Intuitive and mindful eating are all the rage these days – and for good reason! They both move away from the traditional concept of dieting and all that that word entails: counting calories, food guilt, good foods and bad foods, etc. There is no meal plan, no cutting out of entire food groups, no measuring portions or counting macros and no willpower involved.
Intuitive eating is not a diet you follow for a month or two in order to shed some pounds. It is about learning, or re-learning as the case may be, how to get in touch with your body’s hunger cues, trust your own food choices, develop a healthy attitude around food in general and most importantly, enjoy your meals. When done correctly, research shows that intuitive and mindful eating both have powerful effects on our self-esteem and body image as well as a myriad of positive health outcomes. In this post, we’ll dive into the details of these two popular styles of eating, how they converge as well as how they differ, and how to incorporate these self-care practices into your life.
What is Intuitive Eating?
As the name might betray, intuitive eating is all about using your own intuition in order to discern when you’re hungry, when you’re full, and what your body needs to function optimally. At first glance this might seem like an overtly simple process, but dive a little deeper and you’ll find that many of us have been conditioned from the very beginning to lose this innate process. We were told to finish our plate, regardless of whether we were full or not. We discovered that dessert and sweets were a reward for good behavior. And we learned that some foods are good and others are bad, thus creating a link within ourselves that we are good or bad when we eat these foods.
Intuitive eating is an approach to eating that puts ourselves and our bodies back in control. It ditches the diet mentality in order to work on healing our relationship with food. Created by two registered dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995, the concept of intuitive eating is intended to break the vicious diet cycle many of us have been on for much of our adult lives and to discern the meaning of our internal cues like hunger, fullness and satiety. It is about learning to trust our bodies to tell us when, what and how much to eat with no guilt involved. No food groups are demonized and there are no food rules. Instead there are 10 principles that guide the Intuitive Eating approach and we will discuss them in more detail below.
What is Mindful Eating?
Though you might hear the two terms used interchangeably, mindful eating and intuitive eating are technically separate concepts. At its core, mindful eating is about using all of your attention during mealtimes. This means eating slowly, minimizing distractions while eating, tuning into your cravings, and becoming aware of physical cues regarding hunger and satiety in order to determine when to eat and when to stop eating. Mindful eating turns your focus and attention to enjoyment of the meal itself: the smells, flavors, textures, etc.
This approach looks to develop an appreciation for the food you eat and the company you share your meals with. It also involves being conscious of how foods make you feel during and after eating them, both physically and mentally; to acknowledge that food is fuel intended to nourish your body and encourage overall health and well-being. While there is no doubt that the two concepts of mindful eating and intuitive eating have a good amount of overlap and can be used in conjunction with one another, mindful eating takes the experience to a deeper level.
The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
1. Reject the Diet Mentality. The very first principle of intuitive eating asks you to ditch the diet mentality. There is no perfect diet, no matter when your friend, sister or co-worker says about keto, paleo, dairy-free, “clean” eating – or any other diet out there. There are no quick-fixes and diets in general simply set us up for failure. Rejecting the diet mentality means ridding yourself of diet books, magazine articles that encourage unhealthy, disordered eating, and even social media accounts that promote negative messages surrounding food and health. If you are for real about the intuitive eating journey, you must be honest with yourself and let go of any lingering hope that the next diet you go on will be the one.
2. Honor Your Hunger. The second principle of intuitive eating is about acknowledging that hunger is a normal, healthy, biological need. Denying your hunger is not a feat of willpower, and all that it will do in the long term is cause you to binge and overeat. Getting in tune with, and thus honoring your hunger cues is the first step in creating or rebuilding a healthy relationship with food and more importantly, with yourself.
3. Make Peace with Food. Food is fuel! Food is also information for your body and your body’s biological processes. Food is not good or bad and eating certain foods does not inherently make you good or bad either. This third principle is about letting go of any guilt you feel in relation to food and giving yourself permission to eat what and when you want.
4. Challenge the Food Police. Ah, the food police. Those nasty whispers in the back of your head reminding you about the rules you need to follow when it comes to food choices. They can sound different from person to person but usually, the food police are out to enforce all the things you’ve been taught within diet culture: sugar is evil, carbs are dangerous, fat will make you fat, etc. The fourth tenent of intuitive eating means you need to not just quiet those thoughts in your head, you need to actively challenge and confront them.
5. Feel Your Fullness. It’s time to start asking questions and checking in with yourself during mealtimes. Instead of automatically finishing your plate, put down your fork mid way through and ask yourself how you feel. Look for signs and signals that you are full and satiated.
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor. The satisfaction factor is the feeling you get when you’re content with what you’ve eaten. Without it, it’s more than possible to feel physically full but not fully content. By taking into account what you really want to eat, you’re more likely to stop when you’ve had enough.
7. Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food. The triggers for emotional eating is a long and complicated list, but no matter the reason behind your emotional eating, it’s important to learn ways to cope with these complex emotions in healthier ways. Though food might distract you from these feelings, it will not fix them.
8. Respect Your Body. The 8th principle of intuitive eating is a powerful one and one that for many of us, will take some time to process as we work to unweave the diet culture web that has been growing within us. To respect our body is to let go of unreasonable expectations for ourselves and our bodies, to stop criticizing ourselves, to learn to accept our shape and size and to treat ourselves with dignity, love and understanding.
9. Honor Your Health With Gentle Nutrition. Finally, this last principle is about letting the concept of gentle nutrition guide your decisions. You don’t need to be a perfect eater in order to be health conscious, you simply need to make choices that honor your health, your body, your mind, and your cravings. Focus on making food choices that make you feel good, that fuel your body, and that provide a variety of vitamins and nutrients that allow your body to function its best in addition to being satisfying to you and your tastebuds.
Remember, while intuitive eating is an approach to just that: eating; it would be remiss not to mention exercise in the bigger context of health and wellness. In this case, it’s all about movement. Find ways to move your body each day. Not as punishment for what you ate, but because it feels good and you enjoy it. Incorporate movement because it gives you energy, because it helps you sleep better, because it clears your head and boosts your mood. This is the difference between suffering through a workout you hate, and finding a way to move your body that feels good.
How Mindful Eating and Intuitive Eating Coexist
Intuitive eating includes some of the tenets of mindful eating, specifically those regarding internal cues of hunger and satiety, satisfaction and emotional eating. Intuitive eating diverges to acknowledge the importance of letting go of diet culture and implementing respect for one’s body and the importance of incorporating movement, while mindful eating tends to focus on enjoying the entire experience of eating: the shopping, preparing, and cooking as well as slowing down to acknowledge the tastes and smells of the food itself. Both of these approaches to eating, used separately or in conjunction with one another, can be powerful tools to help you establish a healthy relationship with food.
What Does the Research Say?
The growing body of research is revealing that intuitive eating promotes higher self-esteem, better body image, appreciation and feelings of self-worth, improved health indicators like blood pressure and cholesterol levels, improved metabolism, and even lower rates of disordered eating such as anorexia and bulimia. Intuitive eating has also shown to improve psychological health through a higher satisfaction with life, optimism and views of overall well-being.
When it comes to the concepts of mindful eating and intuitive eating, both can be a great way to make positive behavioral changes when it comes to food choices. They can be used together or separately to help you choose food that nourishes you and makes you feel good, while simultaneously finding a balanced approach to nutrition and wellness. They promote positive health outcomes both physically and mentally and are both about making dietary changes that are sustainable for the long-haul.
Intuitive and mindful eating, not a diet but a lifestyle, can help you achieve your goals while establishing a healthy relationship with both food and movement. xoxo Mo
