So if society is telling us that we need to diet, there must be numerous health benefits to it, right? That’s not always the case. There have been numerous studies performed over the years, and most of the results have proven that dieting actually isn’t as effective as we think it is. For example, one study from UCLA proved that, ”23 percent of those who were on a diet for a year gained back more weight than they had lost prior to starting”. If people end up weighing more than they did before starting that diet, then clearly that diet isn’t very effective, now is it?
The scenario above is very common, and it’s referred to as the restrict-binge cycle. If this has happened to you, it doesn’t mean you have no self-control, it just means that you are not treating your body with the respect it deserves. Depriving our bodies of what it wants is NOT healthy at all, and doing so often leads to binge-eating, ultimately leading to weight gain.
Most diets today require you to “cut ____out” from your diet, whether it’s sweets, carbs, fats, or so on. And whenever you cut something out, the risk of craving that food and therefore binging on it later increases. The restrict-binge cycle is a component of most diets, and it’s the reason why so many diets today do not work.
Let’s face it – food is a critical component of our lives, and it’s incredibly important to have a good relationship with it. But how do we do that? First of all, no more dieting! Diets only lead to unhealthy thoughts and relationships with food, so we need to eliminate them once and for all. Second, I encourage you to look into Intuitive Eating and start incorporating that into your lifestyle.
What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive Eating is a philosophy that has really taken off and gained a lot of popularity over the past few years. Some of you may have heard of it before (or even follow its principles), and some of you may have no clue what I’m talking about. Intuitive Eating is not a diet plan or a way to help you lose weight. Rather, it is a journey to help you learn how to live a healthy life and have a better relationship with food. And that, my friends, is so much more important than losing weight or following a “quick-fix” diet.
Today, the “food police” seem to be out and about all the time, telling us we can’t have this or can’t have that. As a result, many people have very rigid rules when it comes to food and eating, and that isn’t healthy at all. An intuitive eater, on the other hand, is a person who “makes food choices without experiencing guilt, honors hunger, respects fullness, and enjoys the pleasure of eating.” Food is meant to be enjoyed and cherished, and Intuitive Eaters have learned to master that concept. It’s time we all took a page out of their book and started to incorporate the Intuitive Eating Lifestyle.
The concept of Intuitive Eating is made up of 10 different principles, which are:
- Reject the Diet Mentality
- Honor Your Hunger
- Make Peace with Food
- Challenge the Food Police
- Respect Your Fullness
- Discover the Satisfaction Factor
- Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food
- Respect Your Body
- Exercise – Feel the Difference
- Honor Your Health
These principles are meant to guide your eating and help you on your journey toward a healthier relationship with food. Intuitive Eating does not happen overnight; it is a journey that requires a lot of hard work and patience. However, in the end, all the hard work will have paid off, and you will have a much healthier relationship with food, your body, and your health.
The Principles
Reject the Diet Mentality
Although all ten principles of Intuitive Eating are important, this one may be one of the mostimportant, and it’s absolutely key that you follow this if you want to start practicing Intuitive Eating. Today’s society is filled with diet shakes, weight loss programs, and advertisments about the latest and greatest cleanses, detoxes, or diets, and it’s so easy to get caught up in food rules and restrictions. You hear all of these stories that people lost 20 pounds in just 2 months, but stop and really think to yourself: is it realistic that these people are actually going to keep the weight off in the long term?
The results from studies are pretty clear: diets do, in fact, lead to short-term weight loss. But take a moment to really think about how you feel while you’re on a diet or participating in a detox: Does dieting feel good to you? Does it make you happier than you were before? Do you think you’ll be able to realistically keep this up for the rest of your life? Did you actually lose weight and keep it off? Studies have proven over and over again that, in the long-run, diets are NOT as effective as we think they are – the weight comes back and often brings more with it. In addition, diets can lead to emotional distress, feeling tired all the time, and unhealthy relationships with food.
Therefore, in order to begin your journey with Intuitive Eating, you have to ditch the diet mentality once and for all. This includes eliminating the thoughts that foods are either “good” or “bad” and eliminating guilt after you eat a so-called “bad food”. It can be hard to change these thoughts and replace them with new ones, but I challenge you to try it. Work on letting go of the goal to change your body, and instead, focus on your health and overall well-being.
