Intuitive Eating
We are approaching the holiday season which is a time of year that often includes a lot of food and eating. This can be pleasurable yet also emotionally challenging, particularly if you have a thorny relationship with food. Developing a helpful relationship with food involves practicing balance and flexibility in eating and intuitive eating can be a part of this practice.
Intuitive eating is the practice of tuning into your body and making food choices based on what feels good to you without judging yourself or being influenced by diet culture or rigid rules around eating. It has been called a practice of non-dieting. The 1995 book Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Anti-Diet Approach written by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch started the intuitive eating movement. This NYT article discusses intuitive eating’s origins and how the practice has been adopted since the 1990s.
Intuitive eating is based on the overall premise that we are all born with the ability to know when to eat (feeling hungry) and when to stop eating (feeling full), and also what types of food are pleasurable and satisfying. Yet, based on diet culture, media, friends, family, etc. we tend to become disconnected from, and less trusting of, our internal knowledge when it comes to food and eating.
In general, practicing intuitive eating involves not being rigid about food and permitting yourself to eat based on what feels good to your body. There are 10 principles of intuitive eating and more information about the principles can be found here. The principles are
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 Your Emotions with Kindness
8. Respect Your Body
9. Movement – Feel the Difference
10. Honor Your Health – Gentle Nutrition
Research, including a 2021 meta-analysis, has found psychological benefits of intuitive eating. For example, those who engaged in intuitive eating were less likely to binge and purge and less likely to engage in unhealthy levels of food restriction. Further, greater levels of body satisfaction and appreciation, greater awareness of bodily cues, more mindfulness, and lower levels of anxiety and depression were reported by those who regularly practiced intuitive eating. Overall, research suggests that the less rigidity you have around food and the more internal cues guide eating, the more helpful a relationship you will have with food, eating, and your body.
There are various ways therapy can support intuitive eating. For example, learning mindfulness skills is an evidence-based therapy technique that aids intuitive eating. Mindfulness is the practice of tuning into the present moment on purpose and non-judgmentally. It is important to cultivate awareness and mindfulness as you practice changing your relationship with food and eating because if you are not aware of the thoughts, feelings, or experiences that are impacting how you eat, it is difficult to eat intuitively.
Mindfulness allows you to become aware of the beliefs that are impacting how you eat, decide if they are helpful to you, and deliberately respond to them in a beneficial way vs. automatically reacting by doing what they tell you to do.
To learn more about how therapy can support intuitive eating practices and assist you in creating a more helpful relationship with food and eating, please contact us at CBTDenver.