For most of my life, I've had to watch what I eat. I am a naturally curvy person, and in a world where being thin is desirable, and clothes are not made for curves, I always felt bigger than the average. So from an early age, I learned to diet.
But there was always been a part of me that wished I could eat anything. What would it be like to live freely, choose what I want, eat what I want, with no consequences?
Restriction and bingeing were just...the norm.
Until I discovered intuitive eating. And my whole world changed. I hope yours does too.
Before you dive in, I want to start off with this:
Intuitive eating requires you to let go of the idea that you need to lose or gain weight to look a certain way, instead focusing on food that work best for your overall physical and mental health
What is intuitive eating?
Intuitive eating is using your intuition to interpret what your hunger hormones are saying to you, and using that information to decide what to eat.
More simply, it is a non-dieting approach to changing your eating habits!
Intuitive eating means trusting your body to make food choices that feel good to you, without letting judgment or the influence of diet culture cloud your decisions. I like to think of intuitive eating as the coach of the diet industry - it assumes YOU know what is best for your body, because you are the expert of interpreting your hunger signals.
By letting your internal hunger and fullness cues guide your eating, intuitive eating promotes a healthy attitude towards food and body image.
In its most basic form, intuitive eating goes by this formula
Intuitive eating = eating when hungry + stopping when full
Intuitive eating has gained a lot of popularity with the rise of social media, but actually, the concept has been around since 1973, when Thelma Wayler founded a lifestyle change weight management program called Green mountain. Since that time, it has slowly built momentum through books such as “Fat is a feminist Issue” by Susie Orbach until, in 1995 the revolutionary book “Intuitive Eating” by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch was released into the world.
This anti-diet approach is based on a person’s needs at one moment in time, and thus doesn’t focus on specific foods, calorie intake or time of eating.
Okay, so now you know what it is…you might be thinking why on earth is intuitive eating a good thing? What makes it so popular?
Benefits of intuitive eating
Instead of another long winded paragraph, I’ve created a mind map of the benefits…mostly coz I loooove mind maps. Or maps of any kind really - treasure, google, marauder’s etcetera, etcetera.
So in the hope that you also adore a map, here’s one for you.
Okay, you’ve looked at all the benefits, and now you’re wondering…so what does intuitive eating entail?
Well, there are 10 basic principles to understand and embrace.
The 10 principles of Intuitive Eating
So let’s dig in, and start diving into the nitty gritty of the Intuitive eating methodology.
#1 Reject diet mentality
Dieting is like a drug. It has the same rebound weight gain effect as many weight loss drugs (Ozempic included!) If you want to lose weight for a short period of time, diet. If you want a sustainable lifestyle change, shun dieting, step outside of its oppressive regime, and look into the future with hope shining in your eyes - there is another way, and its name is intuitive eating.
#2 Recognised and honour your hunger
This principle is about physical hunger. Keeping your body fueed with adequate energy from carbohydrates, proteins and fats is critical for survival. Not honouring this basic need triggers a primal drive to eat beyond what is comfortable - often known as inducing the food coma state. This is a common issue seen as binge eating following a period of restriction, whether its from calories or restriction of a particular food group.
Honouring your physical hunger is the foundation needed to rebuild trust between yourself and food.
If you are in the habit of not honouring your physical hunger by waiting to the point of excessive hunger, then you’ll know the phenomenon well. Once you’re at that point, all intentions of being “good”, eating only a moderate amount and having a mindful eating experience fly out the window and become irrelevant. Instead, your body takes whatever is in the vicinity (mine sings “food, magical food, wonderful food, glorious food”)
#3 Make peace with food
You’ve heard of forbidden fruit right? I bet you started salivating just from reading that phrase - I know I did. Images so enticing they actually made you pause for a second floated through your brain.
But food isn’t good, nor is it bad. It is edible. It provides nourishment in varying degrees. It can be grown, man-made, cooked, raw, salty, sweet and a whole host of other adjectives.
Stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat all types of food.
Banish words like CAN’T and SHOULDN’T. These can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that snowball into uncontrollable cravings until you throw caution to the wind and have a bingeing session. And at that point, the food experience becomes so intense that you eat like it’s your last meal (also known as the last supper phenomenon) and inevitably suffer from guilt, shame and anger.
There is no such thing as forbidden food in intuitive eating.
Pharmacist nerd alert! Did you know, sometimes food cravings indicate a vitamin deficiency or need? If you’re craving chocolate, that can indicate a need for magnesium. Wanting chips can indicate a sodium deficiency. And sometimes, thirst can induce a craving as well!
#4 Challenge the food police
“Stop in the name of the law!”
The food police uphold the unreasonable laws set by Dieting, one of the major powers that rule the world in this day and age.
Their police station is located deep in the psyche and it has a megaphone that shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases and guilt-provoking statements on repeat.
Chasing the food police away is a critical step for returning to intuitive eating.
Oh you may think, reading this, that it is all fun and games, it’s not the truth. But the reality is, food police can be real people.
You know who I’m talking about right? Those people who say “Do you really want to eat that?” with a delicately doubtful look on their faces.
Or even more insidiously, “Oh I could never eat that, it would go straight to my butt/belly/thighs/hips!” making you feel like a damn fool for even considering letting the food cross your mouth, and worse, making you feel big, clumsy and oaf-like.
It’s time to stand up, and say no more. One way to challenge the food police is practice setting boundaries and repeating them, using every situation as an opportunity to practice.
#5 Respect your fullness
Your body talks to you. If you can listen, you will find that it sends you clear signals that you are no longer hungry, and have moved into the fullness arena. Hunger and fullness are integral biological cues that indicate what our body needs nutritionally - but many of us have learned to ignore and suppress these cues.
Spend some time when you first begin your intuitive eating journey getting acquainted with your body's hunger and fullness signals.
Observe for signs that you are full. These include:
A subtle sigh in the middle of your meal
Genuinely feeling like you don’t want to eat the next bite
Tightness around the belly
Beginning to feel sluggish
These signs will be slightly different for each of us, so it’s important to be able to recognise your own personal fullness signs.
In order to truly respect your fullness, evaluate your fullness levels throughout the meal or snack. Ask yourself, “Does the food still taste good?” and “What is my current fullness level?”
I’ve created a free guide for you, to help you design your own hunger fullness scale, because it’s so crucial in all aspects of being a healthy eater.
The two key players in hunger and fullness are the hormones ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin signals to your brain that you’re hungry, and increases your appetite. Leptin decreases your appetite and signals that you’re full.
When you’ve spent a long time ignoring these two hormones, sometimes getting in touch with them can be hard, and seem frustrating. But persevere - your patience will be rewarded. Leptin sensitivity can be impaired in obesity and other chronic conditions, so it may take a while to get leptin levels back to normal, but once you start getting in tune with your fullness, you will find that the signals will start getting stronger and stronger.
#6 Discover the satisfaction factor
The Japanese principle of healthy living includes an element of promoting pleasurable feelings. How amazing is that? And, unsurprisingly, pleasure is a principle of intuitive eating.
Pleasure is a powerful force that helps increase satisfaction and contentment levels. It’s a superpower! If you can harness the power of pleasure by eating what you want in an inviting and conducive environment without shame, blame or judgement, life becomes much more enjoyable.
On holidays, when you eat exactly what you want, your body feels amazing, and you come away with a fabulous experience feeling very little guilt or shame. You arrive back at home feeling energised! That’s because you’ve spent that time just going with the flow and listening to what your body wants, and what gives you satisfaction! I once spent an entire day gelato hopping through Florence in Italy. It was the best!
As part of this principle, you must recognise what foods feel good in your body and which ones don’t.
