Intuitive Eating

Imagine all your decisions about what you eat come from a place of trust, wisdom, connection, and self-compassion. ​

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Intuitive Eating (IE) is that place: a self-care eating framework built on the principle of honoring our body's innate wisdom, the inherent knowledge our body intuitively holds regarding hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. We as humans have held this  wisdom since the time of birth.

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Historically, our relationship with food was relatively straightforward:

• food was a form of sustenance—its primary role was providing necessary energy and nutrients

• food was a source of celebration—it marked important milestones and happy gatherings

• food was a source of honoring traditions and culture—it connected people to their heritage and community

 

Yet digging into the history of food 100+ years ago, reveals an existence of judgment, guilt, shame, and dieting! Add social media and social comparison to the mix, and it's no wonder our society suffers from a great deal of disordered eating.

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IE is an evidence-based program with 10 core principles developed by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CEDRD-S :

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1. Reject the Diet Mentality: Throw out the diet books and the false hope that food restriction will improve your life. 

2. Honor Your Hunger: Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy. Learn to recognize and respond to the first biological signal of hunger to prevent the urge to overeat.

3. Make Peace with Food: Call a truce and give yourself unconditional permission to eat. When there are no forbidden foods, the intense desire to eat often diminishes.

4. Challenge the Food Police: Silence the inner voice that monitors the unreasonable, guilt-provoking rules created by dieting. Reject thoughts that label foods as "good" or "bad."

5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor: Savor the eating experience. 

6. Feel Your Fullness: Tune into your body's wisdom to listen for the body signals that tell you when you are no longer hungry and are comfortably full. 

7. Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness: Find kind ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food as the primary coping mechanism. Food won't fix feelings like anxiety or loneliness. This is where Self-Compassion is key.

8. Respect Your Body: Accept your genetic blueprint and respect your body size and shape. It's difficult to reject the diet mentality if you are constantly critical of your body.

9. Movement—Feel the Difference: Forget rigid exercise expectations and focus on moving your body in ways that you enjoy and that make you feel energized. Shift the focus from calorie-burning to how movement feels.

10. Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition: Make food choices that honor your well-being, taste buds, and culture, while attuning to how your body feels. 

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A critical component of this framework is self-compassion -- helping you care for yourself through non-judgmental awareness and kindness, especially when navigating challenges or difficult feelings around food, rather than resorting to guilt or restriction. IE shifts the focus away from diet culture and rigid rules toward internal cues, promoting a thoughtful, connected relationship with our mind and body.  

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It's a life-changing experience for anyone, of any age, who has struggled with their relationship with food and their body!