6 Reasons to Embrace Intuitive Eating This Summer
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Just as the “new year, new you” diet and weight loss craze quiets down, the spring and summer “beach body” season picks up. There’s certainly no shortage of reasons for our culture and the diet industry to be convincing us our bodies should be something other they are. That they’d be healthier, more valued, more worthy if they were smaller. And, that if we are not actively trying to manage our food, our eating will definitely spiral out of control. It’s exhausting, really. And, it can be oh so tempting to just give it “one more try.” I get it. But I also suspect that, if you are reading this, you’ve been down that road many times before and there is part of you that knows this time is not likely to be any different from times past.
So, if not another diet, then what?
As a Registered Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor who specializes in helping folks heal from disordered eating, I’ve been integrating intuitive eating into my practice for many years now. 9? 10? I can’t quite remember. Not only has the practice been transformational in my own life, as I discuss in this Instagram Video, I’ve also seen it transform the lives of so many of the folks I’ve worked with.
Intuitive eating is a non-restrictive, internally directed approach to eating that honors your body’s innate wisdom (e.g., your appetite cues), your individual food preferences, and your whole health and wellbeing. It recognizes that food nourishes us far beyond fueling our physical bodies and supports us in cultivating a peaceful and positive relationship with both food.
If you are done with the on-again-off-again diet cycle, now is the perfect time to start exploring intuitive eating.
6 reasons to explore intuitive eating this summer.
You can enjoy all of your favorite summer foods, guilt-free. And, not guilt-free because they are going to be some sad diet version of the food you really want, but because the intuitive eating journey will help you let go of the morality diet culture teaches us to attach to food. When there are no “bad” foods you can’t be a “bad” person for eating them. Thus, there’s no reason to feel guilt. And, as you might imagine, eating is so much more enjoyable when it isn’t guilt-ridden.
You’ll feel less preoccupied with food and body allowing you more mental energy and space to be present with the people and activities you care about most. Food rules and restriction make us obsessed with food. It’s not a you-thing if you find that every time you try to “eat better” you become preoccupied by thoughts of all the things you think you shouldn’t have, it’s a human-thing. And for a couple of reasons.
Humans are autonomous beings and food rules are a threat to our autonomy. When our autonomy is threatened our inner rebel (aka our inner toddler or teenager) is activated. We want to do precisely the thing we are being told (or are telling ourselves) we shouldn’t. So that pint of ice cream is going to look extra appealing if you are telling yourself you shouldn’t have it.
Humans are wired for survival and restriction is a threat to our survival. So, if we aren’t getting enough food, our bodies interpret this as a survival situation and our survival mechanisms are activated. One of those mechanisms is changes in the brain that make us think about food more often. Because the more we are thinking about it, the more motivated we will be to seek it out.
Because, as mentioned before, intuitive eating is an internally directed and non-restrictive approach to nourishing ourselves, it will not activate our inner rebel or survival mechanisms like diets and food rules do.
You’ll learn to recognize and honor your body’s appetite cues, helping you to eat in a way that both tastes and feels good. Diets distract us from paying attention to our innate food regulatory system. Ironically, this can often mean eating more than our body needs, feeling physically unwell, and further reinforcing the belief that we cannot trust ourselves around food. A typical response is to tighten the reigns on the food rules even more, perpetuating a cycle of feeling out-of-control with food. Intuitive eating will guide you in becoming reacquainted with the innate wisdom you already possess to nourish yourself well. This includes reconnecting with those long lost hunger and fullness cues, and not just the extremes of, “I need to eat now,” and, “I need to unbutton my pants,” but all the much softer and more subtle ones that exist in the in-between. You’ll feel empowered to be the authority on not only what, but when and how much you eat, too.
You’ll find greater body trust. You won’t fear having your favorite foods around or being confronted with them out in the wild, because they will no longer hold the same power they currently do. The intuitive eating journey will help you neutralize those feared and forbidden foods. You will finally be able to drop the rope, end the tug-of-war, and make peace with all foods. I know it sound fantastical, and it certainly will not happen overnight, but one-by-one you will find the charge around challenge foods starts to dissipate.