I like chocolate. But I also know that after I eat 3 pieces of chocolate, I start getting stomach cramps. After 6 pieces of chocolate, I feel my blood pumping unpleasantly in my body, like it wants to break free and pump out of my skin. Some people get sweaty with dairy and start feeling really heavy. For others, bread makes them feel bloated. But for others still, the smell and taste of bread gives pleasure of unimaginable heights!
Recognising and adjusting your food intake based on these foods is also about pleasure and satisfaction as well - not dieting. It’s not only about how much pleasure the foods give your senses, but also the satisfaction you feel when eating them.
#7 Honour and cope with your feelings without using food
This principles focuses on emotional hunger rather than physical hunger. Evelyn and Elyse recognise that emotional eating plays a big role in what we put into our body.
When you restrict your food intake, it triggers a loss of control which can feel like emotional eating.
The first part of this principle is to be kind to yourself when dealing with emotions. Like a mother with their child, ask what is needed, provide distractions, and help deal with what is happening through gentle questions and understanding.
If you are struggling with emotional eating, I’ve covered it in more detail in another post. But the first step is always identifying triggering situations - what emotions cause you to eat? Boredom, stress, anxiety, sadness and anger are all common causes.
Once you’ve identified the pattern of emotional eating, find ways to cope with the emotion that does not involve food. Movement is a great one, as is distraction.
But above all, don’t beat yourself up. Remember that emotions are just energy messages telling us that our system is out of whack, and we need to recalibrate. A great introspective exercise is asking “What does this emotion need me to do?”
#8 Respect your body
Body acceptance is a big part of intuitive eating. Once you start honouring and respecting your body, you may find you feel better about who you are and start feeling at home in your own skin.
Genetics are different for everyone, and every body is different and worthy of respect. What works for one person will not always work for another. And comparison is futile for this exact reason!
Being able to respect your body is different from self-love. There may always be parts of your body that you can’t change, and don’t necessarily like. But without respecting and honouring your body, you risk being unsatisfied no matter how your body changes.
Part of respecting your body is honouring your body’s digestion and your capability to handle particular foods, in spite of the nutritional benefits it might have. Oats are fabulous for their high fibre content, but my system cannot handle them. Everytime I force myself to eat oats, I get severe reflux and it makes me feel so sick. There was a time when I ate them despite this, which meant I was NOT respecting what my body was telling me.
Every body is beautiful. Find the thing that makes you respect your body and focus on that.
To respect your body, change critical statements into respectful statements.
Critical statement | Respectful statement |
I hate the way my body looks | This is the way my body looks. If I want to change it, I can put in the work to treat it well |
My belly is so flabby | my belly is the house of all my vital organs, so I need to make sure it is nourished and healthy |
#9 Exercise - feel the difference
Get active and feel the difference. You will notice a tingling or buzzing in your body, like energy is zipping through when your blood starts circulating. It gives you a warm glow. Physiologically, it literally is moving all the heat from your core to your extremities to offload the excess heat that exercise produces.
Change your focus from gruelling calorie output to how your body feels during movement.
Choose exercises that you enjoy. Remember, part of intuitive eating is promoting the feeling of pleasure! And choosing pleasurable activities increase the likelihood that you will be consistent in your movement.
As an added benefit, once you choose activities that you enjoy, you may find yourself doing complementary activities that also benefit your body. When I started figure skating, not only was I skating, but I worked on flexibility and strength exercises outside of the rink. As a result, I was stronger, more flexible, more graceful and I felt a lot better about how I looked.
#10 Honour your health - gentle nutrition
Last but not least, make food choices that honour your well being, your taste buds and your culture while attuning to how your body feels.
This principle is about nutritional health overall, not perfection every time. Consistency over time matters!
This is also the aspect of intuitive eating that accounts for eating when you’re not feeling physical hunger symptoms, but know that you should eat for nutritional benefits.
