Why You Should Explore Intuitive Eating Alongside Your New Year’s Resolutions This Year
Following December’s festivities, you may have started to set goals to start fresh this new year with new rules, possible restrictions and ‘healthy, clean diets’ for the foreseeable future. But perhaps, having this ‘all or nothing’ and ‘black and white’ way of thinking when it comes to our relationship with food and also fitness may be causing us more harm than good to our health. This is where the concept of intuitive eating comes in to play.
What Is Intuitive Eating?
Our intuition is a powerful and innate trait that we all have which enables us to listen and trust ourselves, for example when we have that ‘gut feeling’ about something. So how does our intuition link with food and our eating behaviours?
Intuitive eating is about trusting and tuning in with your bodies physiological cues when deciding what, when and how to eat rather than being confined to rigid set of rules and restrictions that can impair and desensitize us to being able to listen to ourselves (1).
The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
The 10 principles of intuitive eating devised by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch is a model to help guide and support people to adopt an innate approach to our relationship with food (1).
1. Reject the Diet Mentality
Intuitive eating invites us to delve into and reflect on why we feel the need to start diets in the first place? Why is it that in the short-term they appear to work but in the long-term difficulties arise which leave us disappointed and feeling like we ‘failed’ to stick to such rigid and strict approaches? Unfortunately, the world of diet culture is the main culprit for this one.
2. Honour Your Hunger
Interestingly, we are all born with an innate ability to eat intuitively. Babies have been shown to self-regulate the amount of food they need to a comfortable level of satisfaction to nourish their bodies (1).
Honouring your hunger is also so much more than just ‘listening to your tummy rumble’ or ‘eat when you’re hungry and stop when your full’. It involves being able to tune into the different stages of hunger and knowing how to respond accordingly in order to feel comfortably full (1).
3. Make Peace with Food - Letting Go of Food Rules
This principle relates to the idea of giving ourselves ‘full, unconditional permission to eat whatever you feel like eating’ (1). Now you may be thinking, how does this add up right? But the purpose of this principle is to show you that the more you restrict or deprive foods that are ‘bad’, the more extreme the bounce back to these “bad foods” will be. This is known as the “binge-restrict cycle” (1).
4. Challenge the Food Police/Neutralize Inner Food Critic
Have you ever found yourself labelling foods as good or bad? Or perhaps you have experienced a sense of self-blame or disappointment when you felt unable to consistently follow that low-calorie meal plan? I know that I certainly have in the past!
Our everyday language and thoughts around food and of course ourselves can be a very useful area to explore including talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) (2).
5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor - Mindful Eating and Finding Pleasure in Food
This principle is about opening our perception to the various roles of food including for pleasure, nourishment, satisfaction, social connection, tradition, culture, creativity. This includes tuning into all of our 5 senses, not to control how much we “should” be eating, but rather to instil a sense of curiosity about the foods we are eating. A popular example is eating with no distractions wherever possible (and understandably it is not always so easy to do!) to get the full pleasurable experience of eating a meal or snack.
6. Feel Your Fullness
What’s interesting about this principle is the common perception that there is a consistent level that we “should” be reaching when it comes to feeling full after a meal. But in matter of fact, there are various reasons as to why our level of fullness after a meal will vary on a day-to-day basis including (1).
· The last time we ate
· The type of food being eaten
· How satisfying the food is
Overall, a “comfortable level of fullness” and a satisfying feeling after a meal are what we should be striving for with our meals and snacks.
7. Treat Your Emotions with Kindness
Emotion driven eating can often be something we feel shameful of as we perceive it as “wrong or bad”. But eating particular foods in response to our emotions is actually a coping mechanism that serves a purpose (3). Examples include reaching out for comfort foods when we feel tired and want to relax after a long week or for a celebration!
But like anything, when our response to emotions through foods feels out of our control, that’s when help and support to look further into what else is going on is needed.
8. Respect your Body - Body Compassion
This principle explores our perceptions of weight with a focus on body neutrality, body compassion and weight inclusivity (1). Awareness, recognition and gratitude for what our bodies can do as well as embodiment and positive self-talk all encompass the need for this vital principle (1).
9. Practice Intuitive Movement
This section is about getting in tune with the different forms of movement we like to engage in which may vary from day to day. When choosing which forms of movement you most enjoy, it can be helpful to identify how you feel during it and your intentions behind why you are doing it (1).
Examples of various types of movement you may enjoy include:
· Taking a yoga class to wind down
· Signing up to a circuit class to release any built-up energy
· Strength training class for the enjoyment of physical exertion experienced
· Going for a walk or run in nature to disconnect and clear your head from a busy working day.
10. Understand Gentle Nutrition
Gentle nutrition refers to viewing food for physical AND also emotional purposes (1).
One of interesting points about gentle nutrition is that it focuses on nutritious additions rather than restrictions for a change. This can be helpful this time of year with new year’s resolutions!
For example, viewing food as fuel for the purpose of engaging in physical activity and movement as well as health rather than restricting the number of calories we can consume. Or aiming to get 5-7 portions of fruit and vegetables a day alongside your meals whilst taking taste and flexibility around our food into account.
Summary
In summary, it’s common to make new year’s goals and resolutions around food, nutrition and health. What the area of intuitive eating invites us to do is to approach these goals from a place of self-care and supports them in a realistic, flexible, compassionate and more fulfilling way.
See below for links to further explore intuitive eating if you are interested in finding out more!
Instagram pages:
@Laurathomasphd
@willow_nutrition
@Dietetically speaking
@Tcnutrition
@Rhinutrition
Books:
How to Just Eat It - Laura Thomas
Intutive Eating – A Revolutionary program that works – Evelyn Tribole
References
1. Laura Thomas. How to Just Eat It - A Step by Step Guide to Escaping Diets and Finding Food Freedom.
2. Overview - Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) [Internet]. nhs.uk. 2021 [cited 2021 Aug 12]. Available from: https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/talking-therapies-medicine-treatments/talking-therapies-and-counselling/cognitive-behavioural-therapy-cbt/overview/
3. Hamburg ME, Finkenauer C, Schuengel C. Food for love: the role of food offering in empathic emotion regulation. Front Psychol. 2014 Jan 31;5:32.