What is Intuitive Eating?
Overall, to me Intuitive Eating is getting back to your inner intuition and knowledge when it comes to food, eating, and connecting to your body. I say "getting back to" because I believe that everyone is born as an intuitive eater and then as we grow up in the society that we do, we can lose the ability to connect with that inner knowledge and body cues.
How does this happen?
I think the way that it happens is going to be unique for everyone. I also don't want to place blame on any one place. Often times the feeding rituals that we had growing up had the best of intentions, they just might not be how our body wants to naturally operate.
I will give a few examples from my own story.
I grew up in household that was a proud member of the Clean Plate Club. Meaning that I could have no dessert or leave the table until every morsel on my plate was gone, including the boiled spinach with no seasonings and the gigantic glass of milk. Again, not to place blame but I grew up partially with my grandmother, a woman who grew up in The Great Depression and the era of food recommendations like everything cooked with no salt, no fat and that you should drink 2-3 glasses per day of cow's milk to build strong bones (hence the earlier example). This in turn caused be to get the message that even if I was full, the portion that I was given was the right amount for me, dessert was a treat that I only deserve under certain circumstances and vegetables are a disgusting punishment. I also now know the stomach ache I had from drinking dairy was because I was lactose intolerant, not because I was getting too little fiber.
Again, I am telling this story with compassion and understanding towards my grandmother because she was doing what she thought was right and healthy. Of course in retrospect I can see how many of these messages backfired and I had to re-learn and develop a lot of new relationships with foods and my body cues in my adult life.
This is a common thing that I help clients with, though the details will be different. Often times, there are circumstances that causes us to not know how to listen to our bodies anymore, or caused us to think our bodies were broken in some way because they don't do what we want them to do, ie. diet, lose weight, eat no sugar, crave plain boiled spinach, etc.
This is where I see Intuitive Eating come in. When we start to understand our origin stories with food and our bodies we can start to understand where we received the messages that we have today. It's not that your body is broken or needs to be fixed, it's more of a re-learning patterns that work better for you and your body.
It is about re-learning your hunger and fullness cues so at any one time your body tells you what portion of food works best. It is about making vegetables delicious so that not only do you crave them, but they are a staple of the meal because they feel good in your body, and not used as punishment. You have dessert after dinner most times, but sometimes not, because it just doesn't sound that appetizing, but you have that choice because you know it's available to you whenever you want it. You've switched to oat milk and know that you are getting plenty of calcium because it's fortified and you now love spinach.
I definitely don't want to over simplify this process or say it happens overnight. It's complicated, confusing and emotionally uncomfortable a lot of the time. Food is not just food. We are complex humans that have complex feelings and emotions and thoughts about food. But I can say that it's worth it. It's worth every bit of the process because you give yourself the ability to trust your body again. I don't want to sound like a cheesy credit card commercial but to me, this is priceless.
Katy Gaston Nutrition
Katy is a registered dietitian nutritionist and owner of Katy Gaston Nutrition based in San Francisco, CA. Katy is passionate about her work in eating disorders and disordered eating (AKA dieting) and wants to help people heal their relationship with food and body. If you would like to work with Katy in counseling sessions, she is available virtually via her services page below. If you are unable to be a client at this time but would like learn more, click here for a free introduction into intuitive eating workbook!