What is Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating has 10 principles and I will describe them each. They are not strict rules and you'll probably find yourself going back to some over and over again. It takes time to work through what diet culture has taught us about what is accepted. Eating only certain foods, no. Eating as little as possible, no. Making yourself as small as possible, no. Making yourself as fit as possible, again no. NO SHAME in wanting any of those things or all of them. I am not writing this to shame people who want to diet or to see that intuitive eating is the ultimate truth. It is another perspective to understand ourselves through.

Dieting comes with rules. Every weight loss diet tells you what you can eat and can't eat. Some tell you when you can eat (intermittent fasting), how much you can eat (weight watchers), and how you should feel (you'll feel AMAZING once your body detoxes all those poisons). Usually, at some point in your dieting, you break those rules and blame yourself (lots of shame and guilt). That feeling you are trying to attain slips away as you struggle to apply those rules. Rules "the shoulds" go against your intuition. They disconnect you from your body and make you distrust yourself. If you have been chronically dieting or deep within an eating disorder, connecting back to your body can be a struggle. There also might be some mental disorders you struggle with as well such as anxiety, OCD, depression, and borderline personality disorder. That is why I believe it is important to talk to a therapist while you do this work. 

Connecting to your body, listening to it, coming back into your parasympathetic nervous system (resting), and trusting yourself to eat food/ALL the foods are no small things. That is where the 10 principles come into play. 

1) Reject the Diet Mentality 

Those rules, throw them out. And I mean out. You cannot be policing yourself around food and be an intuitive eater. A goal of weight loss goes against being intuitive. This is a big one. Your body will change when you start eating more food. More on that later. ANY RULE you have must be tossed aside. No more tracking food. No more calculating calories or points. No more burning off your food with exercise. No more safe foods. No more looking to see what foods you can eat at a restaurant. No more telling your family, partner, or friends your "safe foods". This can be done all at once or slowly. It is your journey. Write down all your food and exercise rules. This process for some can be liberating. Cooking becomes enjoyable. Eating out becomes fun. Going to family functions is longer a huge deal. The scale no longer dictates your day (some people toss out their scale. Weight neutrality can be a thing but it is also okay to not weigh yourself for the foreseeable future). No more goal-size clothes. Clothes are supposed to fit your body, not the other way around. 

Reject that diet verbiage nonsense. It no longer serves you.

2) Honor Your Hunger

When you a hungry, EAT. You will be spending some time here. You will probably find that when you start to eat more and I mean A LOT MORE, you are hungry all the time. Your brain is now like "Oh shit!! We have FOOD! Imma make you hungry as hell!" And that is what it does. You have to eat a lot of food consistently for your brain to realize you are no longer restricting, mentally and physically. That means being aware of your self-talk. Are you telling yourself you won't eat like this forever? That is restriction. I suggest journaling! 

Side note: Restricting often leads to binging on food. Those taboo foods. Binging for you might not be what the DSM considers a binge but it is still binging if it is a loss of control and mindlessly (dissociation) eating, usually until you uncomfortably food. Emotions and triggers can activate a binge as well. Bielema (binge and purge either through vomiting or excessive exercise or restriction) is an eating disorder and having a therapist is an important part of doing this work, especially if you have an eating disorder. My advice is that they are intuitive eating trained or informed.

I believe it is also important to eat when you are not hungry. Eating only when you are hungry can become a rule and then you'll find yourself restricting when there is food and you have already eaten. So be aware of that and eat even when you are not hungry. The Fuck It Diet book is helpful with that suggestion.   

It might take some time to connect to your hunger. You might have been numbed out for a looooong time. Don't worry. Just take your time and eat. Continue to eat and connect to your body. Mindfulness can help you connect back to your body. 

If you have a history of trauma, abuse, or chronic mental illness, PLEASE find a therapist while doing this work. It can be nearly impossible or overwhelming to connect back to your body and trust it. 

3) Make Peace with Food 

You are no longer going to have rules around food. ALL FOOD IS ALLOWED. Unconditional permission to eat anything. Unconditional permission is the opposite of restriction. When those thoughts come up that say "You shouldn't eat that!" or "Are you sure you want to eat all that?" "What about eating all that now and then less later?" or "How about we skip breakfast and only have coffee." or "Buy that less than desirable food substitute!" or "You'll gain weight if you eat that!" All of those thoughts are restriction and could lead to binging on food now or later. Mindfulness helps here. Your thoughts are just thoughts. They are not facts. Allow your thoughts (and feelings/anxiety) to be without judgment (thoughts are neither good nor bad). Remember: all foods are allowed.

