Why You Should Drop Your Diet and Turn to Intuitive Eating

Some people have spent a lifetime fighting with their bodies. They try this diet or that method of eating, follow the most current food fads, and still ending up unsatisfied, unsatiated, and overweight. Society has painted a picture of what we should look like, what we should eat, and pretty much how we should be living our lives which often leads to unmet goals, depression, and anxiety. Eating shouldn’t be stressful. If it is, then you need to reevaluate your diet and your life. Meal times alone, or with friends and family should be a cherished and sacred time. You are feeding your body, the vessel that provides you with life. Intuitive eating should be incorporated into everyone’s life for a balanced approach to nutrition.

What Is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive eating is the idea that we need to listen to our body’s cues for what is most nutritious for us. It ties the body and mind together to create an “all food is ok” type of approach. It fosters awareness of your body, thoughts, and surrounding environment. It's a personal process that honors healthy eating based on the direct messages of the body, and not the scale. It is intended to meet one’s physical and psychological needs rather than going against the grain and forcing a diet that causes multiple complications.

Intuitive eating is not a diet. It’s not a meal plan, and there is no “falling off the bandwagon,” “blowing it,” or failing. There is no calorie counting, no carb restrictions, and no point systems. It is a healthy journey of self-discovery through food and eating.

Intuitive eating is liberation and empowerment. Only you know what your body feels like, it's satiety levels, and the thoughts and emotions that go along with eating. Eating is a different and unique experience for everyone. It's time to move away from the diet culture and weight obsession, and think in terms of a healthy mind and body.

Intuitive eating will help you create a peaceful relationship with mind, body, and food that will leave you satisfied and not wanting more. It’s about paying very close attention to the whispers of your body and acting according to its subtle voice.

The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

The creators of the intuitive eating movement have developed 10 principles they believe define the mind-body connection with food. They are:

1. Free Your Mind from the Diet Mentality. There are no long term studies confirming that diets will keep the weight off indefinitely. Throw away diet books, delete emails, and unsubscribe from online groups that may give you a false sense of losing weight quickly and permanently. Replace your false dietary hopes with the truth - that intuitive eating will set you free.
2. Obey Your Hunger. Eat at the first signs of hunger. Learn to trust your instincts and eat before you reach an excessive hunger that pushes you to overeat. All intentions of conscious eating are thrown out the window when severe hunger kicks in. Keep your body fueled with energy-providing foods.
3. Do Not Deprive Yourself. This is often everyone’s favorite policy. Give yourself permission to eat what you want without deprivation. Stop declaring war on your favorite foods as it can lead to intense feelings that result in uncontrollable cravings, binge eating, and overwhelming guilt. That's stressful in itself!
4. There Is NO Such Thing as the Food Police. You are in charge of your body. Don’t allow the invisible food police to monitor the rules that dieting has created. You are not punished for eating bad foods or praised for eating minimal calories. You simply are obeying your body’s hunger and responding to its needs.
5. Learn Your Fullness Level. Begin to get a feel for the body signals that let you know when you are no longer hungry and comfortably full. Learning to know your own personal satiety levels will keep you from overeating. A good evaluation tool is to stop when you have reached the middle of a meal and check your current fullness level. Ask`yourself how the food tastes. Are you no longer enjoying each bite? It may be time to stop.
6. Engulf Yourself in the Overall Experience of Eating. Pleasure is one of life’s most valuable gifts. In the bad habits we’ve created with eating on the go or eating to be thin and fit, we often miss the pleasures of eating altogether. A great deal of satisfaction can be found in a food experience. Eating what you want, when you want it, in a peaceful environment with whom you want, is a pleasant experience. There are theories that these type of dining experiences can help a person feel satisfied and content with much less food needed to feel full.
7. Find Ways to Comfort Yourself Without Using Food. Evaluate if you are eating from feelings such as anxiety, anger, loneliness, or boredom. Yes, food may comfort you momentarily by distracting your mind from an uncomfortable thought, but it will not solve your problems. In fact, eating from emotions will most likely make you feel worse. It usually involves overeating and indulging, causing food hangovers.
8. Love and Respect Your Body. You were born with predisposed genetic blueprints, so have realistic expectations of your body and learn to love who you are. If you are a size 8 shoe, you just will not fit into a size 4. Not now, and not ever. By accepting and respecting your body, you will feel better about yourself. This is a crucial factor in intuitive eating.
9. Exercise and Move. This does not need to be a militant exercise regiment. Just get moving and begin to notice how your body feels rather than how many calories you’ve burned. Losing weight is not a very motivating factor; it can be more discouraging and difficult to commit to. If you are exercising because it makes you feel happy and energized, however, you are more likely to continue with your exercise routine in the long run.
10. Recognize the Importance of Your Health. Honor your health and your taste buds by choosing foods that make you feel great. You don’t have to have the perfect diet to reach your optimal health; it's what you eat consistently over long periods of time that really matters. Intuitive eating cherishes progress, not perfection.

