Intuitive eating is a program that re-teaches people how to eat. Instead of dieting, nutritionists Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch created a program that teaches people who to tap in to their body’s natural cues to re-learn how to eat as they originally did as toddlers. This means that they follow certain principles designed to reject diet mentality, honor their hunger and body, and respect their health.
Intuitive Eating Principles
There are ten major principles of intuitive eating. Each principle is designed to teach people how to approach eating while rejecting diet mentality and honoring their mental, emotional, and physical health. The ten principles are as follows.
- Reject the diet mentality.
- Honor your hunger.
- Make peace with food.
- Challenge the food police.
- Feel your fullness.
- Discover the satisfaction factor.
- Cope your emotions without using food.
- Respect your body.
- Exercise – feel the difference.
- Honor your health.
Principe #1: Reject the Diet Mentality
In their book Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works, Tribole and Resch argue that diet culture teaches people that it is their fault if they do not lose weight. They argue that people constantly diet and yo-yo in weight, which resets their natural weight at a higher value than their original weight. It slows their metabolism and makes maintaining weight harder. What is more, they argue that losing weight should not be the goal. They argue that rejecting diet culture is important in order to continue the intuitive eating mentality.
Principle #2: Honor your hunger
Tribole and Resch create multiple tools to teach people how to understand their hunger cues, when to eat according to their hunger cues, and what techniques to use to reduce distractions while eating. They argue that people should always eat when hungry and that they should pay attention to which foods fill them.
Principle #3: Make peace with food
One of the major tenets of intuitive eating is making peace with food. This means that people should stop viewing food as “good” versus “bad” food. They should give themselves full permission to eat anything they want and understand that food is just that – food. This is a part of rejecting diet culture.
Principle #4: Challenge the food police
Another part of rejecting diet culture is quieting the food police, both internally and externally. Again, this is where people should stop calling certain foods good and certain foods bad. These are rules created by diet culture. Silencing these judgements within can help people find better peace with food. Additionally, surround oneself with people who similarly reject the food police can help people find better peace and reject diet mentality.
Principle #5: Feel your fullness
Feeling fullness is a part of understanding hunger cues. Feeling full and tuning into that sensation helps people build more trust with food. Tribole and Resch teach their readers how to tune into their fullness cues.
Principle #6: Discover the satisfaction factor
One of the reasons that people eat certain types of food is to feel a level of satisfaction. However, Tribole and Resch argue that there are other ways to feel satisfaction. These could be routines that make people feel the pleasure in eating without eating things that make them feel temporarily good but long-term unhealthy.
Principle #7: Cope your emotions without using food
One of the reasons people overeat or eat items they would not ideally eat is to deal with their emotions. Tribole and Resch teach intuitive eaters that they should recognize and deal with their emotions through other means. For many people, this could mean counseling or journaling.
Principle #8: Respect your body
Another part of rejecting diet culture, respecting your body means accepting your body. This means people should accept if they have a bigger frame and not expect their body to become something it is not.
Principle #9: Exercise – feel the difference
Additionally, intuitive eating states that people should not exercise to lose weight. Rather, they should exercise for the joy of movement and for how it makes their body’s feel.
Principle #10: Honor your health
The entire point of intuitive eating is to make people feel and be healthy. Everything should work towards this goal.
Conclusion
Intuitive eating is a viable option for many people who are tired of the dieting cycle. It emphasizes eating based one hunger cues, honoring one’s body, and rejecting diet culture. While just one of the many approaches to nutrition, intuitive eating is successful for many people. Contact the Anti-aging and Wellness Clinic today to learn more about what best fits your needs.