You’ll discover and define what health means to you and learn how to make decisions that align with your individual health goals and priorities. Not because you have to but because you want to. Contrary to what social media and the popular media might be having you believe, intuitive eating is not about surviving off pizza and donuts and never touching a vegetable again. It doesn’t say that nutrition doesn’t matter or that all foods are nutritionally equivalent. It certainly isn’t anti-health.
However, it does recognize that health is complex, multifaceted, and looks different for everyone. It does acknowledge that, while food decisions can play a role in health, what exactly we eat is not the only factor that contributes to health. And, it definitely recognizes that a single food, meal, or day of eating is not hugely significant in the grand scheme of things (unless, perhaps, you consume something to which you have a severe allergy or has spoiled). It also helps us see that different foods nourish us and our wellbeing in different ways. For example, going out for ice cream with friends nourishes our need for social connection. The benefits of that experience for our health and wellbeing extend far beyond the actual food consumed.
Finally, without all the rules, rigidity, and guilt-trips that come along with diet culture, we can begin to notice what really, truly helps us feel our best. And, when we are feeling our best, we don’t need diets and rules to tell us what to do because we will be motivated to do the things that help us feel well all on our own.
Quiet your inner critic, find your inner caregiver, cultivate self-compassion, and understand the roles food is serving in your life. Intuitive eating offers us so much more than reconnecting with appetite cues and letting go of rigid food rules. It helps us to shift our inner dialogue about food, our bodies, our health, and our worth. It helps us disconnect food choices, body size, and health status from our inherent value, our worth as human beings. It doesn’t mean that we never eat to the point of discomfort again (because perfection is not part of intuitive eating), or that we always love our bodies, or that we will never feel grieve a medical diagnosis or health conditions that we wish weren’t part of our reality. But, it does mean, that we can learn to make space for all of the feelings that do come up, and that we can approach them and ourselves with more gentleness, kindness, and compassion, rather than berating ourselves for circumstances that have already occurred or beyond our control.
This shift also helps us to connect with and form a deeper understanding about the roles food might be serving in our lives. For example, if we are using food as a primary coping mechanism for difficult emotions, as a way to distract, numb, or procrastinate, as a substitute for social connection, etc, etc. It doesn’t mean that any of this is wrong or bad – we turn to food because it, at least partially, works. It also doesn’t mean you are doing intuitive eating wrong if you are eating for any of these reasons. But, with more clarity around why we might be eating, comes a better understanding of the extent to which it is actually meeting our needs and create opportunity to make conscious choice about whether or not we want to use food in this way or explore additional options.
What if I still want to lose weight, though?
This is a question I hear a lot. Sometimes the belief is, in order to pursue intuitive eating, I have to let go of all desire to be in a smaller body. Not true. It’s OK if on the one hand you want to wave good-bye to diet culture and on the other hand you want to lose weight. While it is true that intuitive eating starts with rejecting the diet mentality, which is rejecting the system that has led you to believe that body size is a choice and that if you work hard enough you can attain and maintain whatever body you want, and shifting the focus away from numbers and appearance based indicators of “progress,” it also acknowledges that it can be really hard to exist in the culture we do and not want our bodies to be different.
Intuitive eating is about acknowledging that desire while also accepting the methods you’ve been sold for achieving that have never actually gotten you to where you were wanting to go for any appreciable length of time, or in a way that was truly supportive of your wellbeing.
How do I get started?
Join our FREE 5-part email series on Finding Food Freedom, where we walk you through steps for ditching diet culture and becoming reacquainted with your intuitive eater.
Join our Intuitive Eating Support Group & Book Club! The next cohort begins June 6, 2022. Learn more HERE. And, if you can’t join the group this time around, be sure to add your name to our waitlist so you can join us next time!
Cheers to making this your best summer yet! Know that we are rooting for you.
Ready to start your intuitive eating journey? Or perhaps you are seeking a refresher? Either way, we’d love to have you join us for our 6-week Intuitive Eating Support Group and Book Club. It offers community, connection, and conversation on all things intuitive eating, in the company of others who “get it” and are on a similar healing journey, and is facilitated by a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor (me!). Click HERE to learn more and register. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
Looking for 1-1 support instead? Contact Us to schedule a FREE discovery call and see if working together is a good fit for you! We see clients in Vermont, Florida, and several other states.