What You Should Know Before You Begin Intuitive Eating
By: Megan Perez, registered dietitian/nutritionist at Nourishing Minds Nutrition
By the time you turn towards the Intuitive Eating approach, you have likely hit diet rock bottom. While most diets will inevitably leave you feeling like you have failed, my clients report being completely exhausted, hopeless, and lost with nowhere left to turn. Despite how terrible this sounds, it sometimes can be beneficial to the process. I’m always looking for silver linings!
The most common barrier to becoming an intuitive eater most people face is giving themselves unconditional permission to eat. This is the principle in which you make peace with all food, lose the “good” and “bad” labels, and eat whatever you want regardless of how it may or may not change your body size. This is a CRUCIAL part of the process, however so many people live in pseudo-recovery for years because they cannot seem to fully surrender the diet mentality.
Why is this principle so challenging?
It really does make sense when you think about it. A majority of us are practically brainwashed from a young age to believe that dieting is the norm, thinness is equivalent to beauty and health, and that our level of “healthy” eating and exercise is somehow attached to our morality. If you do not have these beliefs and eating comes easy for you, there is nothing wrong with you! You are likely already an intuitive eater! This idea that we must constantly be working on changing our body size or controlling our intake is what holds so many of us back from eating in a way that works best for our individual bodies. You simply cannot heal your relationship with food unless you make emotional and psychological peace with food and your body.
Will this process seem impossible at times? Yes.
Will this process seem “unhealthy” at times, allowing yourself to eat all of the food you’ve deemed “bad”? Likely, yes!
However, I believe that going through this process will result in greater physical and mental health than any other way of eating ever will.
It is important to understand why diets are so popular and why diet culture is so profitable. Now more than ever, humans are hardwired for instant gratification. It makes sense that diets are so intriguing! They promise fast results! Which is exactly what we want, especially when we feel so defeated and hopeless (another side of effect of dieting). Intuitive eating is not often our first choice because of this reason. We don’t instinctively want to spend the months (and sometimes years) doing the hard work, reaching deep inside for the true reasons we want weight loss in the first place. Some of the common reasons that come up for people are: a desire to be loved, a sense of belonging, or not wanting to be seen at all.
This may sound like tough love, but you cannot attempt intentional weight loss while simultaneously learning to become an intuitive eater. Well.. technically you can, but it will not work, and it will delay the process. The good news is that it’s completely okay to still desire weight loss and a smaller body when you begin your intuitive eating journey! You are not alone for wanting that! What I do ask of you, though, is that you put attempting weight loss or controlling your body size on the back burner. Put it aside, knowing that you can come back to it at a later date if you want. In order to go all in, you must identify your barriers and then put them aside. In order to give yourself unconditional permission to become an intuitive eater, you must trust the process and dive in head first.
Thank you so much for this blog post Megan!
Megan and I want to remind you that TOMORROW, 5/18 at midnight, enrollment closes for Permission Stage Playbook!
Permission Stage Playbook is an online course and proven step by step guide for how to move past the confusion and overwhelm of the permission stage and have the clarity and confidence about what it means to become an intuitive eater.
Enrollment for our special introductory pricing closes tomorrow, join now!