4) Challenge the Food Police

The Food Police is how you feel about yourself when you eat a certain way or don't. The Food Police is judgmental, and critical, and shames you into obedience. When those judgmental feelings and thoughts shout at you, use mindfulness, let them be, and shrug your shoulders at them. Feelings are not facts either. We can hold space for our thoughts and feelings without interpreting them as bad or ourselves as bad. We cannot control our thoughts or feelings but we can learn how to respond to them differently. You are not a bad person for eating whatever food you want. Food is morally neutral (same with our thoughts and feelings). 

5) Discover the Satisfaction Factor

Eating food can be pleasurable and makes us feel good. Satisfaction with what we are eating is a huge reason for not binging. When you eat the food your desire in a place that feels good to you, you feel satisfied. When you substitute food for something alright but not satisfying, you'll typically eat more of it and still feel unsatisfied. I can say for sure, that when I eat carbs and sugar, I feel happy. 

Side note: you might find that after doing this journey some of your diet foods are satisfying and there is nothing wrong with that. 

6) Feel Your Fullness

As you go through this journey you are learning to trust your body. When your body tells you you are hungry. You listen. When it craves sugar and carbs. You listen. Your body will tell you when it is full and that is a process. Sometimes your body will tell you to eat more, sometimes less. Less does not mean good. Sometimes you'll be massively hungry for no reason other than your body is sending you signals. What I mean is that nothing might have changed in your routine. That does not matter. AT ALL. You don't need to justify your hungry or your fullness. 

Try your best to not compare how much you eat to others. It does not matter. Eating the foods you want in front of others at the amount you want or your body desires can be hard. VERY HARD. You might believe that others are judging you OR you might have family members that think it is their responsibility to tell you how much you can eat and what you can eat. It is none of their business. Your body, what you eat, and if you exercise are your business.  

The point is you are building back trust in your body. It takes time. You might second guess what your body is telling you. Most diets tell you to eat 1200 calories. That is the number of calories that a toddler needs. Adults, no matter how tall or short they are, need MUCH more. I say this because people coming out of chronic dieting usually eat much more foods than previously and it can be anxiety-provoking. 

7) Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

I mentioned before that dieting, disordered eating, and eating disorders are ways of coping with life. They can be a way of dissociating and numbing from your humanity. When you stop and start eating again, it can be very uncomfortable. Your anxieties, feelings, and past pain and traumas start to make themselves known. THERAPY can be a safe space to experience all of that. Those feelings that you have been numbing can be overwhelming. Finding ways to cope is really important. Avoidance and distraction might be your go-to, however, being in the moment with yourself without judgment can be so beneficial for your overall health. 

8) Respect your Body

Respecting your body could also mean body acceptance, body positivity, and/or body neutrality. Everybody has a genetic aspect to their body size, meaning, your body size is genetic. Somewhere around 80% of your body composition is genetic. It is extraordinarily good at keeping your body within its "set point" weight. Your set point weight fluctuates between 20 lbs. 20 LBS!! You can fluctuate in weight ( up or down) due to a variety of reasons; hormones, aging, medication, pregnancy, stress, mental health, and due to your genetic composition. Our bodies are meant to change. Now when you stop dieting, your weight will fluctuate for a while, until it understands you are no longer restricting, and then it will find its set point. I would suggest not getting hyperfocused on that. Some people gain weight and stay there, some gain and then lose weight, and some don't change at all. 

Body acceptance: accepting what your genetics are without being critical of yourself and demanding your body change or fit into a certain size. Giving your body what it needs and deserves. Your body can take up space!

Body positivity and body neutrality 

Body positivity: Celebrating your body! For some, this means loving their body and what it can do. 

Body neutrality: Your body is not an ornament, it is an instrument. Your body can do so many things and you can appreciate that without trying to lose weight. Becoming neutral means not having negative or positive feelings about your body. It is only one aspect of who you are. 

For some, after being taught to hate their body, find themselves not wanting to be neutral about it. They want to love, enjoy, and celebrate their bodies.

For others, they want to be neutral about their bodies. They spend years putting their bodies through hell and now want to enjoy all the other aspects of who they are as a person. 

It does not matter which one you find yourself at. Or maybe you are both. It is your journey and your journey alone. 

9) Movement - Feel the Difference 

Intuitive movement: Listening to your body and how it wants to move/what it needs. Paying attention to how movement makes you feel. Does it make you feel energized, stronger, focused, at ease, clearer, or happy? When you focus on how you feel during movement then those feelings can be a strong motivations for continuing that exercise. External motivations like losing weight, having a certain number on the scale, or having abs, are correlated with negative self-image, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem because usually, those goals are not attainable or people have a hard time keeping them. 

When you find movement you enjoy. That is fun and exciting. It becomes much easier to continue it. This could look like walking, running, rollerskating, biking, swimming, jump roping, etc. If you forced yourself to do a certain workout or class because that was what was acceptable or burned the most calories, then intuitive movement is a very different experience. 

