The popularity of Intuitive Eating is growing in the media. But, the concept of Intuitive Eating is not new. Dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch coined the term “intuitive eating” in their 1995 book, Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach.

It is a weight-neutral, mind-body health approach based on ten principles that help us cultivate body awareness and heal our relationship with food. It is not a “diet plan”. There is no weight goal for an intuitive eater. There is no pass or fail.

The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating explained below aim to free us from diet culture and weight obsession.

10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

Reject the Diet Mentality

First and foremost, get rid of the “quick-fix” diet mentality. We need to break away from the traditional way of thinking to be able to cultivate a healthy relationship with food and our bodies.

We need to let go of the pursuit of “thinness”.

The Intuitive Eater does not rely on tools like calorie counting but on internal cues to tell them what, when, and how much to eat. 

Honor Your Hunger

Restricting food can trigger an urge to overeat.  Intuitive Eaters keep their bodies biologically satisfied with adequate energy and carbohydrates. We need to honor our biological signals and avoid reaching the stage of excessive hunger. This will help prevent binging and we will build trust in ourselves and our food.

Make Peace with Food

We need to stop considering food as an enemy. Do not fight with food and permit yourself to eat. Depriving ourselves of certain kinds of foods can lead to splurging which will be followed by guilt and regret. When our mind understands that we can eat whatever we want and that no food is forbidden, then we no longer desire it intensely. 

Challenge the Food Police

The Food Police is the voice in our heads that’s developed through dieting and diet culture promoted by social media. It judges our food choices as “good” or “bad.”

Intuitive eater challenges the food police and becomes more sensitive toward the positive voice that helps him/her form a healthy relationship with food.

Discover the Satisfaction Factor

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs tells us that we are driven by our unmet needs. Because we have been programmed by the diet culture, we often overlook the basic pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience.

Intuitive eating is about knowing what you like to eat and believing that you have the right to enjoy food. This will help us derive pleasure in eating and derive satisfaction from it.

Feel your Fullness

We need to trust that we will give ourselves the foods that we desire. This will help us honor our fullness by listening for the body signals that tell us that we are no longer hungry. We need to learn to notice the signs that show that we’re comfortably full. We can practice by pausing in the middle of eating and asking ourselves how the food tastes, and what our current hunger level is. 

Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

Food can sometimes become a coping mechanism to deal with emotions (emotional eating). Also, food restriction can trigger a loss of control, which can feel like emotional eating.

We need to find compassionate ways to comfort ourselves.  We all experience anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger at some point in our lives. Food cannot fix any of these feelings. It can only numb us for a while. We need to learn to deal with the source of the emotions and prevent emotional eating and the guilt associated with it.

Respect Your Body

As long as we are at war with our bodies, it will be difficult to be at peace with ourselves and food. We need to accept our genetic makeup and stop setting unrealistic goals for our bodies. We also need to learn to respect our bodies so we can feel better about who we are. 

Our body is not the problem. It is the fatphobic culture that makes us look at our bodies critically. 

All bodies deserve respect.

Movement—Feel the Difference

Our focus on the calorie-burning effect of exercise and obsessive goal setting has made us forget the pleasure of movement. Intuitive eating tells us to incorporate more movement in our lives and observe the feeling associated with it. Physical activity helps us deal with stress better. Even small changes can make us feel a lot better.

 Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition

When eating healthfully becomes a pleasurable experience and makes us feel better, we are more likely to continue honoring our health with our food choices. The key, however, is not to turn the idea of healthy eating into an all-or-none prospect based on deprivation. Deprivation does not work in the long run. Remember that you don’t have to eat perfectly to be healthy. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters. Progress is what counts. Only you know your body best. 

Benefits of Intuitive Eating

Many studies done over the years have found various mental and physical benefits of intuitive eating. Intuitive eaters have:

• Greater body appreciation and satisfaction
• Positive emotional functioning
• Greater life satisfaction
• More self-regard and optimism
• Greater motivation to exercise
• Lower binge-eating 
• Lower emotional eating

Summary

• Intuitive eating is a weight-neutral, mind-body health approach based on ten principles that help us cultivate body awareness and heal our relationship with food.
• Studies have found many mental and physical benefits of intuitive eating.
• Intuitive eating is not a “diet plan.

References:

1. Homepage. (2019, June 03). Retrieved February 21, 2023, from https://www.intuitiveeating.org/
2. Tribole, E., & Resch, E. (2020). Intuitive eating: An anti-diet revolutionary approach. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials.