cues and health to make food choices. The word gentle reflects flexibility that is needed to respect your body. Just because you eat clean and “perfectly” doesn’t mean you are healthy. There is a mental component to health as well. 

Think of gentle nutrition this way, you love donuts but know that if you only eat donuts in the AM you usually become hungry again in about an hour. So you add some protein, like eggs in addition to the donuts so you stay fuller for a longer period of time. To me, it’s about what we can add to our meals. Not what we can take away. 

Those are the 10 principles of intuitive eating! I hope this breaks it down in a simple way to better understand what intuitive eating is and if it is something you would like to try. I am accepting new clients now and would love to work with you! Click this link to fill out an intake form.