Intuitive Eating: A Helpful Approach to Heal Your Relationship with Food

We are bombarded with so much information about what to eat, what not to eat, what is "good" food, and what is "bad". Many of us create feelings of guilt around eating foods we enjoy.

I have been guilty of these feelings too. You know what I mean, your out to dinner and asked if you want dessert. Many will want to say " yes" but choose to say "no" depriving yourself of the enjoyment of a sweet dessert. Or your trying to "diet" and told yourself to stop eating chips. Well most likely you will be great at this for awhile, but then the craving will get so powerful you will tear into the bag and eat way more then if you just simply allowed yourself to enjoy some when you originally had the craving.

I teach my clients to remove the shame and guilt they associate with food. This is one of the most difficult hurdles for so many. It can lead to binge eating when you limit yourself so much during the day and do not allow yourself that piece of candy or cookie. You then feel hungry and your desire for that food grows so much you cannot stop thinking about it that you "allow' yourself to have one. For many, you will not be able to stop at just one.

I teach about Intuitive Eating. This is a mind-body approach that is founded on 10 principles created by Evelyn Tribol and Elyse Resch, two Registered Dieticians.

The main idea is to allow unconditional permission to eat with body attunement by allowing you to begin to recognize your own body's signals and reactions to foods you eat. This is not a "eat everything in sight" plan, but a way to stop putting so many limitations and boundaries on your food choices. Most importantly to teach you to expand your choices, enjoy your foods, and learn to listen to your body's natural cues.

Here are the first two principles:

1- Rejecting the Diet Mentality- Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at diet culture that promotes weight loss and the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet or food plan might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating. We now know that diets don't work- there is date showing that most people regain lost weight when they diet, often because they are so extreme they aren't maintainable. We know that temporary efforts create temporary results not to mention physical, emotional, and mental distress.

I am so onboard with letting go of the diet mentality and focus on balanced nutrition that includes the foods you enjoy to create a lifestyle behavior change focusing on your continued success.

2-Honor Your Hunger- Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates (Yes- your diet needs healthy balanced carbs). Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust in yourself and in food.

Sounds simple- eat when your hungry. If you have a history of following diet after diet, you maybe in such a cycle of calorie deficit you always feel hungry. In my opinion, this is no way to live and enjoy life. One of the first steps I have with a new client is to track (Yes- I know most of us hate tracking our food but it is eye opening for many to really see what nutritional value your current diet is providing you) your food and drink intake for a few days. So many are shocked to see that lack of balanced nutrients of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates that your body needs in a day to function properly.

I'd love to share all 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating with you.

Add your email to receive your FREE DOWNLOADABLE COPY to the pop-up on this website.

​Reversing habits are a challenge. Relearning to love food and allow yourself to enjoy it is a journey.

This is focus of Be Well & Good- creating Lifestyle Behavior changes to improve your healthy for the life ahead of you on step at a time.