One year ago I read a book that changed my relationship with food and diet culture forever…
It was called Just Eat It by Laura Thomas PhD, and it was a game-changer. Before reading this book I hadn’t even heard of intuitive eating before, but twelve months on, I rant about it to random strangers I meet on the bus!
Intuitive eating helped me to get to know my body, and allowed me to view food as a wonderful (and essential) part of day-to-day life, and exercise not as a punishment for eating one too many fries, but a fun and enjoyable activity that I do simply because I want to.
So many of us have a distorted relationship with food and nutrition, counting our calories and obsessing over our missed gym sessions, panicking every time we commit the oh-so-horrendous crime of eating (gasp!) a doughnut…but the truth is, you can be happy and healthy simply by eating what you like, when you want it, and going about your day as normal thereafter.
So what actually *is* Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating is as simple as eating what you want, when you’re hungry; trust your body and Just Eat It! Exercise when you want to, not when you feel you need to, and do so because it feels good, not because you feel a desperate need to burn calories.
Okay, the idea of letting yourself eat whatever you like and not going to the gym afterwards might seem scary at first, but have a little faith in yourself! When I first started eating intuitively I went through an entire bar of chocolate in one afternoon, probably because I’d been restricting myself for so long I just couldn’t help it, but after a week or so I began to tune in to what my body wanted, and now I eat a reasonable and healthy amount of food without even thinking about it.
Most importantly, intuitive eating depends on you ignoring fad diets and headline stories about how much swimming burns off a single mince pie: instead, your body is your guide. Intuitive eating uses ‘gentle nutrition’, where you are aware of basic nutritional facts and the need to have a decent amount of key nutrients in your diet, but remember that there is no ‘perfect diet’. You should eat food that satisfies you, and that keeps you full until your next meal, not thinking again about what you’ve eaten once you’ve enjoyed it.
Food doesn’t demand all of your attention, you shouldn’t spent all of your time worrying about it. A good diet has balance and variety, but not every meal has to be perfectly balanced! In her book Thomas includes taste as a key part of a healthy diet, emphasising that you don’t need to eat foods you can’t stand the taste of simply because they’re ‘nutrient-rich’, and you don’t need to deprive yourself of the foods you love just because they’re not.
Eat intuitively. Eat for pleasure.
I’m not sure I can adopt a diet where I have access to unlimited doughnuts…
That’s okay! Intuitive eating isn’t a diet!
Sure, you might binge a bit when you first start (I know I did!), but that might be because you’ve been depriving your cravings for so long. In fact, binge eating is a common side-effect of diets and pseudo-diets, because when you deprive yourself, say by skipping breakfast, your brain gets really pissed and starts releasing neurotransmitters and hormones that stimulate appetite and have you going back for seconds at lunch.
Here’s the thing: Your body is unique, and strictly following diet plans designed to suit everyone is effectively letting a total stranger tell you what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat…but they don’t know you!
The human body on the other hand, is well-equipped to deal with hunger and food, full of built-in cues that do actually know you! Silence diet culture and tune in to your body. Don’t worry! It won’t crave Krispy Kreme forever!
My experience with Intuitive Eating:
Before I discovered intuitive eating I, like many others, suffered from disordered eating and food anxiety. I just thought it was normal, even healthy! After all, I was a size eight – what could possibly be wrong with my diet? Looking back I don’t know what I was thinking. What on earth is ‘normal’ about having a panic attack over eating a slice of cake?
Enter Laura Thomas PhD, and her incredible book Just Eat It. I was only a few pages in when I read the magical words ‘food is supposed to have calories!’ I mean, yeah, I knew that already, but I still viewed calories as a sort of danger that had to be minimised and controlled.
Thomas explained why diets don’t work, citing a wealth of literature that showed how dieting creates body and food preoccupation, body dissatisfaction, anxiety and stress, eating disorders, and even long-term weight gain (ironic, right?). None of the above can be exactly classed as ‘healthy’, and yet, we all seem completely obsessed with dieting and weight loss and as means to improve our health and wellbeing.
And so, I began to eat intuItively. One chocolate bar, two full-fat Dr Peppers, and a whole lot of scampi fries later, I finally started to tune into my body’s cues, eating what I wanted, when I was hungry.
One year on, I am so so much happier! Gone are the cake-induced panic attacks! I have learnt how to find pleasure in food, and enjoy exercise as a fun activity that feels good and helps my mental health and wellbeing. I may have crept up to a size ten, but if one dress-size is the price to pay for a healthy and happy relationship with food and exercise, then I really couldn’t care less! I love food, I love exercise, and I love my body… and believe me, none of those things were true twelve months ago.
Where can I find out more?
If you want to ditch the diet and start eating intuitively, then I fully recommend starting with Laura Thomas PhD’s book, Just Eat It. It’s part manifesto, part practical guide, and absolutely brilliant at shining a light on the problems relating to diet culture and suggesting ways to build a much healthier relationship with food.
To help you on your intuitive eating journey, I’d recommend purchasing The Intuitive Eating Workbook. It’s packed full of advice and exercises to help you as you learn how to tune into your own body’s needs and tune out of exhausting diet culture.
Anti-Diet only came out in December, but it’s already proved to be an invaluable intuitive eating resource. Christy Harrison exposes the multi-billion-pound industries that profit from oppressive diet culture, exposing all the ways it robs people of their time, money, health and happiness. Harrison looks back at the history of diet culture, examining how it’s infiltrated the health and wellness world, and how letting go of efforts to lose weight or eat ‘perfectly’ actually helps to improve people’s health – no matter their size.
I’d also recommend you un-follow any social media accounts that make you feel bad about you body, and instead start following body-positive influencers, like @bodiposipanda. There are also accounts dedicated to promoting intuitive eating, like @intuitiveeatingldn and @intuitiveeatingrd.