Honor Your Hunger
The good thing about human beings is that we are all are born with a natural ability to determine when we are hungry. When our bodies need more fuel to keep working properly, our hormone system signals the rest of the body. This usually begins with your stomach starting to growl and make noises, letting you know you’re getting hungry and should start thinking about eating very soon. If you ignore this first sign, your hormones take it one step further and start messing with your brain, leaving you irritabile and grumpy. This can even lead to shaking, weakness, or severe headaches, which are all things we want to avoid.
When you get to the point when you’re overly hungry, your brain can’t properly rationalize what it wants; instead, you’re going to reach for the quickest and easiest type of food around – which is often times sugary or packaged foods. And since you’re overly hungry by that point, you usually over-eat to satisfy those serious hunger pains, which ultimately leads to feeling guilty and triggering the whole restrict-binge cycle.
However, by learning to honor your hunger cues when they first appear, you can make rational decisions about foods you want to fill your body with and prevent future situations that might lead to over-eating. Honring your hunger is a process that can be very hard to start. It means you need to eat when you feel hungry and completely trust in your body’s ability to let you know when it needs fuel. So even if you ate lunch one hour ago and your stomach starts growling again, there’s a reason for it: your body is telling you it needs more fuel, so it’s important to honor those cues. Now I’m not saying to have a full-on feast; start with a small snack and see if it causes the stomach growling to go away. If it doesn’t, then clearly your body still needs some more food, and you should always honor those cravings.
Honoring your hunger can be a scary step. You have to completely let go of control and instead learn to put your trust in your body. It may feel like you’re going to overeat, but your body won’t let that happen if you continuously honor your hunger – after all, our bodies are smart and they know what they are doing! Trust your body.
Make Peace With Food
This one can be quite a challenge, but I promise you it will lead to so much more freedom and a better relationship with food and your body. Let go of all your food rules. Let go of the idea that there are “good” foods and “bad” foods. Let go of the idea that certain foods are off limits. Let go of all those negative thoughts about food once and for all – after all, holding on to those thoughts is only leading to an unhealthy relationship with your health.
Give yourself permission to eat all foods. After all, food is fuel. Every type of food we eat is helping our bodies become stronger and function better, so why should a food be deemed as “bad” if it is actually helping our bodies perform better? When you label a food as “bad” or tell yourself you can’t have it anymore, it often leads to an increased desire to eat that food. When we tell ourselves we can’t eat a certain food, we dream about it all the time and can’t focus on anything else until we eat said food. This usually leads to uncontrollable cravings, so we give in and finally eat the food. More times than not, though, this leads to overeating that food because we’ve been restricting it for so long and depriving our bodies of it. After this happens, the guilt usually arrives, followed by the thought that you need to start restricting the food from your diet again. But look where that got you last time – who’s to say it won’t happen again?
However, when you make peace with food and stop labeling foods as “bad”, you don’t dream about your “bad foods” all the time – instead, you realize you can have that food anytime you want! And when you have this mindset, that food suddenly doesn’t seem so desirable anymore, meaning you’ll be less likely to go overboard on it. Remove the food rules and you remove the desire – it’s as simple as that!
Making peace with food allows you to think about it in a whole new way. Instead of viewing foods as “good” or “bad”, you start to realize that all food is fuel for your body. Challenge yourself to listen to your body and ask yourself what it is you reallywant to eat. Maybe it’s a slice of chocolate cake, or maybe it’s some carrot sticks. Just realize that both are perfectly acceptable choices, and you should feel the same way about eating a piece of cake as you do when you eat those carrot sticks – no guit and no shame.
Challenge the Food Police
In case you were wondering… no, there is no official job title as “Food Police”. Rather, the term food police refers to those internal thoughts in our heads telling us that food is good/bad or that we can’t have _____ in our diet because it will lead to weight gain. Not only do the food police dictate what you can and can’t eat, but they also create all kinds of crazy rules in your head: you mustgo four hours in between all meals, you cannoteat after 8 pm, or absolutely no carbs allowed. The food police are like that pesky little flies that won’t leave you alone – they’re always there to annoy you, but you just want to slap them in the face and make them go away once and for all.
Here’s the good thing: you canchallenge the Food Police and make them go away. If the Food Police tell you to restrict your diet and eliminate sugar for a week, but you really want a cookie, go ahead and eat that cookie, and enjoy it. As you do so, think about why the Food Police were telling you to do this. If you can’t think of an answer, it’s okay, because usually (9 times out of 10), there isn’t a reason. The Food Police are just there to make your life complicated and miserable, so it’s time you fight back .
