Intuitive eating is a concept that most people do not understand. However, it might be the best way to regain a stress-free diet and attitude towards food. It’s a relatively new concept that takes you back to eating food like a baby again. Basically, you’re listening more to your body and hunger senses. Why do we eat when we are not hungry? That’s the question I want you to ask yourself.
In addition, because of diet culture, we have created associations around food and separating certain foods into ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ With intuitive eating, food is literally just food. Having that attitude towards food could possibly make you feel a lot more relaxed.
Think about it this way
A baby won’t eat anything if they are not hungry. Yes, it’s easier said than done, and by no means can you go and eat whatever you want without being mindful about what you eat. But you can eat without worrying about every single aspect of the food before you test it. Researchers have found that intuitive eating is effective and might help you if you’ve been stuck in the restrict-binge-shame cycle.
Intuitive Eating Resets Poor Eating Habits
It’s very easy to lose your way while eating intuitively. This is mainly because along life’s journey, many people experience things that confuse their innate hunger cues. As a result, we have been led away from listening to our bodies. Biologically speaking, humans are born with innate qualities that signal to us when we are truly hungry and satisfied.
So, what changes? Well, over time you might feel unhappy with yourself and want to make a change. Generally, this leads you to some kind of diet. Dieting, restricting food intake, table trauma, eating disorders, and various life experiences are only a few of the many things that can interfere with our natural hunger and satiety cues. When this happens, your ability to listen to your senses and respect them seems to disappear really quickly.
According to research, there are quite a few poor health implications for those who constantly think about their next meal because the one they ate most recently was not satisfying. This is not an easy situation either, In fact, it’s rather complex. This is because intuitive eating challenges you to figure out why you have so many subconscious rules and habits around food that may not be healthy or maintainable.
More importantly, intuitive eating may be a key part of recovery for those who struggle with their relationship with food. Gosh, can you imagine that feeling? Don’t feel the stress of constantly worrying about your next meal. Start imagining feeling complete freedom whenever you encounter food, food choices, and your body. This feeling is what intuitive eating can provide you with.
There Are 10 Different Principles
The principles listed below are not necessarily backed up by science or theory. However, they are very important guidelines that you need to stick to when trying to eat intuitively.
- 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 feels the difference
- Honor your health.
This concept is meant to be for anybody of any age with any kind of body shape and size. It is about learning to accept your body and being. In fact, researchers state that eating intuitively is not about losing weight either. Having said that, you might lose weight, gain weight or simply maintain your weight by eating intuitively. The point is that weight loss is not the end goal of this concept. Rather, the concept is meant to help you make peace with food, free yourself from restrictions, disordered eating patterns and learn to listen to your hunger cues. Better yet, enjoy the freedom to eat again.
This is an approach that anybody can implement into their lifestyle. However, it was originally designed for those who have disordered eating behaviors like yo-yo dieting, restricting food, overeating, and even occasional binging for people who have disordered eating behaviors like yo-yo dieting, going between restricting eating and overeating, or occasional binging. But if you are somebody with a critical eating disorder or require proper recovery, then this is not a cure, and you should seek medical help.
What’s the Science?
Even though the name suggests it…intuitive eating is not something that we should all just ‘know.’ It’s still a concept that we’re trying to wrap our minds around and is exactly why it’s at the center of many recent research studies. There is a lot to learn about it and more and more research is being done to examine the effects of non-restrictive eating in various populations. And it seems that the results are promising.
The interesting factor is that intuitive eaters have been found to have lower BMI’s and better physiological health than those who continuously worry about what they’re eating or losing weight.
There Are A Few Misconceptions
Many people assume that eating intuitively means that you’re just going to eat huge amounts of non-nutritious foods. Experts state that chronic dieters and other people who are restricting food and controlling their eating patterns all ignore hunger. Moreover, they struggle with intuitive eating because they have been listening to external rules for permission to eat, rather than trusting body signals.
When you start to truly listen to your hunger cues and what you feel like eating you will experience true freedom. You don’t want to ignore your hunger for long periods of time, because you will end up overeating and feeling guilty. And at the same time, you need to be able to respect your feeling of fullness. It means being able to smell food and think nothing of it.
Intuitive eating is not only about removing guilt when you eat less nutritious foods. It’s also about learning to respect your body enough to know that you don’t have to say yes to every food offered to you. When you are able to trust your hunger cues and preferences for different foods. It’s likely that you’ll improve your relationship with food by making it more sustainable and balanced.
I personally feel that intuitive eating is a healthy approach to food. It allows you to learn how to eat food with freedom. Therefore you will be able to have a positive perspective with food and get rid of feelings of guilt.
