Intuitive eating is a term that has gained a lot of popularity over the years. As an intuitive eating dietitian I love this, BUT it also comes with its downfalls.
When well understood and done correctly, intuitive eating has the power to change lives for the better and improve health outcomes. Unfortunately, the term intuitive eating is often now seen being coupled with diets, misused and misunderstood. In turn this has created a lot of misinformation, hesitancy and mistrust with the process.
As a Registered Dietitian and Certified Eating Counselor, I’ve made it my mission to help women learn, understand and implement intuitive eating the RIGHT way.
If you want to read more about what intuitive eating is and its 10 principles, feel free to check out my other blog post “10 Intuitive Eating Principles + What is Intuitive Eating,” otherwise stay tuned to hear my top 8 tips when it comes to your intuitive eating journey.
8 Tips for Your Intuitive Eating Journey
1. Don’t let social media guide your intuitive eating journey
If social media is your main source of information and influence when it comes to intuitive eating (or really anything health related) you’re going to feel extremely overwhelmed and confused.
The short form content you see on social media does NOT offer nuance or caveats. You can filter your feed as much as you want (and you probably should), but even when the information is coming from a trained professional they can only share so much in single posts.
There’s no way you can get the big picture idea, nor can you form a strategy for yourself from a single Instagram post, or even multiple posts strung together. And let's not forget about all the misinformation floating around about intuitive eating.
2. Keep all 10 intuitive eating principles in mind
Intuitive eating is made up of ten different principles, so it’s important that throughout your intuitive eating journey you keep all ten principles in mind and not just pull from one or two.
While some principles can be worked on in isolation, for example principle eight, “respect your body,” others may not go over so well if you’re not considering, or understanding, the big picture.
For example, principle five is “feel your fullness.” This may be a principle someone chooses to focus on if they find themselves constantly overeating. That being said, the reason MOST people overeat is because they are restricting (whether that is physically or mentally).
So in order to overcome overeating, the focus shouldn’t be on principle five (feel your fullness) alone. But rather, you need to also be working on principle two, “honor your hunger” and principle three “make peace with food” to ensure you first overcome the restriction that is inevitably driving the overeating.
The point I’m trying to make here is that if you’re only pulling from a couple of principles it’s not actually intuitive eating and it won’t work.
3. Lead with curiosity, not judgment
Judging yourself and sitting in guilt and shame after you’ve eaten too much or eaten something you deem “bad,” is the least helpful thing you can do for yourself. Instead, you should think about getting curious.
When a client tells me about an undesirable eating experience they’ve had the first question I ask is what led to that experience? Instead of sitting in this guilt and shame can we get curious and reflect on the events that led to this experience?
Did you happen to overeat in the evening because you didn’t eat enough during the day? Or did you happen to binge eat the Christmas cookies your friend brought over because you haven’t allowed yourself to enjoy cookies in a long time?
You see, if we can get curious, reflect and get to the root of the issue (i.e. what led to the undesirable eating experience), we will be better equipped to tackle it and thus prevent it from occurring over and over again. This is SO much more effective than just sitting in guilt and shame.
4. Never stop seeking out ANTI-diet culture
Unfortunately, diet culture will always be in your life. You will see it on television, social media, within your family and friend group and even in your own head. You don’t have to seek it out to find it, it will find you.
I work really hard with my clients to undo the damage diet culture has done to them. As we work together on their intuitive eating journey, we are constantly combatting diet culture thoughts and information. But eventually, our time together comes to an end.
So something I tell all of my clients is that they will now need to do the work themselves and continue to surround themselves with the ANTI-diet culture. Why? Because if they don’t actively seek this out they will only be surrounded by diet culture. And in turn, it will be very difficult to stay the course and prevent going back to old thoughts and ways.
So I will tell you the same thing, never stop seeking out anti-diet culture content and resources, you will need it to continuously counteract all the other crap coming at you. You can start by following me on Instagram @dietitian.krista (in addition to other anti-diet culture accounts), listen to podcasts, read books, watch webinars, maybe even take a course. Just do something. And if you want me to suggest some resources to you, don’t hesitate to reach out.
5. Always focus on your intent
When it comes to nutrition and eating, your intent behind your decisions is the most important thing to focus on.
Remember, a restrictive mindset will backfire. So don’t focus on what you shouldn’t eat and what you must avoid. Rather, ask yourself these three questions…
i. What am I in the mood for?
Your body is pretty good at communicating its needs and your cravings can actually act as an indication of your nutrient needs.
ii. What are my hunger levels? Am I meal hungry or just snack hungry?
This will help you decide how much to eat.
iii. What will make me feel good? What does my body need right now?
Typically a nutritious meal or snack will make you feel your best and help meet your needs, so more often than not this is what you will choose. You may however also decide to end off with a treat. But in the case you’re focused on how you want to feel, you will only eat an amount that leaves you feeling satisfied, not overly full or feeling unwell.
And just remember, there is no wrong answer here. Sometimes what you need is to grab takeout on your way home because you’re exhausted and don’t feel like cooking, or to heat up a can of soup because you’re sick and that’s all you can tolerate, or to enjoy an ice cream cone because it’s a hot day and your family is going for ice cream.
Your needs are about so much more than just nutrition and you never have to feel bad for tending to those other needs.
6. Don’t forget to use common sense when it comes to the nutrition piece
I understand that nutrition is complex, but you’d be surprised as to how far a little bit of common sense could take you. Most somewhat educated people know enough about nutrition to make good decisions. But unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation out there that makes it slightly more difficult.
That being said, if you just took two minutes of your time and used some common sense, you very likely could separate out nutrition facts from myths and further make good decisions for yourself.
Let me give you some examples…
Does it really make sense to constantly seek out the lowest calorie food item? Or does your body maybe actually require the energy from food to function properly?
Does it really make sense that you shouldn’t eat after 7PM? Or does your body actually still know how to digest, metabolize and utilize nutrients after 7PM?
And lastly, does it really make sense to ignore your hunger? Or is this just your body’s way of communicating its needs?
I think you get the point, common sense goes a long way.
7. Get support, or at the very least have a strategy
Could you go through your intuitive eating journey alone? Probably. Would it take a lot longer, be more confusing and increase your chance of reverting back to dieting? Also probably.
Intuitive eating is very nuanced. It’s way too easy to take things out of context, or only take away and implement a few pieces of information, essentially making it not intuitive eating at all.
So, I highly recommend you seek out the support you need. Whether you choose to work with a professional, who is well versed in intuitive eating, like myself, take some kind of intuitive eating course or follow some other type of step by step strategy, the options are endless.
8. Most importantly, make sure you’re enjoying the journey
Just like anything in life, you shouldn’t wait for the end result to bring happiness to you. If you do this, you will live most of your life unhappy. So, you need to find a way to enjoy the journey or else what’s the point?
But that’s the great thing about intuitive eating, it’s the opposite of diets, wherein diets sucks the joy out of life, intuitive eating brings the joy back.
I hope these tips help you along your intuitive eating journey and if you’re looking for support or just simply have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me; Krista Muench, Registered Dietitian, Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor and owner of Dietitian Krista.
Email: hello@dietitiankrista.com
Instagram: @dietitian.krista
Website: www.dietitiankrista.com
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