Intuitive Eating 101 [Part 1]
Thinking about ditching dieting forever and jumping on the intuitive eating bandwagon??
If you are tired of feeling stressed, anxious and crazy around food because diets have told you that you aren't good enough, need to be smaller and thinner and are fed up with that nonsense then you are in the right place!
A few posts ago in my Body Love Series I posted an overview of intuitive eating. Today I want to go more in-depth on the first five principles of Intuitive Eating.
Over the last two years, I have become so passionate about intuitive eating that I am in the process of becoming a certified intuitive eating counselor and specializing in to provide quality intuitive eating services to my clients.
Today, I want to give you begin a 2 Part series where I go in-depth on what the intuitive eating principles are, and how to start incorporating them into your life and ditch dieting this instant.
These principles come from the book Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. I HIGHLY recommend going to Amazon or your local bookstore and buying this book TODAY if you are in any way stuck with food, eating or body issues! They also have a fantastic Intuitive Eating Workbook that gives you exercises to begin the journey of becoming an intuitive eater and healing your relationship with food and your body.
These principles work towards gaining body attunement, which means learning to listen to and respond to your body's natural queues.
Let's go ahead and talk about the first 5 principles of intuitive eating.
1. Reject the diet mentality.
This is a difficult thing to do, but probably THE MOST IMPORTANT PRINCIPLE OF THEM ALL!
Think about the number of years you have spent thinking about and practicing different diets.
The average American makes 3-4 diet attempts per year!! That's an average of 40 dieting attempts over the course of 10 years!! The diet industry racks in $64 billion per year! We live in a culture that praises those who go on diets and call it "taking care of yourself." Well, I am here to tell you that going on a diet is not taking care of yourself.
Intuitive eating teaches YOU to be the expert on your own body.
Only you know when to eat, how much to eat and what to eat. These are things that diets cannot tell you because each person is extremely unique in their food needs and preferences.
This principle might be the hardest especially if you have been dieting for years, grew up in a dieting home and have been praised for your weight loss efforts.
I want to encourage you to pay attention to the ads on TV, social media, magazines and social situations with your friends and notice how much dieting/food restriction/cleanses/Whole 30/Keto/detox/cleanses/Weight Watchers/ WHATEVER is discussed. I promise it will surprise you.
I was recently reading an incredible book by Hillary McBride called Mothers, Daughters and Body Image and she talked about how women bond over body and food issues. We as women praise one another for diet attempts and freely complain about our bodies in the presence of friends. This is so sad to me!
As women let's rise up and fight against diet culture and fatphobia by not fighting with food or our bodies and encouraging other women to do the same and pursue things of purpose, value and change instead!
It's time to begin walking away from dieting as a solution and a way of life. I don't want to burst your bubble, but it is likely there is something much deeper going on in your soul that is turning to diets for the answer. As Dr. Stefani Reinold says (One of my favorite podcasts right now and favorite people), "It's not about the food!"
2. Honor your hunger.
This principle is all about eating when you are hungry as well as evaluating your level of hunger throughout the day. It is about allowing yourself to eat when you are at a medium stage of hunger and not waiting until you are "hangry."
Honoring your hunger is a form of self-care and attuning at a deep yet simple level.
There are so many diet rules about hunger. If you have been around the dieting block you have probably heard rules like, "Eat small meals every three hours," or "Don't eat after 7 pm."
I want to encourage you to put these dieting rules behind you and eat when you feel hungry. Notice where in your body you feel your hunger and what it feels like. Take care of your body through honoring your hunger.
When I was in the throes of chronic dieting I felt like I was almost ALWAYS hungry and could not get satisfied especially when I was trying to "limit my carb intake." When I was dieting I was seriously a super cranky person...my poor husband. Restricting food made me crazy emotionally and I became chronically hungry and my body was trying to tell me otherwise, but I wasn't listening.
What is your relationship like with your body's hunger signals?
3. Make Peace With Food.
It's time to stop fighting with food and give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you have been restricting for years you are probably reading this and thinking that I am crazy. It is likely over the years of restriction you labeled foods as "good" and "bad."
Making peace with food means making all foods mentally and physically available to you and encourages no more moral categorizing. Food is not good or bad it is just food. Stop giving it such enormous power in your life.
I know this might seem really overwhelming at first and you might go through a period where you only eat those foods that you have been restricting for 3, 5, 10 or 15 years, but this makes sense. If certain foods have been off limits to you for a long time it's okay to go ahead and give yourself unconditional permission to eat those foods. I am here as a living testimony that your body will eventually get tired of eating pizza every day or whatever the restricted foods may be that you were restricting. And I want to remind you at this moment that your body KNOWS what you need. It's time to start listening to it and trusting it.
4. Challenge the Food Police.
It is time to stop beating yourself up about what you eat. If you want a cookie today you can just enjoy the cookie and move on, no beating yourself up, restricting the rest of the day or over exercising to "burn it off."
Challenging the food police encourages eaters to put an end to monitoring those unreasonable rules dieting has created. Your food police is likely buried deep down and you have likely been turning to them as a guide on what to eat or what not to eat.
Turn to your own body attunement instead. I know this might be difficult at first, but I promise it will become easier over time!
5. Respect Your Fullness.
Like honoring your hunger this principle is similar in encouraging you to respect your fullness.
When you feel full you can stop eating. You can always eat those leftovers tomorrow because ALL FOOD IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO YOU.
Think about honor and fullness on a scale with 1 being really hungry and 10 being very full. We don't feel good when we are neither super hungry or super full so find a happy spot in the middle.
Before intuitive eating, I would often overeat and exceed my comfortable fullness point and then beat myself up for eating too much food. This would especially happen if I was out to eat or it was a celebration of some kind.
Over time I have come to realize this habit developed because I would "give myself permission" to eat as much as I wanted while at a celebration or restaurant unlike the restriction I would practice in my day to day life. So, it makes so much sense that I would get overly full during these occasions because I was restricting otherwise.
When I STOPPED restricting all together I didn't get to that uncomfortable food place nearly as often!
What do you notice about your fullness? Are there occasions when you get uncomfortably full?
I began incorporating these principles one at a time as I became an intuitive eater. I would write notes about each principle and put it on my fridge as I was trying to practice them.
I wanted to be sure to let you know I am still practicing these principles every day! I have worked really hard on ditching the diet mentality and incorporating intuitive eating into my life. This has been a slow journey, but I HAVE SO MUCH FREEDOM NOW around food than I EVER had before.
Dieting is a heart issue. The troubles you are experiencing with body dissatisfaction can be healed over time. Intuitive eating is a fantastic paradigm to find healing with food and body.
YOUR value is not based on the size of YOUR body. You are perfect the way you are.
If you are struggling with your body, food, weight or dieting I want to encourage you to reach out! You can find freedom and peace with food and your body and we are more than happy to help!
Stay tuned for Intuitive Eating Part 2.
Hugs (because I know you might need one after I just crushed your dieting dreams),
Chelsea
Encounter Counseling offers in-person counseling in Grand Junction and online counseling state-wide in Colorado including Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs.