Intuitive Eating Nutrition
What is intuitive eating?
Intuitive eating is a nutritional approach that integrates the physical and mental health. It accounts for body cues (biology), emotional, and rational thought. It is a personalized process that brings together the nutritional science and expertise of a dietitian and your expert knowledge of your body and mind.
Who is intuitive eating for?
Intuitive eating is for you if you experience:
-
A long history of chronic dieting
-
Weight cycling (yoyo dieting) – weight loss, followed by weight gain
-
Constant or obsessive thoughts about food (which drains your energy)
-
Reliance on nutritional information (calories)
-
Poor awareness to hunger and fullness cues
-
Feeling of loss of control around food
-
Restrict and binge cycle
-
Never able to stick with a « plan » or find consistency
-
Feeling overwhelmed by all of the nutrition information
-
See food as good or bad
-
Tired of restriction and feeling little to no satisfaction when eating
-
Defeat and rebel against what you “think you should be doing”
Why stop your chronic dieting cycle?
Interrupting the cycle of being "on" or "off"a diet can help you to:
-
Improve your relationship with food
-
Have more energy
-
Tune into your body awareness
-
Coping mechanism (other than food)
-
Nutritional balance and sustainability
-
Digestive health
-
Chronic disease management
-
Easier food decisions
-
Making more room for what matters most to you
10 guiding principles of intuitive eating:
1. Reject the diet mentality
Address the restriction-feasting cycle that diet creates. It also moves away from quick, easy, one-size-fits all that backfires.
2. Honor your hunger
Understand hunger and find a structure that keeps you energized and fueled. Get the necessary guidance to unpack your habits, meal timing, and decision making associated with hunger cues awareness.
3. Make peace with food
Explore the unconditional permission to eat and the impact of restriction cycles. Although this may sound scary, improving your relationship with food is a key factor in stopping you from yo-yo dieting.
4. Challenge the food police
Address your food rules, obsessive thoughts, and monitoring pattern. Acknowledge the past and current influence of previous diets, conversation, and interaction with others.
5. Feel your fullness
Get familiar with factors that affect how much you eat and how you feel after a meal. Get to know what food will keep you fueled between meals so you can stop thinking about food and perform well.
6. Discover the satisfaction factor
Nutrition is about science, but also about enjoyment, socializing, and satisfaction. Clarifying satisfaction factors supports longs term health and sustainable habits.
7. Cope with your feelings without using food
Find ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and solve your struggles without using food. Learn more about what emotions affect your eating pattern and triggers.
8. Respect your body
Beyond loving your body, open the conversation about respecting your here/now body so you can move forward. Body hate, shame, and guilt are not durable motivators.
9. Exercise: feel the difference
Discover enjoyable movement. Move away from calorie-burn approach and tune into how it feels to move your body.
10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition
Work on a personalized application of nutrition that makes you feel good. Make food choices that honor your health and satisfaction. Aim for personalized progress not perfection.
Call Perfect Balance to speak with our dietitian or make an appointment if you are interested in nutritional consultation based on the Intuitive Eating principles.