These 10 principles of eating are everything you need to implement sustainable methods of eating foods. Ditch the diets, as they can actually be detrimental to your weight and health, and enter into an intuitive eating lifestyle

Diets Have Actually Been Shown to Increase Your Weight!

The results are in. Weight-loss dieting is not a sustainable way to eat and live. New studies are continually showing that dieting and restricting foods in order to lose weight ironically often leads to weight gain. Even worse, the preoccupation with weight loss leads to low self-esteem, body dissatisfaction, and a negative impact on physical and mental health. Scientists are even partly attributing diet-induced weight gain to the obesity epidemic that is now taking place in our society.

One such study on the subject that took place in Finland and evaluated over 2,000 sets of twins aged 16 to 25 years old. The results were purposely independent of genetics and showed an overwhelming association between dieting and weight gain. When one twin participated in at least one weight loss method, they were two to three times more likely to be overweight compared to their twin counterpart.

Other compelling studies show the same results. And all results are independent of age, gender, and athletic abilities.

• A study on approximately 17,000 kids ages 9 to 14 years of age also indicated that dieting was a predictor of weight gain. The children who dieted were 5 to 12 times more likely to engage in binge eating compared to the nondieting participants.
• Teenagers who diet have twice the risk of gaining excessive weight compared to non-dieting teenagers.
• A team of UCLA researchers also concluded through their studies that dieting is a consistent predictor of weight gain. Out of the 31 long term studies they conducted, nearly two-thirds regained more weight than they had lost from their attempts at dieting.

Biologically, Why Does This Happen?

The body views dieting as a type of starvation. It has no idea you are purposely restricting your food consumption and enters into a primitive survival mode in which it begins to slow down metabolism. It’s at this point that food cravings may increase. With each new diet, the body adapts, leading to a “rebound” weight gain. Dieting fails people and ironically contributes to their subsequent weight gain. In addition, it disconnects a person from their own hunger and satiety cues, leading to mistrust between body and mind.

If you would like to have a healthier lifestyle when it comes to your eating, it's best to become consciously aware of your meals and snacks. Many nutritionists feel what you eat can either help or harm you. Make every meal count. Make every bite satisfy you emotionally, benefit you physically, and contribute to your optimal wellness.

Ways to Begin Intuitive Eating

Ready to embark on your intuitive eating voyage? Here are some helpful ways that intuitive eating professionals recommend getting started:

• Become aware of the diet cultures that exist around you. They are everywhere, in magazines, on the internet, and even within ourselves. Learn to identify them and stop idolizing them as soon as possible.
• Get to know your body. Check in with yourself every two hours and see how you feel. Do you feel hungry? Pleasant? Sad? This inner work is great overall for a more conscious style of living.
• Make a list of foods you really like but avoided due to dietary restrictions that your culture taught you. Maybe eat one of those foods once a week. Break the stigma and cycle with no judgment, just curiosity.
• Try eating regularly. See how you feel if you eat every 3 to 4 hours. Try eating 3 meals with 1 to 3 snacks. How does your hunger change? How do you feel?
• Be compassionate with yourself and learn to trust yourself and your body. It will let you know what it needs and when it needs it if you learn to listen. This may not happen overnight but it is a journey that will result in a better you, overall.

Diet and Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome

Nutrition is important for everyone but extremely important to a healing body, and it could be one of the keys to recovery from Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome (AFS) a chronic ailment brought on by stress. AFS recovery relies heavily on proper nutrition and supplementation to regenerate the health of the adrenals, as well as other organs. Since the body is one intricate system of six interrelated systems, what’s known as the NeuroEndoMetabolic (NEM) Stress Response system, when one organ is stressed and begins to fail, it affects the rest of the body. A proper diet is imperative to begin recovery and keep the other affected organs running properly and at optimal levels.

Before beginning intuitive eating, it is imperative that you speak to a professional in the medical field who specialized in AFS and learn about the diet that is specifically tailored to meet the nutritional needs of those suffering from the ailment. At the various stages of AFS, the body could require different food options as absorption rates and energy levels could vary. Due to disrupted metabolism, many need frequent meals and snacks. During the recovery process for AFS, the body tends to change, so intuitive eating should be adjusted accordingly. More attention to listen to the body’s whisper is needed. Generally speaking, the further your adrenal fatigue, the less your diet should be structured. It should be more intuitive in nature until your condition is stable.

Intuitive eating is a very stress-free way to approach eating, and that is a very important and beneficial component for adrenal fatigue sufferers. Removing as much stress as possible is a great tool in adrenal recovery and healing. The intuitive eating lifestyle may or may not be right for those who are in progressed stages of any disease, and it's always best to discuss dietary needs with your health care provider.

 
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