So, you are thinking about starting a journey with Intuitive Eating! Maybe you have been dieting for a long time or you want to move away from fear-based thinking with food. Before we start talking about how you can start eating more intuitively, let’s go over what Intuitive Eating is and how it can drastically improve your physical and emotional health. Welcome to your Intuitive Eating Guide!

Who Can Benefit from this Intuitive Eating Guide?

If you fall into any of these categories, you could likely benefit from learning about Intuitive Eating:

• You have a long history of dieting. Maybe you’ve “tried every diet in the book”
• You have “all or nothing” thinking when it comes to food and exercise
• You tend to overeat at meals or feel like you can’t stop even when you’re full
• You feel like you can’t trust your body right now
• You came from a household that experienced food scarcity and you believe that this is still impacting your relationship with food
• How you feel about yourself is dependent on your body image
• You’re a parent who wants to break the dieting tradition in your family and raise your kids as intuitive eaters
• You find nutrition advice confusing and want to learn to eat in a way that feels good to you (without the diety BS!)

Can someone with an eating disorder learn about Intuitive Eating? Eventually, yes! Intuitive Eating is great for someone who is in the later stages of recovery from their eating disorder. But, when you are in the throws of an ED, we have work to do before Intuitive Eating will really be able to click for you. If you do have an ED and need support, consider my 1:1 Nutrition Counseling services.

What is Intuitive Eating?

First thing’s first: Intuitive Eating is NOT a diet. Instead, it is an approach to eating that focuses on tuning into your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues, as well as your emotional and physical responses to food. While diets tell us what and how much to eat (and when to eat it), Intuitive Eating is all about listening to your body’s signals – there are no rules involved! This approach empowers you to develop a strong, trusting, and nourishing relationship with your body, something that dieting and disordered eating take away from you.

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What are the Benefits of Starting Your Intuitive Eating Journey?

1. Improved Relationship with Food: Intuitive eating fosters a healthy and balanced relationship with food. By tuning into your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues, you’ll learn to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re satisfied. This mindful approach to eating can help prevent overeating, binge eating, and promote a healthier attitude towards food.
2. Enhanced Mental Health: Say goodbye to the stress, guilt, and anxiety that often accompany dieting and restriction. Intuitive eating teaches you self-compassion and body acceptance, leading to improved mental health. You’ll be surprised by how much LESS you will think about food as an intuitive eater. You’ll no longer be consumed by thoughts of logging calories, macros, or sticking to restrictive meal plans – freeing up mental space for joy, creativity, and self-discovery.
3. Improved Metabolic Health: Intuitive eating emphasizes the importance of eating in response to physiological hunger and fullness signals rather than external rules or cues. Research suggests that this approach can often lead to healthier metabolic markers, such as improved blood sugar control and lipid profiles, which are important for overall metabolic health.
4. Enhanced Self-esteem and Body Image: Intuitive eating promotes self-acceptance and body respect, regardless of body size or shape. Studies have shown that individuals who practice intuitive eating tend to have higher levels of self-esteem and body appreciation, leading to greater overall well-being and satisfaction with oneself.
5. Lower Risk of Chronic Diseases: Intuitive eating has the potential to reduce the risk of chronic diseases associated with disordered eating behaviors and weight cycling, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension. By promoting a balanced and non-restrictive approach to food, intuitive eating may support long-term health outcomes.

You can access a list of studies on Intuitive Eating here.

What Are the First Steps to Take to Become an Intuitive Eater?

This is where the work begins, but it is so worth it when you realize how much BETTER you feel outside of Diet Culture! Here are some very important first steps to take:

• Reflect on your current relationship with food/your body and your dieting history. Has dieting really been that helpful for you or has it looked more like a chaotic rollercoaster? Realizing that dieting has NOT been working for you (emotionally, physically, mentally) is crucial before trying to eating more intuitively.
• Understand that Intuitive Eating is not a weight loss program or diet. While it is possible that your weight may change when you begin to really listen to your body, weighing yourself and using weight as a metric of success is not part of the philosophy of this approach to eating. If you enter into your Intuitive Eating journey hoping that you will lose weight, it is very possible that food rules will form and this will become just another diet for you.
• Use these journal prompts to begin exploring your current relationship with food and your body:
  • What does healthy mean to you? Who taught you that definition? Does your definition of healthy take your emotional or mental health into consideration?
  • Does your definition of healthy include a specific number on the scale? Where did that number come from? What does it mean to you?
  • What could you gain from letting go of your attachment to that specific number?
• Do a social media detox: Unfollow any accounts that make you feel weird/uncomfortable/ashamed when it comes to food or your body. (Seriously, this makes such a big difference)

Start consuming anti-diet content such as these books (just a few to start!):

• Intuitive Eating, 4th Edition: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch
• The Wellness Trap and Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness Through Intuitive Eating by Christy Harrison
• What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon
• Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Sabrina Strings
• The Body Is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor

Need more support in your intuitive eating journey?

I have a Intuitive Eating course called F*ck Your Diet (FYD) that is ready for you to join! FYD was created to help you learn how to exit the diet cycle and embrace the principles of Intuitive Eating with ease. Learn more about this offering below: