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Have you heard of intuitive eating? Intuitive eating is not a diet; it promotes healthy eating habits, relationships with food, and a better body image. Intuitive eating teaches you to connect with your internal cues rather than the external diet rules you would have learned to try to control your eating habits and weight. In the ‘Intuitive Eating Pros, ’ Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch wrote the ten principles of intuitive eating. These principles, as they have written in their books, are outlined below.
Discard The Diet Way of thinking
The first principle is about letting go and unlearning everything about dieting. While many diets have failed, you might still believe you haven’t found the one that will work for you. Let this belief go.
The diet culture can make you feel bad about eating the food you want and promise you quick weight loss. Reject this diet mentality and free yourself from guilt and feelings of failure.
Embrace Your Hunger
The diet culture teaches you to ignore your hunger cues, but your hunger is the primary biological signal telling you to eat because your body needs energy. Intuitive eating is about eating when hungry and figuring out what your body wants. You need to feed your body adequately so that it can function better. Otherwise, you’ll overeat and choose food impulsively.
Make Peace With Food
With the dieting system, there are many foods you are made to believe you should steer clear of if you intend to lose weight. However, the principle of intuitive eating is to allow yourself to eat whatever you enjoy.
This practice helps you avoid uncontrollable cravings and eating ‘forbidden’ food excessively because you don’t know when you may get a chance to eat it again. Now is the time to make peace with food favorites, and know you can have them whenever your body sends the cues.
Question The Food Police – The External & Internal Voices
The voices in your head, let’s refer to them as the ‘food authorities,’ are telling you that you are ‘bad’ for eating that chocolate bar or getting an extra bowl of ice cream. The food police can also be an external factor, such as your partner or friend. Perhaps they are telling you that you shouldn’t be eating that.
Intuitive eating is letting go of your internal judgment that you are wrong or good based on the food you eat and ignoring comments from others. Instead, you should engage in more positive self-talk and focus on self-care instead of punishing yourself.
Uncover The Joy Factor
You have the right to enjoy the food that you eat. Intuitive eating teaches you to choose pleasure food consciously. When you do that, you can avoid bingeing and overeating. When you eat mindfully, you can notice when you have eaten enough and are satisfied and consciously try to stop eating.
Know Your Fullness
By noticing your body’s signals, you will feel it telling you to stop eating because you are full. It’s when you have eaten adequately but are not uncomfortably full. Recognizing your feelings of fullness helps you to stop pressuring yourself to “clean your plate,” a practice you have most likely been taught as a child.
Handle Your Emotions
Yes, you can use food to cope with your emotions, and emotional eating is okay up to a certain point. Intuitive eating teaches you to be able to tell whether you’re physically or emotionally hungry. You shouldn’t use food as your only coping mechanism because it won’t help you address the real cause of your emotional distress. Instead, you should eat when you need to, not just because you want to.
Appreciate Your Body
Intuitive eating focuses on behavior rather than what your weighing scale shows. Everyone’s body is different, and there is no telling what weight you are supposed to maintain. Instead, you should treat your body respectfully, feed it adequately, move it, get enough sleep, and manage stress. All these can lead to a healthy body size that’s right for you.
Push Your Body and Feel The Transformation
The diet culture might have forced you to exercise excessively or dread it because it has become a chore. Intuitive eating is about moving your body not because you want to lose weight but because the movement makes you feel good. If your body enjoys walking, you don’t have to force yourself to run daily. So, intuitive eating teaches you to move your body for fun, not punishment.
Award Your Health With Mild Nutrition
While intuitive eating teaches you to unlearn everything about the diet culture, one thing you shouldn’t forget is nutrition. It’s about using food science to help you choose the foods that will satisfy your needs. As you can see, intuitive eating is not about losing weight. It’s about connecting with your internal cues, allowing you to develop healthier eating habits and better relationships with food. Connecting with how you are wired to eat can set a healthy body image and improve your well-being.
DISCLAIMER: All content on this website is presented solely for educational and informational objectives. Do not rely on the information provided as a replacement for advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a qualified medical expert. If you are pregnant, nursing, or have any preexisting medical concerns, talk to your doctor before using any herbal or natural medicines.
References
- Journal: Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26526312
- Journal: Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29906044