Intuitive Eating Principles – Break Free From Diet Culture

Intuitive eating is a different approach to diet culture. It’s about listening to your body’s hunger and fullness cues, eating the foods you enjoy, and respecting your body’s needs. It’s about breaking free from diet culture and creating a healthier relationship with food. So how do you do that? By following the 10 intuitive eating principles. In this blog post we will share how each of the 10 principles of intuitive eating can help you lose weight and live a healthier and happier life.

Intuitive eating principle 1 – Reject the diet mentality:

One of the first and most important of all intuitive eating principles is to reject the diet mentality. This means throwing out diet books and magazine articles that offer false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. It’s time to get angry at diet culture that promotes weight loss and the lies that have led you to feel like a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight.

Rejecting diet culture is a process that requires a lot of effort and self-reflection. 

Here are some practical steps you can take to reject diet culture:

Educate yourself: Learn about the negative effects of diet culture and how it can harm your mental and physical health. You can read books, listen to podcasts, or follow social media accounts that promote body positivity and intuitive eating.

Unfollow toxic accounts: Social media can be a breeding ground for diet culture. Unfollow accounts that promote unrealistic beauty standards, weight loss products, or restrictive diets.

Surround yourself with positive influences: Seek out people who support your journey towards intuitive eating and body positivity. Join online communities or support groups where you can share your experiences and learn from others.

Practice self-compassion: Be kind to yourself and avoid negative self-talk. Remember that your worth is not determined by your weight or appearance.

Focus on health, not weight: Instead of focusing on weight loss, focus on nourishing your body with healthy foods and engaging in physical activity that you enjoy.

Challenge diet culture: Speak out against diet culture when you encounter it in your daily life. This can be as simple as refusing to participate in conversations about diets or sharing resources with friends and family.

Remember that rejecting diet culture is a journey, not a destination. It takes time and effort to unlearn the negative messages about food and eating that society has taught us to believe. But by taking these practical steps, you can learn to listen to your body and make peace with food.

Intuitive eating principle 2 – Honor your hunger: 

Intuitive eating principles are a set of guidelines that help you develop a healthy relationship with food. Principle 2, “Honor your hunger,” emphasizes the importance of keeping your body well-fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. When you don’t eat enough, your body may trigger a primal drive to overeat, which can lead to binge eating.

It’s essential to listen to your body’s signals and eat when you’re hungry. If you ignore your hunger cues, you may reach a point of excessive hunger, where all intentions of moderate, conscious eating become irrelevant. This can lead to overeating and feeling guilty afterward.

Here are some practical ways to honor your hunger:

1. Eat regularly throughout the day: Skipping meals can lead to excessive hunger and overeating. Try to eat at regular intervals to keep your hunger in check.
2. Choose foods that provide energy and sustenance: Opt for foods that are rich in nutrients and provide energy, such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, and lean proteins.
3. Listen to your body’s signals: Pay attention to your body’s hunger cues and eat when you’re hungry. Ignoring your hunger can lead to overeating and binge eating.
4. Avoid restrictive diets: Restrictive diets can lead to feelings of deprivation and trigger overeating. Instead, focus on eating a balanced diet that includes all food groups.
5. Practice mindful eating: Mindful eating involves paying attention to your food and savoring each bite. This can help you tune in to your body’s signals and prevent overeating.

Remember that intuitive eating is not about restriction or deprivation but about listening to your body’s needs and honoring them. By following these practical tips, you can develop a healthy relationship with food and honor your hunger in a way that feels good for you.

Intuitive eating principle 3 – Make peace with food: 

Call a truce; stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing. Of all the intuitive eating principles, this one is the most difficult

Making peace with food is a process that requires patience and self-compassion. 

Here are some practical tips to help you get started:

1. Give yourself permission to eat. All foods are equal, and there are no good or bad foods. When you tell yourself that you can’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and often bingeing ¹².
2. Eat in a calm and comfortable area. Avoid distractions like your phone, TV, and even books. Assess your hunger and check in periodically with fullness cues. Chew thoroughly and slow down ³.
3. Practice neutrality. See all foods as equal, without labeling them as healthy or unhealthy, bad or good, processed or clean ⁴.
4. Reflect on your experience. After eating, take a moment to reflect on how you feel physically and emotionally. This will help you identify patterns in your eating behavior and make better choices in the future. We have developed a food journal that helps you do exactly that. 
5. Listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues. Try to eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full. This will help you make better choices and feel more satisfied with your meals ¹.

