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What if I told you you could honour your health, hunger and cravings without feeling guilty; you could enjoy a piece of pizza or a brownie without feelings of regret, if that’s what you truly desired? What if I told you you have this innate ability to eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full? Would you believe me?
Well, this is what intuitive eating is about.
We are all born intuitive eaters and have the innate ability to balance our food intake to meet our needs. As babies, we cried when we were hungry and stopped eating when we were full.
Unfortunately, over time we get introduced to diet culture and the many rules and restrictions associated with food that causes many people to lose the ability to follow their hunger cues.
Wait, what is diet culture?
Diet culture is a system of beliefs that places thinness on a pedestal and equates it to health and moral goodness. Most of us experience some form of diet culture on a daily basis. It's everywhere. In fact, the world is so jam packed with it's messages that we have become desensitized to it.
We are brainwashed by diet culture to think that we must be thin to be “healthy”, that we must follow a restrictive diet to be “healthy”, and has us convinced that there are “good” and “bad” foods. Diet culture sets unrealistic expectations to weight loss, sells the seductive idea that weight loss will give you happiness and confidence, and has normalized disordered eating habits.
It has us spending way too much time, energy and money on efforts to lose weight and be thin (even when we have yet to discover a safe and effective method for permanent weight loss).
All this causes feelings of confusion about what, when and how much to eat, as well as feelings of guilt, regret, and shame when we go against the diet culture "rules", which ultimately destroys our relationship with food.
Diet culture, food rules and restrictions are not innate.
Here's an example: How many of you grew up with the rule that you must finish everything on your plate before you can have dessert or leave the table?
When we are consistently encouraged to eat past fullness, it deteriorates our ability to listen to our bodies so that we can eat when we are hungry and stop when we are satisfied.
Intuitive Eating is a self-care eating framework, which integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought. It is a non-diet, and evidence-based model that involves eating in response to physiological hunger and satiety cues, rather than external diet rules and emotional cues. This evidence based, weight inclusive eating model was created by two dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995 (Tribole, 2019) and has over 100 studies to date.
Intuitive eating is not a diet or food plan. There is no counting calories, carbs, macros, points...etc. There is no “blowing it”, passing or failing and there's no promotion to look a certain way. Rather, it's a journey of self discovery and connection to the needs of your body (Tribole, 2018).
The process of Intuitive Eating is a practice, which honours both physical AND mental health and includes 10 principles:
Reject the Diet Mentality
Honour your Hunger
Make Peace with Food
Challenge the Food Police
Discover the Satisfaction Factor
Feel your Fullness
Cope with your Emotions with Kindness
Respect your Body
Movement - Feel the Difference
Honour your Health - Gentle Nutrition
Check out Part 2 of this blog post series, where I explain each of these principles in detail.
Further Reading:
The official Intuitive Eating website: https://www.intuitiveeating.org/
Evelyn Tribole's website: https://www.evelyntribole.com/
Intuitive Eating Studies: https://www.evelyntribole.com/resources/studies/
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