Intuitive Eating - ditch the diet and find food freedom
GUEST BLOG BY ELA LAW NUTRITION
Liberate yourself by adopting an anti-diet approach
I haven’t met many people who are truly at peace with food, who don’t care about socially constructed body ideals, and who eat according to their internal hunger and satiety cues.
Many of us have been on a diet (or are serial dieters), many of us feel that our bodies don’t look the way they are supposed to, many of us feel guilt and shame around eating.
There is a way out of weight-cycling and yo-yo dieting, there is a way to develop a peaceful relationship with food, and there is a way to start feeling good in your body and finding satisfaction in eating and movement. It may take some unpacking of long-held beliefs and habits, it can take some time, and it can be challenging, but it is the most liberating thing you can do if you have been stuck in diet-land for a while.
The benefits of Intuitive Eating
We can discover freedom from believing that the next diet will live up to its unrealistic promises.
We will be able to feed our bodies what they need and listen to their signals.
We will give ourselves unconditional permission to eat what we like and want.
We will learn to recognise that there are not good or bad foods and that food rules and negative self-talk are all rooted in diet culture.
We will eat for pleasure and choose foods we really want and that satisfy us.
We will learn what comfortable fullness feels like.
We won’t beat ourselves up for eating for emotional reasons but are able to explore alternatives to food for truly addressing our problems.
We will understand that all bodies deserve respect and dignity, regardless of their size, shape, colour or ability.
We will discover that movement can make us feel good, and that exercise has many benefits and is more sustainable if it isn’t tied to dieting.
We will eat foods that nourish us and that we enjoy; we will recognise that we don’t have to be ‘perfect’ eaters to feel good and honour our body.
In their book ‘Intuitive Eating’, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch have outlined ten principles that will help you become an intuitive eater. These principles can be transformational, but, like all good things, take time and energy to fully embrace.
The 10 Intuitive Eating Principles
Reject diet mentality
Honour your hunger
Make peace with food
Challenge the food police
Discover the satisfaction factor
Feel your fullness
Cope with your emotions with kindness
Respect your body
Movement – Feel the difference
Honour your health with gentle nutrition
“Intiutive Eating is not a quick fix but it is a brilliant way to liberate yourself from years of dieting and a negative relationship with food.”
3 tips to get you started
Go through your social media feed and cast a critical eye over the messages you are getting: are they promoting dieting or certain body sizes (either overtly or hidden in some form of wellness babble)? Unfollow anyone who is triggering unhelpful thoughts and beliefs in you. Become aware of diet culture around you: how are people portrayed on TV/in magazines/when you talk to your friends. What are the messages you are getting about what you should/shouldn’t look like? If it makes you feel bad, call it out!
Find a food you don’t allow yourself to have, buy lots of it and have it around the house so you can have it all the time. You will find that allowing yourself to have it whenever you want it will take its ‘special’ status away and make it less interesting. It may not even taste as good as you had remembered (and if it does, enjoy it!).
Be aware of ‘air foods’ – making sure that when your body tells you that you need to eat, you eat something that satisfies you and gives you enough energy and sustenance. Eating a few rice crackers or drinking a coffee will not achieve that and you will wonder why you are hungry again shortly after having them.
Intuitive Eating can be a totally different approach for many of us that have lived for years with the diet message. Ela Law can help you get started on your Intuitive Eating journey.
Nutritionist (ANutr), Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor and Baby-led Weaning Specialist.
Ela’s approach is aligned with the HAES® movement, which is inclusive of all body sizes and challenges social structures that discriminate against people based on social and cultural characteristics. She uses the principles of Intuitive Eating to guide clients away from the pitfalls of diet culture and help them make peace with food, reject diet mentality thinking and develop a new understanding of their bodies and needs. Her sessions with clients can be online or face-to-face (Sevenoaks and Bexley), and she has an online course on baby-led weaning.