At the beginning of this journey, you will most likely find yourself needing rest. Lots of rest. You might want to take a break from exercise until you have worked through some of those damaging beliefs around it. All movement counts. 

You might believe that if you stop exercising that you will rest forever, and that is not true. Maybe you'll rest for months. Everyone is different with this process but it is important to remember that rest is just as important as movement. Active recovery is not the same as rest. Remember your resting state is when you are in the parasympathetic nervous system. Eating and resting and crucial to your overall health. As you connect more with your body, it will tell you when to move and what it needs.  

A great book for this is Train Happy - there is a 30-day journal that is great support for doing this work. 

10) Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition 

This principle is the last one for a reason. Jumping here before you have started processing the principles mentioned before can harm you more than help. What people find is that when they have been doing this work for a long while that one day they start to crave vegetables, salad, or fruits. Their bodies tell them to eat it! It is not forced by some external rule. They crave broccoli AND THEN they make something SATISFYING. They might make stir fry or vegetables in pasta, or a smoothie BUT it is not according to a bunch of external rules (counting calories, low-fat substitute, “this is how I should eat”, or seeing how many points it is). They cook the broccoli how they want to which could mean with BUTTER. Cooking with butter does not take away the nutritional value of the food it is cooked with. Your body needs fat and sugar. This also means, not trying to be perfect with whatever it is you are cooking. Perfection does not exist here (or anywhere for that matter). There is no perfect health or way to eat. Eating a cookie does not discount whatever "healthy" foods you have eaten that day. You are continuously paying attention to how food makes you feel and that takes TIME. Getting to this step is not an overnight process. If you have been dieting for years, it is going to take some time for you to work through all the ways diet culture has affected you. 

Side note: There is no such thing as food addiction. Restricting food can make you FEEL like you are addicted to certain types of food especially when you lose control around those foods. I have seen people who have thought they were addicted to sugar move through intuitive eating and realize they were not. You cannot be addicted to something your body needs. Food is not a drug. It is not heroin. Your body does not need heroin but it does need food. Now you might disagree with this statement and you might believe that sugar is not a food group. We will have to agree to disagree about that. 

A few other things: 

It is a human need (based on our survival) to want to be accepted and to seek approval in society, with friends, and with family.

Some of you might have noticed that at times when you have gained weight, your acceptance is dependent on what size your body is. This is an extremely difficult aspect of his work and a big reason that people choose to go back to dieting. Our society and many people's families, only accept those that have a thin or fit body type and when your body does not fit what is acceptable, you are made to feel like an outsider. That is why it is crucial to find people who do support your journey or are on the same journey. 

A lot of people when they first start this journey, they are ANGRY. Angry about all the lies fed to them and angry about how much time and money they wasted on dieting. They want to tell everybody about their discovery but sometimes all the people around them are in diet culture. That can feel very isolating. Social media can help here. There are lots of intuitive eating dietitians (dietitian (licensed term) is different than nutritionist) and body acceptance accounts. Same with body neutrality and body positivity. Curate your social media to support your journey.

Now it is my opinion that you can tell people about intuitive eating and diet culture but you cannot change other people or make other people join your journey. Becoming an intuitive eater is a choice and it is not meant for everybody. The last thing I want is for anti-diet or intuitive eating to become a cult.    

Your health 

Now people will read this and think "But what about people who are "obese? What about them??" What about them? Do you think they benefit from being ostracized by society? Shamed by strangers? Excluded from public transit? Talked about negatively by their friends and family? Not given access to quality health care because their doctor tells them to lose weight before they can treat them (when losing weight is nearly impossible to sustain)? NO. Absolutely not. People with fat bodies are treated like shit in our society and the message that is sent to them is "please don't exist". Fat phobia is real and lots of doctors project that onto their fat clients. Fat people should be given access to health care.  

The quality of your relationships, your stress level, your family history, access to resources (therapy, doctors, movement), and past trauma are much better indicators of your health than what food you eat or the size of your body. Shaming people into taking better care of their health is not the way to go about it. People of all sizes can be healthy. They can apply healthy habits to their life and THAT DOES NOT MEAN THEY WILL LOSE WEIGHT. 

Also, the obesity epidemic is not a thing. You heard me. The Maintenance Phase podcast has a great episode about how that came into existence. I have mentioned before that dieting is a money-making scheme.... well the obesity epidemic is a part of that and it's ridiculous. 

All right, I think I have mentioned all of what I wanted to with Intuitive Eating. Please read and research! Become informed yourself. Don't just take my word for it. There are tons are research articles on Intuitive Eating and I mentioned books that you can read.