Explore Intuitive Eating This New Year
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“6 superfoods to shed those pesky inches!”
“Gear up for hot girl summer with our super diet!”
“Shed the holiday weight in 15 days!”
Do these headlines sound familiar? How many articles have we scrolled through with this kind of content? For as long as we can remember, we have been inundated with fad diets and fat-phobic communication disguised as hacks to attain a picture-perfect figure in the garb of “fitness”. Most of us grew up holding magazine covers that gawked over a celebrity and their washboard abs or highlighted their extra pounds on a beach vacation.
The message was clear – you aren’t cool, pretty, or desirable if you aren't skinny. And there’s to be no stone left unturned when striving to achieve the stereotypical ideals of attractiveness, from completely ditching carbs to launching into only-soup diets. The result, expectedly, was that generations of children grew up with skewed and misaligned relationships with food, body image, nourishment, and nutrition as a whole. Intuitive eating shows us a different way of nutrition, that is focused on learning what your body needs, rather than starving it of valuable nutrition.
Intuitive Eating 101
Intuitive eating is where these kids, now adults, can find shelter. In a nutshell, intuitive eating helps you stop being at war with your body, and instead sharpens your intuitions to understand what and when you should eat. It hones your awareness of your body’s needs and requirements and encourages you to meet them without the associated guilt or shame.
All of us are born with the feeling and awareness of satiety. However, as we grow, due to changing cultural, hormonal, and emotional signals, we lose touch with our internal satiety monitor. The principles of intuitive eating empower us to reclaim awareness of our satiation and guide us towards a healthier bond with food and, ultimately, our bodies. This focus is entirely shifted from fixing one’s physical appearance to improving one’s mental health.
It also helps us to tune into seasonality. We are so lucky here in Texas to have a variety of produce available to us at all times! So, when your body is telling you it really wants a juicy melon, we've got some of the best produced right here in the Lone Star State.
The post-holiday season has a special way of making us worry about how we’re going to deal with the after-effects of indulging in delicious food and our favorite beverages. If you’re planning a “clean diet” as a follow-up to this period of festive indulgence, perhaps the principles of intuitive eating can help you take an alternative approach. Read on to discover how!
Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality
Most “diets” are short-term fixes that show temporary results before we inevitably fall back into our old ways. This is followed by self-blame, shame, and feelings of failure. The foremost rule of intuitive eating is to do away with diet culture altogether. Diets are based on losing weight, while intuitive eating focuses on improving your relationship with food.
Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger
Each one of us has a unique metabolism. The rate at which our bodies burn calories and produce energy differs vastly. If you feel hungry at 11 am after eating a 9 am breakfast, that’s okay! Hunger is a cue that we need to make friends with. Intuitive eating encourages you to trust and fulfill your hunger instead of suppressing or ignoring it. The simple reason is that if you let yourself go hungry for a long time, you’re likely to eventually overeat. It strips away the guilt and negativity of feeling hungry and motivates you to eat a variety of foods.
Principle 3: Make Peace with Food
Villainizing food doesn’t do anyone any good. With intuitive eating, we draw a white flag and allow ourselves to consume any food we’d like to eat. The idea behind this is that depriving ourselves of what we desire can soon result in bigger cravings, eventually leading to a session of overindulgence. The focus is instead on how you feel before and after consuming the food.
Principle 4: Banish the Food Police
Felt proud of yourself after eating a salad for lunch? Or disappointed after eating a couple of scoops of ice cream? That’s the good ol’ food police at work. Thanks to diet culture, the idea that eating only healthy food is a responsible act has been deeply ingrained in our brains. Breaking up with this internal food police is crucial in improving our relationship with food of all kinds.
Principle 5: Connect with Your Satisfaction Factor
We often forget that eating is a pleasurable activity, and it needs to be treated as such! This pleasure is dependent on the flavor and texture of the food we eat as well as the environment we eat it in. Several factors affect our satisfaction levels, and this is an awareness that we need to build up over time.
Principle 6: Feel your Fullness
Once you realize that eating what you desire brings you joy, the next step is to recognize when you’re full. This includes focusing on the experience of the meal. Taking breaks between your mouthfuls and checking in with yourself can help you gauge your fullness.
Principle 7: Tackle Your Emotions With Sensitivity
Food has a deep relation with our emotions. Emotional eating is a tricky phenomenon to overcome. If you find yourself turning to food to combat stress, loneliness, or anxiety, address these tendencies and allow yourself to get to the root cause of these emotions.
Principle 8: Respect Your Body
Intuitive eating is centered around rebuilding a respectful approach towards food and mental health. Being critical of our bodies damages our mental wellbeing and triggers a host of body image, social, and self-esteem issues. No matter the “size”, every type of body deserves respect and love, even if mainstream media does not show you how.
Principle 9: Feel the Difference with Movement
Fitness isn’t a solution to fixing your weight, but a tool to achieve overall wellbeing. The focus is on how you feel after moving around and exercising, rather than the number of repetitions or calories burned. The movement can be dance, walking, hula hooping, or any other activity you enjoy.
Principle 10: Honor Your Health
Intuitive eating empowers you with the awareness to make sound decisions, not perfect ones. A snack here and a drink there isn’t going to ruin your efforts. Gentle nutrition allows for mistakes while accommodating indulgences as well.
On the whole, intuitive eating is a concept that promotes being at peace with oneself and learning to accept our genetics. It encourages behavioral change at a mindset level and prioritizes overall wellbeing. We hope this guide helps you navigate this new year and its delicious festivities with a little more ease!
