Intuitive Eating: What is it and why you need to start practicing it today!
Intuitive Eating is all about tuning into your body’s cues, internal wisdom, and breaking free from toxic diet culture.
So, you’ve heard about Intuitive Eating, but what is it really? Let’s take a deep dive into the ten principles of Intuitive Eating and why it works.
In a world obsessed with diets, calorie counting, and external standards of beauty, a revolutionary approach to nourishing the body and cultivating a healthy relationship with food has emerged—Intuitive Eating. Coined by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in their groundbreaking book, "Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works," this approach challenges the conventional wisdom of diet culture and invites individuals to reconnect with their bodies and internal cues. In this blog post, we will explore the ten principles of Intuitive Eating, unlocking the key to a balanced and sustainable approach to nutrition.
Reject the Diet Mentality:
The first principle sets the stage by encouraging individuals to break free from the shackles of diet culture. It’s well known that the current beauty standards are unrealistic and narrow for most people, and thus leads to body dissatisfaction and negative self-perception. Body diversity is natural; we’re not supposed to all have the same body shape and size! It would be akin to having everyone have the same show size—now how does that make any sense? Factors such as genetics, metabolism, and overall health play significant roles in determining one's body size. In a society that bombards us with fad diets and unrealistic body standards, rejecting the diet mentality is the first step toward building a healthier relationship with food. We can’t heal our bodies and our minds if we’re stuck on the hamster wheel of thinness. Intuitive Eating advocates for a shift in mindset, focusing on well-being rather than restrictive eating patterns.
Honor Your Hunger:
Understanding and responding to your body's natural hunger signals is at the core of Intuitive Eating. This principle emphasizes the importance of recognizing and respecting your body's need for nourishment. By honoring your hunger, you can establish a more harmonious relationship with food and prevent overeating or bingeing that often results from prolonged periods of deprivation. Some people are afraid to listen to their hunger for fear of becoming out-of-control with food or gaining weight endlessly. The truth is, our body needs fuel, and if we listen to what our bodies are asking for, then we’re goldilocks! It’s not too much, or too little, it’s just right. It can take some time to undo the harm that diets have caused in our bodies, so be sure to work with a Registered Dietitian throughout this process.
Make Peace with Food:
In a world that often categorizes food as "good" or "bad," Intuitive Eating encourages individuals to make peace with all foods. Give yourself unconditional permission to eat.Instead of labeling certain items as off-limits, this principle promotes a balanced and inclusive approach to eating. By removing the moral judgment associated with food, individuals can enjoy a wide variety of foods without guilt or shame. The more you allow yourself to have those “once-forbidden” foods, the less you’ll crave them or feel out-of-control with them; it’s the restrictive mentality that actually makes us crave them more. So, allow yourself to have all foods, avoid language that moralizes food (e.g. healthy or unhealthy, good or bad, junk foods, etc.). Begin embracing all foods and focus on balance and moderation.
Challenge the Food Police:
The Food Police are the inner thoughts and societal messages that dictate what is "right" or "wrong" to eat, or make us feel “good” or “bad” based on the decisions we make about food and exercise. For example, “I can eat that cupcake because I worked out today” or “I shouldn’t have eaten that third slice of pizza” or “I feel good today because I restricted…”. It’s a compensatory mindset focused on checks and balances that are driven by external messages—not your intrinsic wisdom or body cues. Intuitive Eating challenges these rigid beliefs, allowing individuals to develop a healthier relationship with food by silencing the critical voices that often contribute to anxiety and guilt surrounding eating choices. Intuitive Eating encourages you to break free from the diet culture rules that govern your daily choices and how you feel, and instead focus on making your own decisions based on a loving and compassionate relationship with yourself. Notice what kinds of thoughts or feelings you associate with food and eating and whether it’s critical or compassionate.
Discover the Satisfaction Factor:
From an evolutionary perspective, humans are biologically wired to find pleasure through eating. And it makes sense, right? We wouldn’t keep doing something that isn’t enjoyable, and if we all stopped eating, humans wouldn’t exist. So, of course eating should be a pleasurable and satisfying experience. But today, eating has become such a convoluted experience laced with judgment that we’ve disconnected from pleasure and joy. The fifth principle encourages individuals to pay attention to the taste, texture, and enjoyment of their meals. By focusing on the satisfaction factor, people can derive more pleasure from food and reduce the likelihood of overeating due to unmet cravings. The Japanese have the wisdom to keep pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living, and they have some of the healthiest and longest living people in the world.