For example, eating when you know you might not be able to eat later. Or if you are feeling low on energy even though you are not physically hungry. Or if you are planning on doing something later that will require a lot MORE energy than normal (eg. an intense exercise class, or running a marathon)
Part of the reason this is the last principle is that repairing the relationship you have with food is the most critical part of intuitive eating.
This may mean that you consume more of the foods you previously considered “bad” early on in your journey, but as time goes by your body starts to recognise that they are freely available, and the desire for them naturally lessens, or isn’t as intense.
Learning to trust what your body wants at any moment in time, coupled with nourishing your body with what it needs - these are the foundational steps of intuitive eating.
How do I start eating intuitively?
Phew, the big important one.
So you’ve read through and you understand the theory. But how do you put it into practice?
Create a hunger fullness scale. Take a few weeks to get a rough idea of what your personal hunger and fullness signals are. Focus on listening to your body, and identifying your own cues
Learn the difference between physical and emotional hunger symptoms, and start identifying patterns of behaviour around emotional eating. Recognising your emotions and finding ways to soothe them that don’t involve food is crucial.
Appetites and cravings are stimulated by visual cues, emotional cues, olfactory (smell) cues and social cues. Identify the cue of your “hunger” and respond with awareness and intention.
Assess before you ingest - once you’ve got your hunger fullness scale down, pause and evaluate where you sit on the scale several times during each meal and snack. Slowing down can help big time with this step. Studies show that just by slowing down the speed at which you eat, you consume less, and give your brain time to catch up with your body. There are some cultures where mealtimes are honoured and take hours at a time for this reason!
When reaching for something that triggers shame or guilt in your body, start asking yourself, “Do I want this right now?” It’s not about restriction, it’s about respecting what your body wants at a particular moment in time. If the answer is yes, go for it. If not, you can have it later when you actually want it - because no food is off limits anymore.
Make peace with all types of food. Each time you catch yourself looking at food as good or bad, stop and change the words you are saying to yourself. Remember, the more “forbidden” something is, the more you immediately want it - it’s basic human psychology. Listen to your body and eat what feels right for you.
You might find when you start out that you’re drawn to more of the foods you once considered “naughty” foods or “treat” foods. But the reality is, your brain is just like a child in a candy store. Once it starts to realise that the candy is not off limits, it loses its appeal, and your brain will only go there when it truly desires candy, not just because you tell yourself you can’t have it.
Disadvantages of intuitive eating
This is truly meant to be your one stop information shop for intuitive eating, so let’s look at some of the downsides you should be aware of when you start down this path.
Intuitive eating may not lead to weight loss
Intuitive eating isn’t about calories. It’s about honouring your body’s hunger and fullness signals. And in doing so, you may not be putting yourself in a calorie deficit, or using more energy than you’re consuming.
Although initially you may experience some weight change, chances are that you will be entering a maintenance phase and your weight will not go down (but also probably won’t go up).
If your goal is weight loss, then you might need a more tailored approach which incorporates elements of intuitive eating, something I, as a healthy eating coach, can assist you in creating.
Fear of weight gain.
If you’ve subscribed to the weight loss fads for most of your life, like me, then you might have an underlying fear of weight gain. Every sign that you might be gaining weight can feel like a noose around your neck. Intuitive eating can aggravate this fear. Be aware of this - there are steps you can take to reduce the fear, and lean into the unknown, but at it’s core, intuitive eating keeps you in a maintenance state.
Studies about outcomes related to weight gain and chronic disease are unclear
Although intuitive eating has been around for a while, there haven’t been many studies indicating that intuitive eating improves healthy outcomes related to weight gain and chronic disease. Individual elements have clear correlations with better health outcomes, such as eating only to fullness and eating for physiological benefits, but more research is needed to directly correlate intuitive eating with improvements in chronic disease.
Food addiction not addressed
I have definitely said “I’m so addicted to X food” multiple times in my life. It’s because of something called hyperpalatability of food. Hyperpalatability is where manufacturers use ingredients such as salt, fat and sugar to create a unique mix that is so appealing to our taste buds that it produces a 10x more potent dopamine rush than foods without this mix.
