What is Intuitive Eating?
Before I answer “what is intuitive eating”, I want to tell you the two most common myths I hear from my clients (and the media!) about intuitive eating:
“Intuitive eating means eating should always feel easy and clear”
No not always! Intuitive eating is not always knowing “intuitively” exactly what you should be eating. Eating is complicated and messy and includes using your head and what you know as well as what your body’s cues are telling you.
“Intuitive eating is a way to lose weight”
Nope. It is not a diet or a plan for weight loss. It is a researched weight-neutral philosophy that encompasses many aspects of health.
This post is the 1st article in our guide to intuitive eating. You can find more information in this guide by visiting these links:
Okay, so then what is intuitive eating?
Is it:
A meditative state you reach where suddenly you are enlightened with a god-like sense of exactly what your body needs nutritionally?
Or
Is it just a fancy way of saying “eat normally?”
Well, kind of. The truth is that intuitive eating does have the goal of helping you become a “normal” eater. Another way of saying this is that we don’t want people to be disordered eaters anymore. And the process of learning to be an intuitive eater, is truly just a process of returning to the instincts and abilities we were all born with: “the ability to nourish ourselves in an uncomplicated way.”
Let me attempt to make an analogy. As I prepared to be a new parent, I started educating myself about sleep science, and what experts say about how to support a child in becoming an independent and confident sleeper. As I went through this learning process (and learned with my child once she was born) it reminded me SO much of the process of learning intuitive eating. Part of it included “unlearning” things I’d previously been told about sleep.
In order to help my baby become an independent and confident sleeper, I had to understand how our body was meant to sleep in the first place, deprogram my own unhelpful sleep ways/beliefs (things I’d learned about how to get a child to sleep and frankly done all my life for kids I babysat and my own nieces/nephews), ALL while tuning into my specific child’s unique cue’s and needs.
This was a lot to pay attention to, and it was uncomfortable at times, especially because I had to trust my child’s innate sleeping abilities in order to change how I did things. Intuitive eating is such a similar process of learning and unlearning.
Who Created Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating was developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, who wrote the book “Intuitive Eating, a Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach.” First published in 1995, the book is now on its fourth edition and the approach is backed by research studies citing the importance of an anti-diet, weight-neutral approach (more on this soon) to health and eating.
Evelyn and Elyse are registered dietitians and eating disorder specialists who developed the 10 core principles of intuitive eating to help guide people back to more flexible and personalized eating rather than the more mainstream diet culture-based eating suggestions.
This approach starts by acknowledging the negative impacts of the “diet mentality” and ways to start detaching from and healing from this harmful way of thinking.
The diet mentality arises from years of unhelpful messaging encouraging eating that’s based on external cues (diets, rules), versus internal cues (hunger signals, preferences, your specific health conditions). As you detach from the diet mentality, you also begin to explore a “weight- neutral” approach.
A weight-neutral approach stems from health at every size (HAES); an evidenced-based philosophy that acknowledges weight and size discrimination (also known as “weight stigma”), and promotes health behaviors without a focus on weight loss or weight control. So intuitive eating removes this focus on weight so that we don’t become distracted by efforts of weight control and then bypass more important internal signals our body is giving us.
From there the intuitive eating approach walks you through strategies for tuning into your own body’s cues/hunger signals, and for finding new self talk and language around food decisions and meal time that actually help unlock more ease in decision making with food. These pieces combined help release your brain from all the preoccupation, guilt, and stuckness that we get from the dieting mindset. Included in this philosophy is a view of each person’s health from a wider lens, taking into account stress, movement, mental health, and life circumstances.
What is the “intuition” in intuitive eating?
The intuition in intuitive eating means that over time food choices are easier, more flexible, and are based on your own specific needs and preferences.
Intuitive eating is not always intuitive. Especially at the beginning! It can feel uncertain, sometimes a little out of control, and even a little crazy to eat without as many rules at first. This is an important phase to experience and work through.
There’s a principle of intuitive eating that is all about making peace with food, which essentially means stripping away fear based messages about foods, and trying foods that have felt previously “off limits” or “bad.” The purpose of this is to reduce fear and avoidance which is often the very thing that fuels disordered eating behaviors, guilt, and over-thinking about food. You want to give yourself the opportunity to understand how you actually feel about certain foods, so that you can begin to develop your own unbiased opinions about what works best for your specific body and lifestyle.
This is actually a KEY part of unlocking a more “intuitive” place with food long-term. (Side note: the most intuitive of eaters are still going to have moments of confusion or “messiness” with food. That’s a part of normal eating! But this philosophy allows you to return back to some key basics after messier moments).
I find that clients often get stuck in the “making peace with food” principle, and they come into counseling when they have tried to introduce certain foods and make “peace” with them but feel like they can’t due to continued binge eating of those foods or preoccupation with those foods. It’s common to experience blocks here and to even feel confused or like this whole approach doesn’t work!
This is where the food psychology work comes in- often people will be following the right steps of introducing foods to make peace with it, but their thinking patterns and self-talk and unique history gets in the way of having success and moving through this step successfully. It’s key to be patient, get support, and explore and personalize this step as it can be a real block to having success with intuitive eating. Don’t give up here!
What do intuitive eaters eat?
Well, that varies! Most intuitive eaters eat a variety of foods based on a combination of what their body is signaling in terms of preference and amount. These foods span across all food groups: proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fruits and vegetables.
For the most part, intuitive eaters don’t strictly eliminate foods/food groups, but instead take a personalized approach to eating. If any foods are eliminated this has been well thought out and experimented with to the point of a person confirming that there is a clear health concern or value that is guiding this decision as opposed to eliminating a food due to guilt, fear of the food, or weight control.
Intuitive eating means eating meals and snacks, including all food groups throughout the day, and tuning into pleasure as well as hunger signals. It is regular but flexible. It is specific to each person’s body and includes as much variety as makes sense for that specific individual.
What does intuitive eating look like?
From my work with clients I’d say there are 2 common phases people experience with intuitive eating:
The healing and learning/experimentation phase of walking through all the 10 principles and undoing years of (for many of us) unhelpful learning.
This phase can look like some combination of messy, confusing, frustrating, relieving, invigorating, and energizing.The second phase is when your body and brain are more healed, and the result of living diet-free and tuned into your body feels…just plain good.
What happens when you start intuitive eating?
This is truly different for everyone. I’ve worked with clients who very quickly begin to feel more free and relieved, whereas others start to feel frustrated and confused because it can be so different than the way they were taught to eat or the ways they have been making an effort to eat. It can also take quite a bit of mental and emotional work to begin intuitive eating, so it’s also not uncommon to feel like you’re thinking just as much or the same amount about food as you were before you started- but this time the mental preoccupation is because you are working on changing all those unhelpful thoughts vs staying stuck in them.
When a person really starts to get into a consistent groove with intuitive eating, they are freed up from the mental burden of food, and eating in an attuned manner with their body. This approach is all about balancing what you know (about eating/nutrition, your specific body/conditions etc) with what you feel (emotionally, and from a pleasure with eating standpoint). It’s knowing that there’s space for feeling well fueled, and for having pleasure and fun with eating too.
While you’re trying to follow intuitive eating principles if you find yourself really struggling or feeling defeated– please know that this is normal and that there are specialists who can support you. There is a science to this, and sometimes it just takes a little tweaking here or there to figure out what you might be needing. You can contact me or reach out to a certified intuitive eating counselor here.
