Intuitive Eating and the New Year

The new year puts added pressure to start a new diet, lose weight, and set dramatic goals to change ones body. Many believe body dissatisfaction and desire to change your body can be improved by dieting and weight loss. But this is not true! Research shows that diets actually lead to increased body dissatisfaction and increased anxiety around foods.

When setting goals it is important to ask yourself the why behind the goal. If the goal is to lose weight, why? Do you want improved energy to play with your kids? Better lab values? Confidence in yourself?

Yes, weight loss could lead to the outcome you desire, but it is not guaranteed. That being said, maybe the true steps to reach your outcome may not involve weight loss at all. Often times diet or weight loss related goals fail because of unrealistic expectations and striving for too many changes at one time.

How can I improve my health without dieting?

Gaining trust with yourself around food and you body. Intuitive eating is a way of eating and moving with respect for your now body. It is all about trusting your body, eating foods that make you feel best emotionally and physically, and ditching diet mentality which allows you to live freely! There are 10 principles to become an intuitive eater, all which take time and patience. If you are interested in step by step guidance to becoming an intuitive eater my signature Live Well Program is for you.

Here is a glance of all components of intuitive eating.

Reject the diet mentality:

Giving up diet cultures agenda for becoming thin and eating ‘perfect’. If your main goal is weight loss, this is time to put it in the garbage disposal. Not saying you can’t lose weight with intuitive eating, some people do because they are finally able to gain trust around food. But weight loss cannot be the goal in order to truly find peace with your body and food choices.

Honor your hunger:

When you are feeling biologically hungry, eat. If you avoid food when hungry, it signals your body to over eat when granted access to food. Honoring your hunger is the first step to trusting your body.

Make peace with food:

Give yourself permission to eat. This means ALL foods (obviously not if you have an allergy). No food is better than another. Restricting foods physically or emotionally can lead to the feeling of major deprivation, causing intake to be intense, larger than needed, and usually resulting in guilt. Taking the morality out of eating will make you feel more in control around food, reduce extreme cravings, and bring you peace in your body.

Challenge the negative thoughts:

Tell the thoughts in your mind that are not serving you to STOP. Diet culture has created so many unreasonable ‘rules’ that are not backed by research. Stopping the words causing you to feel guilt around eating is vital to intuitive eating.

Explore satisfaction:

Eating should be enjoyed. Finding what foods you you actually enjoy, textures that satisfy you, and amount of fullness you like best will ultimately lead you to eating the perfect amount for you!

Feel your fullness:

Stop eating when full, easier said than done. Trusting your body will get what it needs, when it needs it will make this step easier. Notice the signs your body gives you when you are full. Check in the middle of a meal on fullness, and enjoyment.

Cope with emotions:

Find ways to comfort and settle your problems that do not include eating. Recognize your feelings; sadness, anger, anxiety, boredom, joy, loneliness, that trigger you to reach towards food. Bring awareness to how you are feeling, and find what would be the best to cope. Eating can be a useful coping skill in some situations, but often is used as a distraction or numbing agent.

Respect your body:

Be respectful of your genetics. Just like height, humans have a set point weight. Think of accepting your weight as you would accept your height. Each person has a different body shape and size and should be respected all the same.

Move joyfully:

Find movement that makes you FEEL amazing. Focus on the feeling—energized, strong, calm, flexible, etc. Finding enjoyment in movement makes a huge difference in sticking to an exercise routine.

Honor your health with gentle nutrition:

Make food choices that not only taste good, but make your body feel good. Prioritize nutrient dense foods most of the time. One poor meal, or day of eating will not make you unhealthy. Remember there is no such thing as a perfect eater.

Want more intuitive eating support?

Check out my 1:1 structured program 6 week Live Well Program, a weekly support deep dive, weekly worksheets, and much more to finally end your battle with diets.

Or explore more personalized support by scheduling a free discovery call to see how best I can support you.

References:

Aparicio-Martinez P, Perea-Moreno AJ, Martinez-Jimenez MP, Redel-Macías MD, Pagliari C, Vaquero-Abellan M. Social Media, Thin-Ideal, Body Dissatisfaction and Disordered Eating Attitudes: An Exploratory Analysis. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2019 Oct 29;16(21):4177.

Tribole, E. and Resch, E. (1995) Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works. Saint Martin’s Paperbacks, New York.