I want to share a story with you.
When I was in high school, I deeply struggled with binge eating. I had such a terrible relationship with food: it’s all I thought about, and all of my value was based around what I had eaten that day. And boy, oh boy, would I eat.
I remember coming home after school, and eating 1, maybe 2 sandwiches. And then a Nutrigrain bar. And then an apple with peanut butter. Peanut butter on a spoon. Maybe a few mini muffins. I knew I had an eating window from the time I got home from school until my parents got home from work. And I would just eat.
I had no control. Food controlled me. It was both my worst enemy and my biggest comfort.
Can you relate to that?
You can read more about my story here. I wanted to share that with you though, because the more I started to learn about nutrition, the more I started to understand a very crucial takeaway: food is just food.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s delicious. And it’s certainly nutritious. But letting go of this pedestal that I kept food on–this untouchable source of anguish in my life–taught me to be at peace. To accept that there are days where I’m going to eat cupcakes. Or (gluten-free) fried chicken and waffles. There just is. These foods nourish my soul–and they’re delicious.
And there are also days where I’m going to eat deeply nourishing foods for my body. It’s just a fact.
But it took me a long to get to this point–it took a lot of learning and a lot of compassion. And the biggest thing I learned was intuitive eating.
What Is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating is a concept that was developed by two dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995. It’s a non-diet approach to eating that rejects restrictive or rule-based eating. (Because that kind of eating is exhausting.)
Instead it focuses on listening to your body’s own hunger cues, experiencing your food, and feeling your fullness, to develop your own intuition.
When you learn how to eat intuitively you learn:
- to let go of judgement for what you’re eating
- to not be controlled by the “food police”–those internal thoughts telling you you’re doing something wrong or shameful
- to feel your and honour your hunger
- to reject this idea that we need to be on a diet to be happy
- to respect your body
The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
- Reject The Diet Mentality
- Honour Your Hunger
- Make Peace With Food
- Challenge The Food Police
- Discover The Satisfaction Factor
- Feel Your Fullness
- Cope With Emotions With Kindness
- Respect Your Body
- Movement–Feel The Difference
- Honour Your Health–Gentle Nutrition
Why does this matter?
You may be thinking, right that sounds nice, but can I lose weight doing this?
That is a totally valid thought, and not necessarily exclusive of intuitive eating. Because intuitive eating teaches you to listen to when you’re hungry and when you’re full, you naturally stop overeating–whether it’s from stress, comfort eating or guilt around foods.
Ever tell yourself you can’t have a cupcake at work when someone brings them in? And suddenly you’ve never wanted anything more in your life? That’s the mentally draining effects of diet culture and labelling foods as “good” or “bad”. And then you eventually cave in and eat it. You feel so guilty because you’ve ruined your diet that you decide to give up on eating well for the day (you promise you’ll start again tomorrow), and you eat two more cupcakes. You feel overfull, embarrassed and guilty.
Now imagine this:
You tell yourself that hell yeah, I want a cupcake. And then you eat it. You forget about it. You go home, and make a nourishing dinner, and you’re not punishing yourself to eat less or squeeze in a late night workout. You simply move on.
You feel better about yourself, and long-term, your health benefits because you’re eating when you’re hungry, and you aren’t binge eating out of fear or shame.
What if I need to eat a restrictive diet? Does intuitive eating mean I can eat whatever I want?
There are lots of good reasons to eat specific diets. For example a low-FODMAP diet for IBS. Or maybe a paleo diet for an autoimmune condition. And certain foods can cause us to feel satiated and full (like healthy fats, fibre and protein), while others can make us insatiable and constantly hungry (refined carbs and sugar).
A nourishing diet is key to good health. Sometimes you have to eat a certain way while you rebalance your gut, address food sensitivities or heal your body. But you don’t want to live in fear of those foods you’re not eating.
I’ll give you an example: when I was in university, I started eating paleo. Mostly as a way to lose weight. But what I found (to my pleasure!) was that it helped me feel full. For the first in years. This makes sense: I was no longer restricting fat or protein, I was eating more calories. From a physiological stand point, I felt great. I had stopped binge eating.
But mentally, I hadn’t made the shift. I knew sugar and grains were “bad”, so of course I cut them out. But then what? I could just eat whatever else? You’d think. But because I followed this diet mentality for so many years, I couldn’t help but find new foods to demonize. So suddenly I wasn’t eating bananas. Or potatoes. No quinoa. (Oh, but I was still smoking.)
I finally felt full, I had lost some weight, but I was still miserable. Because I was still listening to diet culture.
For me, letting go of that changed everything. Now? I eat bananas. And potatoes. And quinoa. And (gluten-free) cupcakes! And I don’t feel guilty about it.
And neither should you.
OTHER POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE
How To Self-Care During Self-Isolation
Why Being Thin Didn’t Help Me Love My Body
How To Work Out (When You Don’t Know What You’re Doing)
Does It Work: The Science Behind It
There are over a 100 studies showing the benefits of intuitive eating: ranging from lower body mass indexes, higher self-esteem, less disordered eating and an increased satisfaction with life.
You can see a list of all the studies here.
Learn How To Practice Intuitive Eating
I hope you found some key takeaways today. If you want to try intuitive eating, sign up for my Intuitive Eating Challenge!
Hope to see you there!
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