What Is Intuitive Eating?
By: Alix Schram, NYNG Intern
Contrary to what you might expect, intuitive eating is not a diet. It’s not about meal planning or restricting or food combining or any usual diet pattern. Intuitive eating centers around getting in touch with your body—your hunger and fullness cues, feeling satisfied, creating a trusting and positive relationship with food. In infancy, this is how we eat. As we age, we begin to create food rules, and along with that comes both guilt and pride. If you want to break the dieting cycle, intuitive eating might be for you. However, it takes work, just like any other behavioral change, to get back in tune with your body at its deepest level and honor it.
That being said, intuitive eating is ultimately not about weight loss. You might lose weight, you might gain a little weight. Intuitive eating is about feeling good in your body and rejecting diet culture, which tells us losing xx pounds will make us better. Learn to love your body, to honor it, and to be less judgmental with yourself. Instead of creating limits and restrictions around certain foods, it’s about making decisions based on experience and self-care.
There are 10 principles, set forth by the creators of intuitive eating, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch.
1. Reject the Diet Mentality
Tried paleo, keto, Whole30, and a plethora of other diets? You’re not alone. Now’s the time to throw out those rules. No counting calories, getting rid of entire food groups, or never eating dessert. This is the first step!
2. Honor Your Hunger
Once you’re crossed the point of being too hungry (and reached hanger, perhaps), the idea of eating rationally is gone. With intuitive eating, the goal is to keep your body fed. Listen to early cues of hunger and have a snack to avoid that primal feeling to eat everything in site.
3. Make Peace with Food
This point is about giving yourself permission to eat what you crave and do away with forbidden foods. The more you can dispense with the “I’ll do better tomorrow” mentality, the easier it will be for you to feel satisfied.
4. Challenge the Food Police
No food is good or bad! Plain and simple.
5. Respect Your Fullness
Along with your hunger cues, also listen to signals of fullness. Even if there’s food left on the plate, if you’re full, save it for later.
6. Discover the Satisfaction Favor
Allow yourself to feel pleasure when enjoying a food. Create an environment in which to revel in your enjoyment of eating—be mindful of the experience. This will ultimately help you to eat less.
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food
We’ve all turned to food when dealing with a difficult emotion, but has it ever solved the problem? It’s time to find other ways to handle stress or tough days—find the source, because eating won’t fix the root cause.
8. Respect Your Body
Every human has a different genetics and therefore a different body shape, and each of those shapes is beautiful. Learn to be less critical of how your shape might differ from traditional expectations, and then learn to love it.
9. Exercise—Feel the Difference
You don’t have to finish an hour long HIIT class for it to count as exercise. Simply move your body in a way that feels good to you, whether or not it torches calories. View working out as something that makes you feel alive and energized, rather than as a weight loss tool.
10. Honor Your Health
Every day in your body is different, and therefore so will be your appetite, cravings, and what you choose to eat. Aim for consistency over time rather than one snack or dinner. Focus on the bigger picture, rather than being perfect 24/7.
Information via https://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/