Like 30 million other Americans, I spent several years of my life consumed by an eating disorder. In addition, before my eating disorder started, I grew up surrounded by diet culture. This led to a severely broken relationship with food and my body. Once I finally decided that I was fed up with food being the enemy, I knew I needed to find something that would help me unlearn the misguided information that had dominated my life for so long.
One of the most integral parts of healing my relationship with food has been finding Intuitive Eating. The book, Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works, was written by registered dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, and it was first published in 1995. It is now in its third edition, and it has helped countless people reclaim their relationship with food and get back in touch with their bodies.
The main premise of Intuitive Eating is normalizing your relationship with food and getting back to how your body naturally eats. It’s about eating in the way you did before society compromised your thinking. It is about ending dieting forever, and being able to eat in a way that is sustainable for your body AND mind.
Intuitive Eating has 10 principles:
1. Reject the diet mentality
Get rid of everything and anything that screams “diet” or supports diet culture. Fight back against the lies and false hope that the dieting world tried to give you.
2. Honor your hunger
Listen to your body and eat when you’re hungry! Get in touch with all the cues and signals of your body, and discover what hungry feels like for you.
3. Make peace with food
Stop letting food rule your life because food is not the enemy. You don’t need to earn food, and you can eat whatever foods you wish! Give yourself unconditional permission to enjoy all foods.
4. Challenge the food police
There is no such thing as “good” food or “bad” food. Food is just food. Stop listening to the ideas that you should feel good for not eating certain foods or that you should feel bad for eating certain foods. Food guilt is no longer welcome here!
5. Respect your fullness
Be mindful of the signals your body is giving you while you’re eating. Are you still enjoying the food? Are you full? Are you still hungry?
6. Discover the satisfaction factor
Eating should be a positive, pleasing experience. Create an environment that allows you to enjoy your meal, and eat foods that satisfy you as far as physical needs and cravings as well!
7. Honor your feelings without using food
All emotions are important. Learn how to experience all emotions without using food to cope, whether it’s sadness, anxiety, boredom, happiness, or anything else in between.
8. Respect your body
Accept and honor your body. We aren’t all meant to look the same, and our genetics have a lot to do with our size and shape. Trust the Intuitive Eating process and your body will normalize to where it’s meant to be naturally.
9. Exercise — feel the difference
Move your body with LOVE. Exercise isn’t punishment, it’s a celebration of your body. Focus on how exercising feels and find movement that you enjoy instead of dread.
10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition
Intuitive Eating is about making food choices that are sustainable both physically AND mentally. It is not about restricting any food groups. Once you start listening to your body and how you feel when you eat certain foods, you’ll learn that your body is smarter than you think and that often your cravings will lead you to a balanced, moderate lifestyle that includes all types of foods — vegetables, cupcakes, fresh fruits, proteins, ice cream, salads, burgers, and everything in between.
While I’m still in the process of learning to be an intuitive eater, I can say without a doubt that Intuitive Eating has changed my life. Through reading the Intuitive Eating book on my own, to working through the Intuitive Eating workbook with my therapist, to attending a virtual Intuitive Eating support group with a registered dietitian (when I can fit it into my schedule), this practice is truly helping me in my journey to restore a healthy relationship with food and my body.
I know that giving up dieting and disordered relationships with food can be scary when it’s all you know, but I promise it is worth it. You can free yourself from the confines of diet culture and realize the power and happiness that lies in trusting yourself and trusting that food isn’t the enemy. You have the ability to take back the hope that you lost from years of demonizing food and your body, and it lies in giving Intuitive Eating a try.
DISCLAIMER: If you are suffering from an eating disorder, please consult your treatment team before trying Intuitive Eating. If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder, contact the National Eating Disorders Association Helpline at 1(800) 931-2237. If you are experiencing an eating disorder crisis, text “NEDA” to 741-741.