A complementary practice to mindful eating, intuitive eating is an approach to eating that explores the role your intuition plays in how, what and why you eat. It is a method of eating that encourages a nourishing relationship with food by focusing on how to recognise and honour hunger and fullness cues.
Given that mindfulness is a skill that underpins intuitive eating, eating intuitively also involves contemplating how food makes you feel, as well as how your feelings influence what you eat.
Intuitive eating encourages you to trust your choices when it comes to food and to listen to what your body is telling you. It is a practice that is designed to empower you to tune in, listen to and trust your body.
This approach to food is about remembering that you know what you need better than any diet, opinion or other external source that can influence your food choices. And the more you can trust how you feel when it comes to what and how you eat, the more empowered and intuitive you will become with food.
Who created the concept of intuitive eating?
Registered dieticians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch are considered the founders of the intuitive eating practice and first published a book (of the same name) in 1995. They describe intuitive eating as a “self-care eating framework rooted in science and supported by clinical experience”. It is based on the 10 principles outlined in this article.
“Intuitive eating was never intended to be something to change the shape of your body,”guides Evelyn Tribole in a podcast episode with Dr Stefani Reinold called “What is intuitive eating? With Evelyn Tribole”. Instead, intuitive eating is designed to help heal how you relate to food, your mind and your body.
10 principles of intuitive eating
- Eschewing diets in favour of listening to and trusting yourself and your body.
- Honouring your hunger cues by eating when you feel hungry.
- Making peace with your food choices by eating what you truly want to eat.
- Challenging any food “rules” you may have by relinquishing the idea that food needs to be labelled as “good” or “bad”.
- Respecting your body’s feelings of fullness by listening to the physical signs in the body that you’ve eaten enough, and honouring that.
- Tuning into the feelings of satisfaction and pleasure with food, and connecting with how fulfilling and enjoyable it is to eat what you need and want.
- Honouring and respecting your emotional needs without using food as a coping mechanism. Emotional eating will serve as a distraction that may disconnect you from your feelings and emotions.
- Respecting your body by learning, listening to and honouring what it needs — this is unique to you, which is a beautiful thing worth celebrating.
- Mindful movement — discovering the joy of moving your body with the purpose of feeling good, and noticing that when you come from this intention, rather than from should, you may enjoy the experience more and feel more inclined to do it.
- Caring for your health and wellbeing through wise decisions with food — choosing meals that nourish you physically, mentally, emotionally and energetically.
Your gut is your second brain
Have you ever experienced a feeling in your belly like something is not right? How about butterflies in your stomach? This is your enteric nervous system (ENS) at play, which is a combination of sensory neurons, motor neurons and interneurons located within the gastrointestinal system from the oesophagus to the rectum. It is also known as the gut-brain connection. Research has found that the ENS is constantly sending information to our brains about our nutritional needs and eating intuitively is a practice that requires us to listen to and honour these messages from within.
How intuitive eating can enhance your health
Many research studies have explored how intuitive eating can enhance your physical health. Here are some of the health benefits that intuitive eating has been associated with:
- Lower total cholesterol and LDL (often referred to as the “bad” cholesterol).
- Lower triglycerides (the most common type of fat in the body).
- Increased HDL (often referred to as the
- “good” cholesterol).
Growing awareness of intuitive eating
A 2019 food and health consumer survey by the International Food Information Council discovered that 49 per cent of Americans aged between 18 to 34 are familiar with the concept of intuitive eating. In addition, 60 per cent of people surveyed were keen to learn more about the practices of mindful and intuitive eating.
The science behind intuitive eating
More than 125 studies have been completed on the topic of intuitive eating. When 97 of these
were reviewed, it was discovered that intuitive eating is associated with these qualities:
- Positive body image and self-esteem.
- Reduced rates of disordered eating.
- Enhanced wellbeing.
Celebrating health at every size
To help combat stigmas about weight and body size, it can be helpful to explore Health at Every Size (HAES). This approach to body image encourages balanced eating, nourishing forms of physical movement and respect of the wide spectrum of different body shapes and sizes.
The role of trust in intuitive eating
It can be very overwhelming in modern-day life to know which style of eating is best for your body. Should you be eating vegetarian, paleo or keto? Should you be following guidance from traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda or Mediterranean countries? And what about intermittent fasting? There is so much advice out there, and often one philosophy contradicts another. Perhaps this is why Mark Twain so wisely said, “Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.”
When it comes to intuitive eating, the answer is actually quite simple: none of these aforementioned approaches to food are the answer. “Fortunately,
the simple tool of fully enjoying each bite of food has the power to resolve any questions about food choices and diet. The only reliable authority, in the end, is your own body,” writes Charles Eisenstein in The Yoga of Eating.
The author suggests that there is a process to understanding and following this reliable authority: “The body is wise, but in order to access this wisdom you need to communicate with it. First, by paying attention to your food as you eat, you let your body know what it is getting,” Charles guides. “The second aspect of communication with the body is to listen for its responses to the food you give it.”
When we boil down what this practice ultimately means, it is about listening to and trusting the wisdom of your body. Perhaps this is why eschewing diets in favour of listening to and trusting yourself and your body is the first principle of intuitive eating.
“We trust the body to guide dietary change,” writes Charles. “It is a step into the unknown because you don’t know where it will take you, or what beliefs you will have to drop about what is healthy or right. It is also a trusting of something greater than yourself — your body, which is far vaster than your conscious mind.”
