Intuitive Eating Guide: How to Get Started
People become curious about Intuitive Eating for different reasons. Maybe you have come here because you do not want to have such a tumultuous relationship with food. Maybe you are sick of dieting. Maybe you are recovering from an eating disorder. Maybe you know someone who has used the principles of Intuitive Eating, and they told you about the transformation that spilled over into the rest of their life.
Intuitive Eating (IE) is a framework developed by two Registered Dietitians, Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, designed to help individuals heal their relationship with food. (Their book is a wonderful resource.) The guiding principles of IE are to help an individual stop relying on external signals of when, how much, and what to eat, and instead relearn their own body’s sensations and feelings to meet their needs. It is a framework built around kindness and self-compassion that does not demonize food, nor make us feel shame or guilt. There have been numerous health benefits associated with IE (and on their website you can find more details about specific studies).
Changing how we think after years (or decades) of being immersed in diet culture is difficult, to say the least. Turning inward is hard. Learning to trust yourself again takes time. Here are some ways to begin incorporating (or even just thinking about) some of the components of IE into your life.
Challenge your restrictive eating and dieting mindset.
What was working and what was not? What ultimately made you feel you needed something new? Was it weight cycling? Was it feeling out of control around food? Was it the mental exhaustion of constantly thinking about food?
We know diets don’t work (Blog post - Is Dieting Harmful?), and if we get honest with ourselves and think about all the pros and cons of a diet, we may be surprised about what we realize. Sometimes, good things come from diets - particularly regarding what is and is not sustainable. You may notice that you feel really good when you regularly eat throughout the day (versus a diet that only allows you to eat during certain hours of the day or requires intermittent fasting). It may be that when you are more mindful of what you are eating, you tend to include foods higher in fiber that help your digestive system. It also may be recognizing that restricting foods or food groups led you to a binge-restrict cycle. This exploration and knowledge can help you move forward and let go of the dieting mindset.
Think about what foods you like.
Yes, you read that correctly. Sit for a little while and think about the types of foods you actually like - not what foods you should eat, but what foods would taste satisfying and delicious to you. Think about flavors, texture, and temperature. Often, we have been following rigid rules about what to eat and when, and we have lost sight of what we genuinely enjoy. We should like what we eat. There is some nuance here that requires deeper discussion, but the idea is that if we regularly allow ourselves to eat foods that we like and are satisfying throughout the day (both in taste and satiety), it can help to quiet some of the food noise in our brain, as well as help with the binge-restrict cycle.
Think about hunger.
In a dieting mindset, we typically rely on external cues to tell us when or how much to eat. This often means we have learned to ignore what it even feels like to be hungry. Or maybe we only recognize the feeling of extreme hunger and have learned to ignore the more subtle signs. And many people do have more subtle signs of hunger. For some people, early signs of hunger start with thoughts of food (versus late-stage hunger, which can be headache, stomach pain, etc.). Be curious with yourself and begin to notice what sensations are arising in your body.
It is important to note that until your hunger cues get back online, make sure you eat regularly throughout the day (which for many people is every three to four hours). If we wait to eat until we are starving, our ability to make conscious decisions about what we eat is typically overridden by a fundamental need to eat (and subsequently may lead to us overeating).
Respect your body even if you don’t like it.
If we were to talk about how we feel about our body and the relationship we have with our body on a scale of 1 to 10, many, many people would be profoundly dissatisfied and note a difficult and complicated relationship. It is unrealistic to think that everyone can, should, and will love their body one day, but we can take steps to feel a little less awful about it and, hopefully, in time, move towards body neutrality. Respecting our bodies and taking care of them may mean different things to different people, but think about ways you can start to show up for yourself. This may mean wearing clothes that fit your current body, regularly eating throughout the day and not skipping meals, taking care of your body by doing something kind for it, or getting adequate sleep. (Blog post - Five Things to Try When You Are Having a Bad Body Image Day).
I can’t say it enough - this work is hard. It is very nuanced and requires a lot of time and patience. It also often involves examining why we have the beliefs we do, and looking back can often bring up many things that require support from a therapist and other trained professionals. While it is about the food, it is never really about the food. Remember - we are always here to support you on your journey.
