WHAT IS INTUITIVE EATING?

Intuitive eating is characterized by eating in response to internal cues of hunger, satiety, and appetite. Intuitive eating promotes a healthy relationship with food and one’s body image. There are 10 principles of intuitive eating, which we dive into below.

10 PRINCIPLES

1. Reject the diet mentality: Diets often lead to false hopes of losing weight quickly and permanently.
2. Honor your hunger: Listen to your body and eat when you become hungry. Avoid waiting too long in between meals as becoming overly hungry may lead to overeating.
3. Make peace with food: Allow yourself unconditional permission to eat. Avoid categorizing foods into “good” and “bad” categories. Depriving yourself of “bad” foods often leads to increased cravings for those foods.
4. Challenge the food police: Get rid of the voice in your head telling you that you’re “good” for eating less calories and “bad” for eating a piece of cake.
5. Discover the satisfaction factor: There is pleasure and satisfaction that comes with the experience of eating. By slowing down and enjoying your meal, you may find that it takes the right amount of food for you to decide that you are satisfied.
6. Feel your fullness: Listen to your body when it signals you that you are no longer hungry. This cue is easier to find when you slowdown your eating. Ask yourself how the food tastes and check in on your hunger level while eating.
7. Cope with your emotions with kindness: Recognize that emotional eating will not solve your problems. Instead, cope with the source of your emotion and find kind ways to comfort or resolve your issues.
8. Respect your body: Acknowledge that every individual is unique which means we all have different body types and sizes.
9. Feel the difference in movement: Focus on how you feel during and after physical activity and not on how many calories you burn during exercise.
10. Honor your health: Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds. Eating perfectly does not indicate health. Instead, focus on consuming a variety of foods that taste delicious to you.

WHAT DOES THE RESEARCH SAY?

A 2006 study developed and assessed the Intuitive Eating Scale (IES) to define key traits of intuitive eaters. The study recognized the following key components of intuitive eating: unconditional permission to eat, eating for physical rather than emotional reasons, and reliance on internal hunger/satiety cues. The research found that intuitive eaters had a healthy relationship with their body image, lower body weight, and decreased concern regarding their body image or weight (Mathieu,2009; Tylka, 2006).

A 2005 study examined the outcomes of a health at every size intervention group focused on intuitive eating as opposed to a weight loss intervention group focused on dieting. The participants placed in the health at every size group experienced weight loss and maintenance, improved blood pressure and cholesterol levels, healthy eating behaviors, and a positive attitude towards their body image. The participants assigned to the dieting group experienced weight loss but the weight was regained within a year (Bacon et al., 2005;Mathieu, 2009)

Intuitive eating is a healthy approach to eating and many individuals may benefit from reconnecting with their internal cues of hunger and satiety.

RESOURCES ON INTUITIVE EATING

Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch.

The Original Intuitive Eating Pro website:https://www.intuitiveeating.org/