Have you been hearing a lot of buzz about Intuitive Eating?
Or maybe you’re new to Intuitive Eating, just introduced to this non-diet approach through social media, and curious what is it all about. After reading this, we hope that you can better understand how Intuitive Eating and the non-diet approach is an easier and more biological approach to taking care of your body!
What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive Eating is a non-diet approach to eating, that emphasizes internal cues over external diet rules. Now, let’s break it down to better understand what that means to YOU.
Non-diet means not focusing on the scale and instead on making peace with food and your body, understanding the science of food without judgment of good vs bad food, and helping you build healthier relationships with food. Intuitive Eating helps you get back in touch with internal cues, like hunger and fullness, cravings, and how food makes you feel. One of the best parts of Intuitive Eating is it helps you to break down all those diet rules.
When was the last time you watched a child eat? They go from starving to full. They know what they like and want. They really have no rules about how many greens need to be on their plate and such. Also, have you noticed how kid’s preferences change from day to day it seems like? They might LOVE bananas one day and then the next day would avoid bananas with a 10-foot pole. If you take a bird’s eye view of their intake, they’re often getting a variety of foods and enough to support healthy growth – or at least will in an environment with food security and variety. (We understand that some kids do have issues with picky eating that we do address in sessions.)
Where do Diet Rules Come From?
Thanks, diet industry, yet again for screwing up our relationships with food and our bodies.
As we grow up, we’re introduced to diet rules. Maybe you were a member of the “clean your plate club” or have been introduced to one of the million fad diets out there with its list of good and bad foods. We’re told to eat certain foods and to limit others. When this happens, we get away from using internal cues and start listening to external cues about what, how much, and when to eat. This can set off a cascade of unwanted food behaviors including dieting, restricting, binging, emotional eating, and obsessing about food. Intuitive Eating is a counter to this. It teaches you how to get back to eating the way you were born to.
Bottom line… Intuitive Eating is normal human being eating.
Here are come great Intuitive Eating resources:
- The book! Read Intuitive Eating (A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach) by Evelyn Tribole, MS and Elyse Resch, MS or do the The Intuitive Eating Workbook.
- Other blogs about Intuitive Eating that we’ve written:
- Work with an Intuitive Eating RD. It’s one thing to conceptually understand Intuitive Eating. It’s another to put it into practice. We work with clients all over the state of Texas virtually and locally in central Texas with clients in-person.
Contact us today so that we can work with you on Intuitive Eating.
Adrien Paczosa is a Registered and Licensed Dietitian practicing in Austin, Texas and the surrounding counties.
She is the owner and founder of I Live Well Nutrition her Dietitian practice which started in 2007 and serves clients in the Austin, Texas area in two locations. Fearless Practitioners, the division of her business that offers training to dietitians and wellness professionals.