Intuitive Eating & What it Is

Intuitive Eating may be defined as the nutritional framework in which you eat based upon instinct, conscious awareness, and bodily honesty. You trust your body in letting you know when you are hungry, when you are not, what your body needs, and when you are satisfied. Basically leaving your nutritional habits to your naturally gifted bodily wisdom.

I do want to stress that this is not a “diet”. It is a daily practice, having to do with how you navigate through your daily nutritional habits. I do see this as the final stage of nutritional habits since through practice you eat naturally (intuitively) through your own day to day Life in a life-providing manner. 

aka You now know what foods serve your body well & have gone through the self experimentation + analysis to know exactly how different foods at different times directly effect your daily quality of living.

A Definite Pre-Requisite is Having a General Understanding of Proper Nutrition. More on this below. 

Only then Will You be Able to Observe Your Own Body & How Different Foods or Nutritional Habits personally effect you & Your own day to day Energy, Vitality, Clarity, Focus, & Life.

The 10 principles of Intuitive Eating have been cemented by the founders. I will not even attempt to explain the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating in my words when they have already been thoroughly and beautifully explained. Full explanation here : Link.

1. Reject the Diet Mentality
2. Honor Your Hunger
3. Make Peace with Food
4. Challenge the Food Police
5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor
6. Feel Your Fullness
7. Cope with With Your Emotions with Kindness
8. Respect Your Body
9. Movement-Feel the Difference
10. Honor Your Health-Gentle Nutrition

This framework co-founded by Evelyn Tribole(MS, RDN) and Elyse Resch(MS, RDN). Both pioneers and experts on the topic. As well as general accomplished women within their fields . Have authored multiple books on the topic of Intuitive Eating and have brought a high amount of awareness to the movement. Both women within the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Elyse being a Fellow and Evelyn being a Spokesperson, they have had their ideas and work featured on large media organizations including but not limited to CNN, MSNBC, The Wall Street Journal, NBC, and USA Today.

How Intuitive Eating May Save You Time & Stress

Adopting Intuitive Eating gives you the confidence and freedom that come from eating with the flow of life. You are confident for the fact you know for a fact you are listening carefully and intently to what your body is speaking to you.

Through conscious thought, awareness of energy level deviations, and physical sensations. Learning to feed your body on what it truly needs. At the times it needs.

This framework requires definite work and radical honesty on your end. Once you develop the skill of being able to intelligently Intuitively Eat you will lead a life where food no longer initiates fear within you, nor controls you. 

The only reason you should ever track everything you eat is if you’d like to become highly aware of just how much you are currently eating, are prepping for a fitness competition, or are an elite athlete. If you do not fall into any of those categories, FREE yourself of the mental drainage tracking and worrying about food has on you!

Once you ease your way into being able to eat intuitively, you will be free of the hold food has on you. Whether it is physically or mentally. Minimizing the amount of Time you put into what you Eat. This method combines efficiency & flexibility, intelligently.

“I’ll Intuitively Eat Like Garbage Though”

I know many may want to brush off the idea of Intuitive Eating for the fact it is based upon “feelings”. As in even as I’m reading this, I “feel” like heading over to the kitchen for some sweets!

A common misconception with Intuitive Eating is that some confuse cravings for true intuition. True intuition is a developed skill!

For this reason I would say Intuitive Eating is more of and “advanced” concept you will need to work into. You can’t just jump into the framework and expect to find the benefits!

The skill must be developed first through daily practice & self observation.

There are definite steps you will need to take into your current nutritional habits in order develop the skill of Intuitive Eating. Yes, truly eating intuitively is a skill. First off, you need to get a basic understanding of nutrition, your own current nutritional habits, and your own bodily reactions in result to foods at meal times.

Developing the Skill of Intuitive Eating 

Where most of us begin. Eating what we believe to be our intuition would only lead to ephemeral pleasure and ultimately weight gain!

The very first step into Intuitive Eating would be to ensure 

Proper Nutrition, Radical Honesty, Daily Practice & Thorough Self Experimentation.

How would this be done? Well, Proper Nutrition is no mystery. Yes, we all have different preferences and react to different quantities of food components differently. For example, some are more negatively effected by carbohydrates while other thrive on them. We may cherry-pick different anecdotal examples for eternity! Humans will always have their own unique situations & preferences. Lets continue to the tried-true simplicity of it.

Proper Nutrition meaning you have developed eating habits that emphasize whole, raw, natural food sources. Predominately only eating these Whole Foods. Ingesting foods in their most raw form with minimal additives and preservatives is exactly the way our organic bodies are meant to ingest food. 

While ensuring you are meeting your daily requirements of both Macro & Micronutrients.

Only when you have put this into practice and into your way of living will you begin to recognize how your body is supposed to feel. The stability of your daily energy, the mental clarity, and overall vitality you can only ever experience when you FUEL your body with properly energizing foods.

Once Proper Nutrition is your way of living, you will begin to experience the control you truly have over the body. You will gain the skill of differentiating cravings from true hunger. No longer eating for the sake of eating, nor succumbing to fleeting pleasures of taste. Only once you discipline yourself to Proper Nutrition will you experience the true Vitality available to you within the body.

Eating in this way attunes you to just how good your body can feel. Now being in control and aware as to how the body feels and reacts to any discrepancy or deviation in your nutritional habits.

You will be able to recognize and pin-point as to when and what exactly negatively effects you. Always keeping the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating in mind.

Radical Honesty is very much needed here. Are you truly hungry or is there a negative feeling behind it ?

Are you treating yourself or are you succumbing to the body? 

The ultimate truth is you will need to develop the discernment here. Remaining in control is the ultimate power here, there are no absolute rules when you bring Proper Nutrition & Radical Honesty together into your daily way of Eating.

Live your Life

Ultimately I push Intuitive Eating as the final stage of Nutrition. Not only do you develop the Power to eat as you please, you now know you are eating for your own best well-being. Liberating yourself of any concern or burden food has ever had on you. While simultaneously eating to physically energize you & reach health goals.

Working into Intuitive Eating requires you to have proper nutritional habits as well as a strong connection and awareness of the body.

Eating with the flow of life is extremely liberating. You now have gained extra mental energy and time to focus on other areas of your life! In 1st World countries we have the gift of being able to eat each and every day, aka we eat often! Putting too much precious time and stressing over what we continue to put into our mouths is most definitely not a great use of most of our finite time.

Develop the skill of Intuitive Eating, make Life, Food, & Health Effortless!