“Intuitive eating”, which we also refer to as “attuned eating”, means that you use your body’s natural signals for hunger and satiation to decide when, what and how much to eat. In order to become an intuitive eater, learn to recognize when you are physically hungry. This requires tuning into your stomach and noticing how it feels.
Next, identify what your body craves in response to your physical hunger. In order to match your hunger with the food that will satisfy you, have a variety of foods available and withhold judgments about what you are “supposed” to eat.
Finally, pay attention to fullness in order to know how much to eat. Eating according to your internal cues, rather than external diets and food plans, leads to a pleasurable and healthy relationship with food, and is one of the main tenets of the Health at Every Size (HAES) framework.
Within HAES, there is general agreement about …[private_membership circle] getting rid of diets and restrictions….for the purpose of weight loss. However, there is some disagreement regarding the role of nutrition guidelines as part of a HAES philosophy.
In our work with people who have spent years on the diet/binge rollercoaster, we find that it’s very important to let go of all “rules” about what you “should” and “shouldn’t” eat as you as begin your journey to make peace with food. After years of counting calories or fat grams or carbs, it really takes some time to break that diet mentality so that you can truly decide for yourself what you like and don’t like, as well as what feels good in your body and what doesn’t feel good at a particular moment.
In our experience, as people become intuitive eaters, they find that they eat a wide variety of food, including foods considered to be healthful as well as foods that are less nutritious but taste and feel great! Whenever you make a match, it’s important to think about how it tastes to you as well as how it feels in your body. If it feels “caretaking” to select a food because of it’s nutritional value – and eating that food leaves you feeling satisfied – that is part of being an intuitive eater.
If at some level, however, you are choosing a “healthy” food because you think it will help you lose weight, you are setting yourself up for feelings of deprivation and the overeating that usually follows.
Sometimes intuitive eaters find it helpful to learn more about nutrition once they have securely broken the diet/binge cycle. If you have a specific health issue, such as diabetes or irritable bowel syndrome, understanding how certain foods may affect your body can guide you in your decisions about what to eat. However, use this information flexibly so that you can experiment with different types of foods, and determine what’s best for you. As an attuned eater, you are the expert on knowing how to best feed yourself.
Remember that within HAES, the primary purpose of eating is nourishment and pleasure, based on internal cues for hunger and satiation. Dietary guidelines are constantly changing, so if you do make use of nutritional information, use it flexibly rather than in a rigid way. Perhaps you generally prefer to eat whole grains, but sometimes you’re in the mood for white rice with your Chinese food, so you order it. Or maybe you think it’s better to cut down the amount of red meat you eat, but when you crave a steak, you eat it with gusto. Each of us has our own preferences and ideas about what is caretaking – once you’ve let go of eating restrictions for the purpose of weight loss, you are free to develop your relationship with food in whatever way feels healthy to you.
________________________________________
Eat well! Live well! Be well! Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel, are co-authors of The Diet Survivor’s Handbook, Beyond a Shadow of a Diet www.dietsurvivors.com Chicago Center for Overcoming Overeating: 847.267.1200
[/private_membership circle]