Remember, making peace with food is about developing a healthy relationship with food and your body. It’s not about perfection or restriction, but rather balance and moderation ¹⁵. By following these tips, you’ll be able to enjoy your food without guilt or shame and savor every bite.

Intuitive eating principle 4 – Challenge the food police: 

Scream a loud no to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimal calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. 

The food police are the voices in our head that tell us what we should or shouldn’t eat, and they can come from a variety of sources, including diet culture, friends, family, and even ourselves 1. Here are some practical ways to challenge the food police:

1. Identify the food police: Start by recognizing when the food police are talking to you. This can be a physical person or a voice in your head that tells you what you should or shouldn’t eat.
2. Question the food police: Ask yourself if what the food police are saying is true. Are they based on facts or just opinions?
3. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones: Instead of thinking about what you shouldn’t eat, focus on what you should eat. Try to reframe your thoughts in a positive way.
4. Practice self-compassion: Remember that it’s okay to make mistakes and that you’re not alone in this journey. Be kind to yourself and give yourself permission to enjoy food without guilt

Intuitive eating principle 5 – Discover the satisfaction factor: 

The pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience are often overlooked in our compulsion to comply with diet culture. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content.

Here are some practical ways to follow this principle:

• Write down a list of all the foods and flavors you love and enjoy eating 2.
• Write down some of your favorite meals you remember having throughout your life.
• Write down what tastes and qualities you often crave, such as sweet, salty, crunchy, spicy, pungent, warm, cold, sour, etc.
• Make time to appreciate your food. Try sitting down at your table or desk, take deep breaths before beginning to eat, pay attention to the sensations of eating, taste each flavor and try to identify them, feel your fullness.
• Incorporate mindful eating by using your senses. Think about texture (crunchy, soft, smooth, rough, dry), temperature (hot, cold, room temperature), flavor (sweet, salty, spicy), aroma (something appealing to you), appearance (colorful, interesting), volume (light or filling).

Remember that satisfaction is personal to you. It’s what makes a meal enjoyable or “hit the spot” for you. By allowing yourself to feel satisfaction in a meal or snack actually decreases that craving or overwhelming desire for foods later on. You’ll simply be content

Intuitive eating principle 6- Feel your fullness

Principle 6, “Feel your fullness,” is about tuning into your body’s signals as you eat and recognizing when you feel satisfied and full. It’s important to note that fullness is not black and white, and it tends to change with pregnancy, activity level and many other things. Honoring fullness is a key component of a healthy relationship with food.  This is another challenging one of all the other intuitive eating principles.

Here are some tips to help you honor your fullness:

• Recognize what kind of eater you are. Are you eating because the food is there? Do you feel guilty if you don’t finish the food? Do you feel pressure to eat everything on your plate? Once you identify how you eat, you can better identify how to stop when you reach fullness.
• Use the hunger/fullness scale to learn to recognize your hunger and fullness cues 1.
• Eat slowly and chew more thoroughly. This will help you concentrate on the food you’re eating, its taste, texture, temperature, etc., and fully immerse yourself in it 2.
• Concentrate on the food you’re eating, its taste, texture, temperature, etc., and fully immerse yourself in it .
• Remember that you don’t have to eat all of the food now. You don’t have to say “forget it, now is my chance.” You can return to the food again in the future when you’re both hungry and desire it again.

By following these tips, you can learn how to feel when you are full (and stop eating) and make peace with all food. Remember that intuitive eating principles are meant to build upon each other, so if you don’t have a solid foundation set in principles 1-5, it may be helpful to go back and touch up on those!

Intuitive eating principle 7 – Cope with your emotions with kindness: 

We all use food to cope with our emotions from time to time. It’s normal. But when we turn to food to numb our pain or avoid our feelings, it can lead to a cycle of emotional eating and weight gain.

Intuitive eating principle 7 teaches us to cope with our emotions with kindness, not food. This means recognizing that food restriction, both physically and mentally, can trigger loss of control, which can feel like emotional eating. Of all the intuitive eating principles, this is the most rewarding.

Here are some tips for coping with your emotions with kindness:

• Identify your triggers: What are the emotions that make you want to turn to food? Once you know what your triggers are, you can start to develop coping mechanisms for dealing with them.
• Acknowledge your feelings: When you’re feeling a strong emotion, don’t try to suppress it. Allow yourself to feel it fully.
• Find healthy ways to cope: There are many healthy ways to cope with difficult emotions, such as talking to a friend, exercising, journaling, or practicing meditation.
• Be patient with yourself: It takes time to learn to cope with your emotions in a healthy way. Don’t beat yourself up if you slip up from time to time.