Food is meant to be enjoyed WHEN we want it and HOW we want it. So if you want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich after dinner, honor your cravings! Giving in to the Food Police and falling victim to their crazy rules is only going to set you up for failure and lead you straight back to the restrict-binge cycle. We were all born with a head on our shoulders and a brain capable of making decisions, so it’s time we take advantage of that and stand up for what we want.
Just remember: what you eat does notdetermine your worth as an overall human being. Following a strict diet or eating a salad does not make you “good”, just like eating a few cookies does not make you “bad”, despite what the Food Police are telling you. You are so much more than the food you eat, so it’s time you stand up to those Food Police once and for all and tell them to get lost!
Respect Your Fullness
As we talked about earlier, it’s important to honor your hunger and eat when you feel hungry. However, learning to respect your fullness and to stop eating when you are full is just as important. The two of these go hand-in-hand, so let’s take a quick moment to discuss them.
Discover the Satisfaction Factor
Having a healthy relationship with food doesn’t mean eating only vegetables, fruits, or low-fat foods. Rather, having a healthy relationship with food means learning how to eat the foods you want in a way that allows you to really savor them and enjoy them.
Sure, there is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to eat foods packed full of nutrients. However, when you start limiting yourself to eating onlythese foods, things start to go downhill. When you restrict your diet to just a few foods, you end up eating those foods simply because you “have to”, not because you want to. But let’s face it – food is meant to be enjoyed. We should find joy in eating a nice, cheesy slice of pizza or a warm, gooey brownie straight from the oven, not deprive ourselves of these foods and find ourselves drooling over them every day because we “can’t” have them. Always make room for the foods that make you feel good. The more you incorporate these foods into your diet, the more satisifed you’ll feel, and this will decrease your urge to eat that food all the time or binge on it when you finally do allow yourself to have it.
Another big part of this principle is learning how to limit distractions when you are eating. By doing this, we are able to be more in-tune with our bodies and think about how that food truly makes us feel. Often times in today’s world, people are not in tune with their meals: we eat at 12 pm because it’s “lunch time”, we eat a snack to keep us busy while watching Netflix on TV, even if we aren’t hungry. Let’s face it: most of us operate on auto-pilot and don’t really give food the time it deserves.
Here’s a challenge for you: try to limit all distractions as you are eating. Maybe this means turning the TV off or putting the computer away, or maybe it means getting rid of the clock in your office and instead taking a lunch break when you feel hungry for it. Just like any other skill, learning to eat intuitively takes time and requires practice in order for us to master it. So the next time you grab something to eat, pay attention to how that food reallymakes you feel: How does it taste? Do you enjoy it? Is it satisfying?
Just remember: you’re practicing a skill – you won’t be perfect right from the beginning. However, if you learn to eat more mindfully and pay attention to the satisfaction food gives you, you’re doing it right – you’re well on your way to mastering the concept of Intuitive Eating.
Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food
This principle is one of the biggest ones to tackle, because it requires you to do a lot of emotional healing. And for anyone who has dealt with a mental illness, you know that trying to recover from these problems isn’t always as easy as it sounds.
In today’s world, we don’t just eat because we’re hungry, although that certainly is a big component of why we eat. Food has a connection with so many different things, and there are several reasons why we eat. Food can be used to celebrate happy occassions. Food can be used to cure boredom. Food is there for us when we feel stressed. Food (or a lack of it) is there when we feel sad. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that food can be attached to so many different emotions.
How many times have you come home from a stressful day and dug into a carton of ice cream or a bag of chips because you think it will make you feel better? Now think about it… how many times did doing that actuallymake you feel better? In that short period of time, maybe food washelpful, because it allowed you to take your mind off of whatever was bothering you at the moment. But chances are that once you finished eating and realized how much you just ate, you won’t feel so good anymore. In fact, chances are that you’ll feel pretty crummy and start beating yourself up for having “no self control”. Cue the start to the restrict-binge cycle. Plus, think of it like this: the answer to your issues is not going to be found at the bottom of an ice cream tub, and you’ll most likely still be bored by the time you finish that big bag of potato chips.. so what was the actual purpose of you consuming those foods?
Yes, food can be a short-term way to deal with our emotions. But is it healthy? No. When we’re already upset or sad about something and then eat based on our emotions (often leading to over-eating), we feel even worse and then view food as a negative factor contributing to our sadness. But as we’ve learned, food should be a positive factor in our lives, not a negative one. Therefore, we need to avoid placing any extra blame on food and find a way to deal with our emotions that does notinvolve food.
So how do you do this? When you feel bored, try getting out of the house and getting away from food. After all.. out of sight, out of mind. Take a walk outside, go to the mall, call a friend to meet up, or do whatever it takes to get your mind off of food. When you’re feeling down, try journaling or calling a loved one on the phone. Whatever you do, don’t keep your sadness to yourself. Give yourself permission to cry and express your emotions. Once you let it all out, chances are that you’ll be less inclined to reach for food to help you feel better. Stressed out? Go for a walk, do some light yoga, light a candle, take a bath, call a loved one, or do whatever it takes to prevent you from “stress-eating”.
Overall, emotional eating can be prevented by finding other ways to occupy your mind or body. If you find yourself headed to the pantry or fridge even after trying these techniques, ask yourself a few questions: Am I truly hungry? Will I actually feel better if I eat this? Is there something else I could be doing to pass my time? Taking just a moment to pause and reflect on these thoughts can help prevent an episode of emotional eating, and ultimately prevent you from beating yourself up or causing yourself to enter the restrict-binge cycle.
Mastering this principle can be tough. It takes a lot of hard work and challenging your inner thoughts. But just remember that it’s a process; be patient, keep working hard, and things will eventually end up working out in your favor.
Respect Your Body
“If only I had a thinner waist”. “If only I could lose those 5 pounds to fit into my skinny jeans”. These, among many others, are the types of thoughts that several people have today. It seems like in today’s world, everyone is focused solely on bodies and image. There are always new products being advertised to promote weight loss, creams to prevent wrinkles and stretch marks, or talks of crazy new diet “trends”. Let’s face it – we live in a society that is obsessed with body image. And as a result, many people suffer from poor personal body image.
If you’ve ever had thoughts like the ones above, ask yourself the following: What are you going to gain by weighing 5 pounds less than you do right now? Why will you be so much happier wearing a size 4 as opposed to a size 6? Does weighing less equate to feeling happier? Now also ask yourself the following questions: Will you be satisfied once you reach your “goal weight”, or will you want to keep losing more? Will you be happy in the time it takes you to lose the weight (during those times when you force yourself to exercise vigorously or eat only vegetables)? Will you wake up excited to live a new day, or will you dread the day ahead because it means working out and restricting your diet yet again?
The point I’m trying to make is that having this whole diet mentality physically and mentally drags you down. Sure, many people want to lose weight, but how many are actually happy throughout the whole process? Chances are, not very many. But why tell yourself you can only be happy if you weigh X pounds or fit into a size X dress? Why can’t you just be happy right here and right now with your current body? Once we learn to accept our body the way it is right now, we can find immediate happiness – not happiness that arrives in 6 weeks along with a slim new figure.
Truthfully, no one cares how much you weigh or what size clothes you weigh. No one cares if you have a little extra stomach flab or jiggly thighs. All people care about is your personality and whether or not they enjoy being with you. And to be perfectly honest, no one wants to be around someone who’s cranky and miserable because they pushed themselves to work out too much or didn’t eat anything all day. But here’s the good news: you don’t have to be cranky and miserable all the time. Simply learning to accept your body and make peace with the way you look right now will allow you to enjoy life again and not hold back from doing the things you love.
Just remember: your worth is NOT determined by a number on the scale. The scale can only give you a numerical relection of your relationship with gravity. It cannot tell you your talents, your worth, your strengths, or your love. Accepting that life is more than just your weight can lead you to so much peace and happiness, and that will help you on your journey toward a healthier relationship with food.
Exercise – Feel The Difference
What do you think of when you hear the word “exercise”? If you’re like most people, you probably relate exercise with a way to lose weight or get those six-pack abs. Yes, exercise can certainly lead to those things, but if those are the only reasons why you’re choosing to exercise, then you’re doing it all wrong.Exercise can be very healthy for us – in terms of both mind andbody. However, you should choose to exercise because you want to, not because you feel like you have to.
One of the biggest benefits to exercising is its ability to make us feel better mentally. After we exercise, our bodies release something called endorphins, and these help boost our mood and help us feel happier. Not only that, but exercise provides us with a time to escape from reality and clear our minds from whatever it is that may be bothering us. It can often lead to decreased stress, decreased irritability, and increased energy and desire to do things, which are all things we definitely want!
Whatever you do, do not view exercise as a punishment. You should not feel the need to push yourself to exercise after eating a slice of cake or over-doing it on pizza. Exercise. Is. Not. Punishment. Using it as a form of punishment will only lead to further issues down the road. Exercise should not be something you wake up and dread doing. Rather, it should be something you find joy in. Who says exercise has to be running, lifting heavy weights, or biking? Exercise can come in many different forms, including yoga, dance classes, taking a walk with a friend, or strolling through the mall. Find what works best for you, but most importantly, make sure it is something you enjoy and look forward to.
Our bodies are meant to do so many great things for us. They are not, however, meant to be pushed beyond their limit by exercising excessively. Learning to have a healthy relationship with exercise will help you learn to better accept your body and respect it. And when you make peace with your body, you make peace with food.
Honor Your Health with GENTLE NUTRITION
Here it is – the tenth and final principle of Intuitive Eating. This one is saved for last, because if you haven’t fully mastered the concept of Intuitive Eating, this principle can lead you down a bit of a slippery slope. Why is that? Because it involves nutrition. If you haven’t fully given up the “diet” mentality yet (the goal of Intuitive Eating), then talking about nutrition can ultimately lead you right back to the ever-dreaded diet cycle: aka the restrict-binge cycle.
By this point throughout your intuitive eating journey, hopefully you have realized that the phase of wanting to eat only pizza and ice cream is only temporary. Once you understand that those foods will always available whenever you want them, you realize you don’t actually want them all the time. If you’re staying in tune with your body and honoring what it wants, you realize that your body actually starts to crave proper nutrition – vegetables, smoothies, whole grain breads, etc.
However, if you haven’t truly mastered the previous principles of Intuitive Eating, this step may lead you down a path you don’t want to take. In today’s society, we receive so many mixed messages about nutrition: Eat lots of vegetables. Eat fruit. Don’t eat too much fruit because it’s full of sugar. Eat whole grains. Don’t eat too many grains because they’re too high in carbohydrates. Eat lots of dairy. Only eat low-fat dairy. Don’t eat too much sugar because it can lead to cancer. How many messages like this do we hear each day? With all of the mixed messages being thrown out there, how do we know what advice to actually follow?
Here’s the thing: nutrition isn’t one size fits all; the same rules cannot be applied to every single person. Everyone has different nutrition needs, and when it comes to nutrition, YOU are the expert of your own body. YOU know what works best for you. For some people, yogurt might be a great option for breakfast. However, maybe it causes you stomach discomfort or severe bloating. In that case, don’t continue to eat yogurt just because society tells us it’s good for us. Listen to what your body is telling you! Only you know what foods make you feel good or bad, what foods you crave, and what foods satisfy you. Listen to your body and be in tune with all of those cues.
It’s important to understand that this step involves gentle nutrition. Yes, you should start to become more aware of the foods you are putting into your body, but no, you should not pay attention to onlynutrition. It’s perfectly okay to look for foods with added fiber or extra omega-3 fatty acids, but when you find yourself getting to a point where you are only buying foods because they claim to have some sort of health benefit, take a step back. We don’t want to get ourselves back into that diet trap, so it’s important to take back all control and eat foods simply because you want toeat that food.
Conclusion
So there we have it: the 10 principles that make up Intuitive Eating. Hopefully, you’re able to take away the message that Intuitive Eating is NOT a weight loss program. Rather, it is a path to finding freedom and joy in food and life. You may never achieve that “perfect” body by eating intuitively, but truthfully? You probably won’t achieve it with a diet, either. So take a moment and really think to yourself: Would I rather spend the rest of my life miserable and hating the way I look? Or would I rather learn to love the way I look, eat the foods that I want, and be a happier person overall? To me, the answer to that question is a no-brainer. My hope for you is that you can adopt this same attitude and learn to love and appreciate your body and all it can do for you. If you can master that, then you have truly mastered the art of Intuitive Eating.
If you’re interested in more information about this topic, I encourage you to check out the Intuitive Eating websitea little bit. Trust me, this is a really interesting topic, and it’s something I believe more people should learn about!
