What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive Eating is a framework that teaches you how to remove the diet mentality and regain confidence around your ability to trust and honor your hunger and fullness cues. The principles of Intuitive Eating are outlined by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD, and Elyse Resch, MS, RD, FADA, CEDRD in their book, Intuitive Eating. To put it in short… if diet culture didn’t exist, intuitive eating would be referred to as normal eating.
Years of be told by diet culture that you are unable to trust your body and you need to follow all these “rules” when it comes to eating can hinder your ability to be intuitive. You may be thinking that you have lost your ability to trust your body, however, you CAN heal and rebuild that trust back within your body again.
Intuitive eating is not a diet.
Intuitive eating is not a way to manipulate your body. It does not involve numbers, weighing yourself or food, cutting/bulking, or intentionally restricting but calling it “intuitive”. We implement gentle nutrition as a way to honor your health once we work on removing the diet mentality and challenging old diet beliefs, but not in attempts to lose weight. Some people gain weight, some people lose weight, and some people maintain their weight once they learn how to eat intuitively.
Intuitive eating is never perfect.
It is not always eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full. There are going to be times you will eat and you aren’t entirely hungry, there will also be times when you eat past fullness and that’s okay too. Not every day will be the same because its not about folioing a rigid routine. This will allow you to fully reconnect with your body’s cues instead of following meal times.
Intuitive eating is rejecting the diet mentality.
There is no calorie or macronutrient limits and there is no “perfect” serving size. It’s refusing to see food as a bunch of calories or grams. Allowing yourself to eat the sandwich instead of a salad if that’s what you are craving and going out for spontaneous meals with friends is being intuitive. Choosing a salad because it truly sounds good but not because its a low carb option can also be intuitive. Your mentality around those foods choices is what matters the most.
Intuitive eating is honoring your hunger and listening to your body.
If you are thinking about food or something sounds good, eat! It might mean that even though you ate an hour ago but are still wanting to eat, you didn’t eat enough or what your body truly wanted. It’s being able to have dessert or another snack without feeling guilt or shame about yourself.
Intuitive eating is making peace with food.
It’s the understanding that your body is not going to change overnight from eating a certain food- because that’s impossible. There is no macronutrient that is better or worse than the other- all foods fit in a healthy diet (even a few cookies or late night pizza). Giving yourself permission to eat a variety of foods is a huge mental step towards food freedom.
There is definitely a place where you cannot truly rely on your hunger signals. If you have a recent past of restricting calories, overexercising, have hormonal imbalances… your hunger cues are probably really off whack and may never feel real hunger. In these instances, eating when you know you SHOULD eat is important. On the other hand, you may feel hungry ALL the time which is also normal if you aren’t eating enough or are starting to increase your intake.
If you are new to intuitive eating, I suggest starting out by making sure each meal has a balance of carbs, proteins, and fats.
Eat 3 meals and 2-3 snacks a day to regulate eating patterns. This is also really good for your circadian rhythm!
Choose foods that you love to eat! Regardless of what that food is, make sure you are eating foods that truly nourish your body but also your soul.
Don’t compare yourself to others. Another thing that may help is to not look at social media food posts before meals. Scrolling to see everyone else’s meals and comparing your food to others may set you up for the comparison trap.
If you are having trouble navigating away from dieting and want more guidance as to how to become an intuitive eater so you can eat without food rules, apply for 1:1 coaching here.