Here are some examples of how to cope with your emotions with kindness:

• If you’re feeling stressed, take a few deep breaths or go for a walk.
• If you’re feeling sad, talk to a friend or family member, or listen to your favorite music.
• If you’re feeling angry, go for a run or workout, or write in a journal.
• If you’re feeling lonely, reach out to a friend or join a social activity.

By coping with your emotions with kindness, you can break the cycle of emotional eating and build a healthier relationship with food.

Intuitive eating principle 8 – Respect your body: 

Body respect is about accepting your body as it is, flaws and all. It’s about letting go of unrealistic expectations and embracing your unique beauty.

One of the most important intuitive eating principles is to respect your body. This means accepting your genetic blueprint and understanding that every body is different. It’s unrealistic and unhealthy to expect that your body will conform to a narrow definition of beauty.

Here are a few tips for respecting your body:

• Challenge your negative thoughts: When you have a negative thought about your body, ask yourself if it’s really true. Is there any evidence to support it? Or is it just based on diet culture messaging?
• Focus on your strengths: Everyone has things they love about their bodies. Make a list of your favorite features and celebrate them!
• Treat your body with kindness: Give yourself regular massages, take relaxing baths, and wear clothes that make you feel good.
• Listen to your body’s needs: When your body is tired, rest. When your body is hungry, eat. When your body needs to move, move.

Respecting your body is essential for intuitive eating. When you respect your body, you’re more likely to listen to its cues and make choices that are good for you.

Intuitive eating principle 9 – Movement For Enjoyment 

Intuitive eating principle 9 is about moving your body for enjoyment, not punishment. This means finding activities that you enjoy and that make you feel good. It also means listening to your body and taking breaks when you need to.

Why is it important to distinguish between movement for enjoyment and movement for calorie burning?

When you move your body for enjoyment, you’re more likely to stick with it. You’re also more likely to focus on the positive aspects of movement, such as how it makes you feel and how it helps you to connect with your body.

On the other hand, when you move your body for calorie burning, you’re more likely to see it as a chore. You’re also more likely to focus on the negative aspects of movement, such as how hard it is and how much sweat you’re producing.

How to find movement that you enjoy

There are many different types of movement, so it’s important to find something that you enjoy. Here are a few ideas:

• Dancing
• Hiking
• Biking
• Swimming
• Yoga
• Pilates
• Strength training
• Team sports
• Walking
• Gardening
• Playing with your pet

If you’re not sure where to start, try a few different activities to see what you like. You can also ask your friends and family for recommendations.

How to listen to your body

It’s important to listen to your body when you’re moving. If you’re feeling pain, stop and rest. If you’re feeling tired, take a break. Don’t push yourself too hard.

It’s also important to be patient. It takes time to build up your endurance and strength. Don’t get discouraged if you can’t do everything at first. Just keep moving at your own pace.

Intuitive eating principle 10- Honor your health with gentle nutrition:

Gentle nutrition is a way of eating that nourishes your body and mind without restriction or guilt. It is about making choices that feel good to you and that support your overall health and well-being.

The 10th principle of Intuitive Eating is to “honor your health with gentle nutrition.” This principle encourages you to make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel well. It’s important to remember that you do not have to eat perfectly to be healthy. 

Here are some practical ways to practice gentle nutrition according to intuitive eating principle 10:

1. Eat a variety of foods: Eating a variety of foods ensures that you get all the nutrients your body needs. Try to include different types of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats in your diet.
2. Listen to your body: Pay attention to how your body feels after eating certain foods. If you feel energized and satisfied, then it’s likely that the food is good for you. If you feel sluggish or bloated, then it might be best to avoid that food in the future.
3. Avoid labeling foods as “good” or “bad”: Labeling foods as “good” or “bad” can lead to feelings of guilt and shame when eating certain foods. Instead, try to view all foods as neutral and focus on how they make you feel.
4. Practice mindful eating: Mindful eating involves paying attention to the present moment while eating. This means avoiding distractions like TV or your phone and focusing on the taste, texture, and smell of your food.
5. Make small changes: Making small changes to your diet can be more sustainable than making drastic changes all at once. For example, try swapping out white bread for whole-grain bread or adding an extra serving of vegetables to your meals.

Remember that gentle nutrition is about finding a balance between nourishing your body and enjoying the foods you love Of all the intuitive eating principles we have mentioned, this one is, in our opinion, the most important.

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Further resources for weight loss

• Trying to lose weight fast – what works and what doesn’t
• High protein foods that help you lose weight
• How to get weight loss motivation
• How to help someone with an eating disorder