It seems that every where you turn lately, the term “Intuitive Eating” is being thrown around. What I am finding is that most people do not REALLY know what it is. It is NOT a diet. It is NOT another way to control your weight and ‘look your best’. And it is definitely not a “reset”.
Intuitive Eating is a non-diet approach to eating that focuses on listening to your own internals cues of what and how much to eat, rather than focusing on externals cues that are all around us. The framework is organized by 10 Intuitive Eating Principles.
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, intuitive eating is about trusting your body to make food choices that feel good for you, without judging yourself or the influence of diet culture.
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org
Here are 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
It is important to note that while there are 10 principles in the framework, they are not listed in order of importance OR in the order they should be followed. The important thing is that all are utilized in your life if you plan to follow Intuitive Eating.
1. Reject the Diet Mentality:
This principle may require some time and patience to achieve. I do not know about you, but I have been saturated in diet culture and had a diet mentality for as long as I can remember. Professionally, I was trained as a Registered Dietitian and most of my education and training was deep in diet culture so undoing and rejecting this mentality was hard! However, freeing! In order to TRULY engage in Intuitive Eating it is essential to say goodbye to dieting and all the incorrect beliefs that are created.
2. Honor Your Hunger:
It is imperative to learn to honor our biological hunger. I have found that so many of my clients have lost the ability to truly know what hunger feels like. To some, hunger feels “bad” because it means they have to eat – which to some, feels like another failure!! A critical step in Intuitive Eating is to learn what this biological cue feels like AND to honor it! Once mastered, I notice that people feel so much more energetic and in touch with their bodies natural cues. It is ultimate “body respect”.
3. Make Peace with Food:
Stop the internal negative food dialogue! During Intuitive Eating, you must learn to give yourself unconditional permission to eat. This may sound easy but most likely once you really think about this concept you will notice how many food rules and restrictions you have. These food limitations of things you “should” or “should not” eat actually lead to uncontrollable cravings and in some individuals bingeing. This principle, as it says, can provide so much peace in your life.
4. Challenge the Food Police:
The “food police” is both the inner and outer dialogue that you hear telling you that some foods are good, clean, healthy and others are bad, unhealthy, sinful, evil …the list goes in. The food police can be your inner dialogue that is created from years of food rules and it can be the constant bombardment of healthy “influencers”, media, the medical community or even your own mother. Learning to conquer the food police is an integral part of the Intuitive Eating proces
5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor:
To me, you need to master the concept of food satisfaction, before you can truly conquer the other principles. Pleasure and satisfaction in eating truly need to happen and they are basic gifts to life. The Intuitive Eating motto is “If you don’t love hit, don’t eat it, and if you love it, savor it”. This principle alone adds so much pleasure back into life itself
6. Feel Your Fullness:
This is a principle that may take some practice. Many of us believe that fullness is bad. Others have no idea what it feels like to feel comfortably full because they are so detached from their internal cues and the next thing they know they have eaten beyond comfort. The first step here is having the trust that you will be eating foods that give you satisfaction.
7. Cope With Your Emotions With Kindness:
What most people do not realize is that food restriction itself (aka dieting) can trigger very uncomfortable feelings such as feeling out of control with food. That is not “emotional eating”, it really is a physical response to restriction. Food is often used as a comfort and acknowledging that it is Ok is validating. It is also important to be aware that while food may provide comfort in the short term, it does not solve any problems so finding alternative ways to cope are crucial.
8. Respect Your Body:
Accepting that our body is mainly a product of our genes is so important. And one that is not usually taken into account when trying to follow what some influencer posts what they” eat in a day” as that would make one’s body look the same. Just like if you have a size 9 shoe size, you do not try to wear shoes in a size 5. You just wear the right size with no judgment (well, hopefully but you do know that you can’t change it). You do not have to love your body, there is no rule about that BUT you do have to respect it.
9. Movement – Feel the Difference
Detaching your movement with how many calories you burn or trying to change a body part is so crucial. Focusing on the positive effects movement has, such as improved flexibility and mood enhancement and not on its calorie-burning effect of exercise. Finding the JOY in movement.
10.Honor Your Health – Gentle Nutrition:
One food or one meal are not going to make or break your health. This is not saying that nutrition is not important, because it is, but saying that enjoying your food is important to overall well-being. What you eat over a long period is way more important than one meal or one day of eating.
What Happens Next?
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You maybe thinking, “now that I know what the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating are, what is next?”. I recommend to REALLY educate yourself about Intuitive Eating and the first step is reading….and I mean really reading…. the Holy Grail of information on IE, the book written by the founders of Intuitive Eating, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, called “Intuitive Eating – A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach”.
The book is so chockful of information to guide you on your journey. It is a process and you do not just read the principles and BAM you eat intuitively. Many find it helpful to work one on one with a certified Intuitive Eating Practioner to get a more personalized approach. Feel free to contact me at : Lauracohen17@gmail.com or at the contact me page.
