There is a common misperception among people new to the concept of Intuitive Eating that you are supposed to just eat whatever you want. While there is some validity to this, I think it bears some more explanation.
How to Read the Book
When you first start reading the book Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, I always tell my clients to check your inclination to throw all caution to the wind and eat whatever you want whenever you want. Read it first in the spirit of understanding the method as a whole and conceptualizing the science behind why eating what you want works.
Eating Whatever You Want
There are many Intuitive Eating experts out there who say that the only way you can become an Intuitive Eater is to eat, unrestricted, through all the things you have been depriving yourself. This is a great method and totally works. I find that for a lot of clients jumping off the cliff and eating whatever they want is absolutely what they need.
However, I also find that many clients are too hesitant to do this because they don’t trust themselves around food yet, they have tremendous fear of gaining weight, or other reasons. That’s totally OK. Each person needs to find their own way through Intuitive Eating. I say, it doesn’t matter! Just start somewhere!
I like to work with clients to find a structured, personalized way to start including their forbidden foods. Very often, we have to start with carbs first because so many of my clients have been on low carb diets. Carbs are vital to healing from binge eating and serve as the basis for the brain’s and body’s functioning. Once they make peace with carbs, then they can move on to other forbidden foods like sweets or eating out.
Baby Steps are Fine!
In my own journey toward becoming an Intuitive Eater, I took it slowly. I started by letting myself eat whatever I wanted only when I went to parties or potlucks. That felt like a safe way to try new foods that I wouldn’t be faced with every day in my cabinet. I found this practice so freeing and fun that it motivated me to keep going!
One Sweet Treat or Challenge Food a Day
When parties became easier, I started letting (or sometimes forcing) myself to eat one sweet treat or challenge food per day. This way I could keep my regular, healthy plan of eating, but I began incorporating all the fun foods I had been denying myself for years. This was harder than it sounds. I truly believed I was powerless over food, especially carbs and sugar. That if I took even one bite of sugar I would be off to the races in an “addictive” binge. But, this experiment proved to me that I was NOT a sugar addict. I had just built up the power of sugar in my head so much that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I learned to enjoy one treat every day. Some days I wanted ALL the treats in the grocery store! But I told myself I could have anything I wanted–just only one a day. This helped me feel secure that the treats weren’t going anywhere, I wasn’t dieting or restricting myself, I was simply learning to eat in moderation. It was hard, but it paid off! When your psyche knows that the food is available and that you HAVE to have one every day, it can begin to calm down with all the cravings.
By the way, I used to eat this one sweet treat every day in my car!! I felt so ashamed of eating sugar that I didn’t want anyone to see me. I thought people were judging me for being a bad person or weak-willed or just plain disgusting for eating it. This is how insidious diet culture is: It makes you believe you’re bad for eating basic, normal food.
Once I felt stronger, then I moved on to having cookies and baked goods and other “play” food in the house.
How to Make Food Choices as an Intuitive Eater
In response to the question “Is Intuitive Eating all about eating whatever you want,” I would say that being an intuitive eater means that you consistently make decisions about food based on three questions:
- Does it taste good?
- Is it satisfying (meaning does it fill you up and fuel you until the next meal or snack)?
- Does it make your body feel good?
I could eat donuts all day long because they taste good but they don’t make my body feel good in those quantities and they don’t really satisfy. Conversely, I could eat quinoa and vegetables all day, but this doesn’t satisfy me or taste good. If I eat a nice combination of foods, like pizza, salad, and a bit of dessert then I have satisfied all 3 questions. It’s all in the balance. Learning for your body how to eat the right combination and the right amounts for you is the ultimate goal of Intuitive Eating. But, getting there is a process.
Does it Taste Good?
So, let’s go over each of these points in terms of choosing food as an Intuitive Eater. Prior to Intuitive Eating, I often chose the healthiest food, not the food that tasted good. That meant that if the boring but healthy lunch I had made tasted awful or wasn’t what I wanted, I forced myself to eat it anyway. It also meant that if I went to a party, and the green beans and salad were gross, those were still the only things I was going to eat because they were the healthiest things available. Additionally, if I went out to eat and saw the calorie count on the menu, and the lightest meal was a chicken salad that was totally unappealing, I was ordering that–and feeling resentful and jealous of everyone else eating yummy food like fried chicken and pizza.
Choosing food that tastes good requires you to start being nice to yourself. You’ll eat the things you love at the party. Choosing what sounds great on the menu, you’ll ignore the higher calorie content. You’ll also make lunches for yourself that actually taste good. Not only is this something you get to do, it’s something you have to do for Intuitive Eating to work. When you don’t eat foods that taste good, you start to feel deprived. That’s when binges or overeating tend to happen. It may not be right away. It has a cumulative effect. The more you eat “healthy” without regard to taste, the more the deprivation builds. Then–whammo! Overeating ensues.
So putting taste at the top of your priorities list when choosing food is key.
Is It Satisfying?
What do I even mean by this? Let’s say you are hungry, but your diet mentality tells you that you should only eat fruits or veggies for a snack. These don’t really fill you up or feel satisfying. Similarly, if you’re hungry for something specific like pizza, and you end up eating salad instead, you’ll likely feel unsatisfied. Not only because salad isn’t necessarily filling, but because pizza was what you were craving.
Does it Make Your Body Feel Good?
This final consideration may take some time to flush out. Basically, for obvious reasons you don’t want to eat types of food or quantities that make you feel bad. Eating an entire gallon of ice cream at bed might affect your sleep. Whereas, eating a serving might be just fine. Likewise, eating only salad or vegetables all day wouldn’t make you feel great either. Usually a nice balance of things makes us feel best.
If you jump ahead to just making decisions about food based on how it makes your body feel, you’ll likely stay stuck in diet mentality. If you only choose foods for how they taste, you may ignore your body’s signals. And, if you don’t consider satisfaction, you may eat light foods or snacky foods when you really need a meal. I have found that honoring all three considerations is the ultimate goal, but that if you skip the steps about making peace with food and honoring your hunger, you will likely stay stuck in a binge or overeating cycle.
As you can see, you will make healthy choices if you pay attention to all of these three considerations. Over time your body will crave great nutrition and a smattering of “play” food every day.
Resources:
For a great article by Evelyn Tribole (one of the co-authors of the Intuitive Eating book) on the topic of giving yourself unconditional permission to eat: https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/16989363?access_key=key-aezpg2l9djymj775wet
For more info about how to make your own Intuitive Eating journey successful: https://eatingrecoverycoach.com/2020/09/15/5-tips-for-making-intuitive-eating-a-success/