Feel Your Fullness:
Understanding and respecting your body's signals of fullness is crucial in preventing overeating. This principle guides individuals to listen to their bodies, slow down during meals, and recognize when they've had enough. By tuning into internal cues rather than external portion sizes, individuals can cultivate a healthier relationship with food and avoid the discomfort of overindulgence. To honor your fullness, you need to trust your body and allow yourself to eat when you want, how much you want, and the types of foods you crave. It can be scary to begin this process when you’ve followed strict diets because there’s no specific guide telling you what, when, and how much to eat. But that’s exactly the point! Our bodies have an innate wisdom that exists if we just learn how to tune into it. Registered Dietitians can support you every step of the way if you’re feeling overwhelmed or don’t know where to start.
Cope with Your Emotions without Using Food:
Emotional eating is a common challenge for many individuals. Just like we talked about how eating is evolutionary, when we eat, the reward pathway in our brain lights up. Neurotransmitters like Dopamine and Serotonin are passed through electrical circuits that send us positive emotions and sensations. It’s no wonder that we begin seeking emotional comfort through eating, and yet when this becomes one of our only coping skills for emotion release, it can become problematic. Intuitive Eating recognizes the complex relationship between emotions and eating and provides tools to cope with emotions without turning to food for comfort. By developing alternative coping mechanisms, individuals can break the cycle of emotional eating and foster a more balanced relationship with their emotions.
Respect Your Body:
Body respect is at the heart of Intuitive Eating. This principle encourages individuals to embrace and accept body diversity and reject the ideal that we’re all meant to fit into the same size and shape. By rejecting societal pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards, individuals can foster self-acceptance and focus on overall well-being rather than squeezing their body into an unattainable standard that is guaranteed to fail. Research from Health at Every Size® has taught us that focusing on eating for well-being leads to healthier bodies, regardless of weight. Someone can be very unhealthy in a thin or fat body; weight is not the best marker of health. But diet messages focus on weight as the gold standard measurement of health, perhaps because it’s easy to judge, but more often this serves to worsen body dissatisfaction and self-worth. If our minds aren’t healthy, then our bodies can’t be healthy. Body respect might feel impossible for some of us, and if that feels like you, reach out to a therapist to get more support on your healing journey.
Exercise—Feel the Difference:
Intuitive Eating emphasizes the importance of joyful movement rather than strict exercise regimens driven by aesthetic goals, like weight loss or muscle tone. This principle encourages individuals to find physical activities that bring joy and enhance well-being. By shifting the focus from calorie burning or muscle toning to overall well-being, individuals can establish a sustainable and enjoyable approach to movement. Focus on exercise that fuels you physically and emotionally, and if you don’t enjoy it, don’t do it. Balance intuitive exercise with intuitive rest—Feel the difference!
Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition:
The final principle of Intuitive Eating acknowledges the role of nutrition in overall health and encourages a flexible and balanced approach. There is so much research on nutrition for health prevention, longevity, and wellness, and yet, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. If you take a deep dive into nutrition research over the last 50 years, it’s constantly changing and there’s always controversy. Now let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water, but what this means is that we’re still learning. And what’s right for one body might not be right for another body. So rather than adhering to strict dietary rules, individuals are encouraged to make food choices that honor their body’s nutritional needs and their psychological needs. Gentle nutrition involves making choices that contribute to well-being without sacrificing the joy of eating.
Intuitive Eating offers a refreshing and empowering perspective on nourishing the body, mind, and soul. By embracing these ten principles, individuals can break free from the constraints of diet culture, develop a healthier relationship with food, and cultivate a sense of well-being that extends beyond appearances. It's a journey toward self-discovery, self-acceptance, and the freedom to enjoy a balanced and fulfilling life.
Ready to learn more?
In our upcoming Intuitive Eating workshops, we’re going to help you unlearn toxic diet messages that actually served to keep you unhealthy, and we’ll teach you how to heal your relationship with food and your body for the long-term using the ten principles above.