Dopamine is directly related to addiction. The stronger the rush of dopamine that a substance produces, the more your body wants that substance. And food, being essential for survival, is the most addictive substance in the world. Once you can evoke such a strong dopamine reaction from food, you enter the realm of food addiction. And the danger of this lies in the fact that food addiction will keep you eating well past the time your hunger signals have told you to stop.
You can eat to hunger, you can change how you respond to emotional eating, but without acknowledging and addressing food addiction, many people struggle with intuitive eating. Unfortunately, there is no principle in intuitive eating directly related to rectifying food addiction. However, as a pharmacist and healthy eating coach, I have worked with many people to incorporate strategies for food addiction into an intuitive eating approach - something that can work extremely successfully!
Might not be effective for people who lack food resources
If you live in a place where food is not easily accessible, then intuitive eating may not be the right approach for you. If you find yourself hungry at a time when no food is available to you, it may be impossible to address your hunger in a timely manner.
Lacks structure
So, you’ve tried diet after diet. All have one thing in common - they have structure. Eat at a particular time, or after a particular activity, or in response to a particular event.
Intuitive eating moves you out of structure and into a more fluid state of being, like waves in the ocean. You’re going with the flow, dude!
But for some people, this can be really disconcerting.
I’ll admit, this is something I found difficult to deal with. In the pharmacy, we have 30 minutes for lunch. If I cannot plan that I eat my meals at that time, then I have no other set time to eat. I work facing patients, which means if I decide that I’m suddenly at a level 4 of hunger and I need to eat, I may have to wait anywhere from 10 - 30 minutes to eat! I can’t very well leave a patient hanging while I grab a bite. And then all of a sudden, I’m at a level 2 or 3 of hunger - the beginning of severe hunger pangs, light headedness and unprovoked resentment and irritation. I become desperate and eat anything I can get my hands on. (This is not a made up scenario, and my colleagues can attest to this)
Unfortunately, structures like this can interfere with your hunger hormones and your ability to read your hunger or fullness levels, which can lead to mild forms of disordered eating. And it’s not an uncommon situation!
Hard to start
If you’re used to eating at set times, or eating particular types of food, intuitive eating can be hard to get into. It seems like overturning all your tried and trusted methods of eating, and suddenly eating in a random, wishy washy manner, with a lot of experimentation.
In this case, it might be good to start slowly, take on one principle at a time, and have low expectations. This is especially the case for someone deeply mired in dieting culture.
Intuitive eating does not always equal better health
If you currently eat lots of high sugar, high fat foods such as fast food and convenience food, or take out, then eating intuitively doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll improve your health. Intuitive eating is sometimes interpreted as unconditional permission to eat - which studies have shown to be “associated with poorer diet quality, higher total calorie intake and unhealthful food choices.”
If you are seriously looking to improve your health, intuitive eating might have to be combined with other techniques such as increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables, increasing your water intake and adding in more of the nutritious stuff. This means that you might need to prepare yourself to experience a period of discomfort, which your taste buds adjust to the onslaught of new nutritious foods.
(Luckily for you, it takes approximately 10 days for your taste buds to start preferring different foods!)
So as you can see, the downsides are more technicalities. The reality is, if you are truly committed to intuitive eating, you will see a lot more benefits, with a few downsides that can really be catered to quite easily.
Conclusion
Phew, this was a lot! You made it through though so congratulations! You are now equipped with all the gear you need to start intuitive eating - and guess what? It was inside you all along tehehehe (I wouldn't blame you if this elicited a groan).
I leave you with this thought. Speakeasy’s were created during a time when imbibing alcohol was illegal. How have we come to a place where eating what you want to eat is also frowned upon? Make eating okay. Start eating intuitively, and watch as life becomes brighter and much more pleasurable!
References:
Intuitive eating - Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
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