Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works

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Written by two prominent nutritionists, Intuitive Eating focuses on nurturing your body rather than starving it, encourages natural weight loss, and helps you find the weight you were meant to be. I also really liked the way that the authors talked about exercise and fitness: People need to learn to see exercise as a separate thing from food. They asked a question, something like, how often do people think 'Oh, I ate so poorly today. I ate so much.. even working out won't solve that..' or 'only 10 minutes of a workout is not worth it.' or 'going for a walk does not burn enough calories etc.'. people need to see that while excising can be used as a tool in a diet, it is also separate from it. Because all those things mentioned above do not matter at all, if you consider for only one moment, what exercising means for your BODY and health, and not necessarily for body aims/diet aims. 10 minutes of slowly walking is STILL good for you, for your heart, even if it might not burn so many calories. And so on. When I first read this book, I felt so many light bulbs go off. I had to reconsider the way I was viewing weight and health. What I know now is that our habits and behaviors, even in the absence of weight loss, can have a bigger impact on our health than the number on the scale. The thing that really resonated was the fact that we don’t have as much control over our weight as we’d like to believe. This book gave a very evidenced-based breakdown of how metabolism really works and how fighting against our body’s natural set point may make it hold on to more weight in the end. At the end of the day, Intuitive Eating is an individualistic approach to a systemic problem. It’s useful for counseling, but it’s not going to effect large-scale change and produce a society with healthier-sized bodies. There are undercurrents of evangelism in the Intuitive Eating approach in the sense that Tribole & Resch assert that their philosophy is the ideal philosophy. In other words, Intuitive Eating claims to be a one-size-fits-all approach, which disregards the fact that different approaches work better for different people. Tribole & Resch also condemn the diet industry for being profiteering. Well, I daresay the developers of Intuitive Eating have very much financially benefitted from their “new” philosophy. They are both in private practice in California, their book has sold over half a million copies, and they doubtless rake in hefty speaker fees for their work at conferences and panels. Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a chemical produced by the brain that triggers our drive to eat carbs, the body’s primary and preferred source of energy. Food deprivation drives NPY into action making it easy to turn to a high-carb binge. It is naturally the highest in the morning or when under stress or when carbs are burned as fuel.

The original Intuitive Eating book by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch was published in 1995 and has since been updated four times to reflect the latest research. This book is the gold standard for starting your intuitive eating journey. You may need to go through a grieving period for the loss of food as comforter and companion. You may also find you’re experiencing your feelings in a deeper way since you’re no longer covering them up. Consistently denying hunger also desensitizes hunger signals so you can only “hear” hunger in extreme, ravenous states. This further conditions you to believe you can’t be trusted with food, because ravenous hunger often triggers overeating. Biological cues of satiety are also pushed to the extremes. Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feelthe difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie-burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. 10. Honor Your Health—Gentle Nutrition Bruce LJ, Ricciardelli LA. A systematic review of the psychosocial correlates of intuitive eating among adult women. Appetite. 2016 Jan 1;96:454-72.

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Using a relatable four-step approach, this book walks you through how to reconnect with your body using your relationship to food as the entry point. It provides actionable tools that you can use to confidently nourish yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally. Make your eating experience more enjoyable by giving yourself a distinct time (15 min), sitting down at the table, taking several breaths before eating, eating slowly, sensually, savour each bite, put the fork down, and feel your fullness.

The most effective way to instill the belief yo can eat whatever you want is to experience eating the very foods you forbid. It becomes self-evident proof you can handle these foods, they have no magic hold on you or your willpower. With permission, you take the time to taste and may even find it’s not so desirable after all. It may take a few weeks for the desire to taper off. Removing deprivation diminishes the alluring quality, and instead, put food in a reasonable, rational perspective. Legalizing food is critical. So, sometimes in this modern day of industrialized food we have to put mind over matter and decide with our mind - not our cravings or feelings - how we should fuel our bodies. I don’t feel that it is helpful advice - in today’s world where junk food is everywhere - to eat whatever you feel that you want, ignoring common sense, while proposing that it will make you healthier. There are a few Intuitive Eating books that just aren’t my vibe. If they’re helpful for you – I’m happy for you, but I did want to explain why I don’t recommend these two books. Van Dyke N, Drinkwater EJ. Review article relationships between intuitive eating and health indicators: literature review. Public health nutrition. 2014 Aug;17(8):1757-66. Desire for food occurs suddenly (e.g., because of an emotion such as anger or stress, or from external cues such as viewing a television commercial or other food advertising)Similar to the workbook by Tribole and Resch, this book by dietitian Cara Harbstreet offers up even more exercises to help you discover the joy of intuitive eating. Harbstreet focuses on three goals: saying no to diet culture, how to tune inward, and how to keep nutrition in mind, too. If you like to journal or have been wanting to dabble, these written thought exercises are perfect prompts to explore and improve your relationship with food. Often used interchangeably, many intuitive eating and mindful eating concepts overlap but there are some key differences. Mindful eating stems from the broader practice of mindfulness, a centuries-old philosophy used in many religions. Mindful eating focuses on the present eating experience with heightened awareness beyond the self, and without judgment. [2] The following are some areas of focus: