Intuitive eating is something we do since childhood, but over the years we forget. The cause of this happening is the null food education and the culture of the diet, based on prohibitions, excessive control, misperception and the labels we give to food. This takes us away from our intuition, from listening to the messages that our body sends us, causing us to disconnect from our body, and this leads to a bad relationship with food, health problems, even eating disorders. Because disorders are not only eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, they are also living forever jumping from diet to diet.
Now let’s clarify something essential: Intuitive eating is not a diet. It is to eat intuitively, according to the own physical and psychological needs of each individual, listening and heeding the signs of hunger, pleasure, fulfillment and satisfaction. Feeling what foods nourish you, feel good and fill us with energy, physical and mental well-being to be able to live fully. Carrying out it is not something that is achieved overnight, it is a process in which you must learn to be compassionate with yourself, giving yourself the time you need, attending to all the principles that we explain below.
Intuitive eating principles
Get away from the diet mindset
There is no diet that achieves miracles, or that can be maintained over time. There are also no foods with superpowers. And although it seems very obvious, it is something that people who live immersed in the diet mentality have a hard time assuming. These people have followed several diets throughout their lives and have lost weight for a certain time, then regain it again, so they believe that another better diet will appear that will make them lose weight quickly.
This creates frustration and guilt because, by regaining the weight, they believe they have done something wrong. The reality is that it is not the fault of the person who follows it, because the diet itself does not sustain and because living forever by eating that way is not realistic or healthy. For this reason, one of the pillars of intuitive eating is breaking the chains of diets, getting away from the control of the scales and feeding ourselves consciously throughout our lives.
Identify hunger signals
This point can be complicated at first, until we know how to identify when we are really hungry, but it is about listening to the signals that our body gives us to feed it when it needs to and learning to know how to stop when it has eaten enough. With strict diets the body goes hungry and there is an internal struggle to ignore this need we feel. This not only causes us discomfort, but also causes us to binge on food the next time we eat, because we have not satiated when we should have. You end up eating more food, with anxiety and probably with less healthy foods.
Intuitive eating is about learning to eat when we feel hunger, giving the body the confidence that it can be fed when it needs it, eliminating prohibitions and stopping eating when enough is enough.
Make peace with food
One of the main problems with diets is that they make us believe that there are “bad” foods and we should have them as enemies, which causes a contradictory psychological reaction: we want those foods even more; because when the prohibition exists, desires are created that possibly would not exist without that prohibition. On the other hand, it generates a strong feeling of guilt when we eat them. Intuitive eating drives the “food police” out of your mind, rejecting negative or positive thoughts related to certain foods.
The aim is to end with that internal judge that makes you feel bad when you eat a type of food and with the judge who applauds you when you eat those that you consider good. We do not mean that you eat all the food you want. Remember that it is about listening to yourself and recognizing the needs. The body is smart and knows what it needs, so if you binge on food that doesn’t make you feel good, you will know that eating that way is not appropriate because it takes away your energy. It makes you feel worse and it changes your mood.
Identify signs of satiety
Intuitive eating is about finding the middle ground between ravenous appetite and feeling overly full. Diets cause us to constantly live between hunger and feeling bloated. In addition, it is believed that everyone should have enough with a certain amount and type of food, when in reality each person is different and has their own needs. Generalizing with food is a big mistake because it makes us stay hungry or eat more than we really need. The body signals when it is hungry and when it is full. Paying attention to these sensations is very important for intuitive eating.
Keep satisfaction in mind
Eating is a primary need of the human being, but we do not only do it to satisfy ourselves. Eating is a taste experience that causes pleasure and satisfaction. When we enjoy our meals, we savor each bite carefully. Eating fully is one way to make peace with this. Recognize that it is not an obligation or a moment of anguish, but a time to enjoy. Conscious eating invites you to be interested in the colors, textures, flavors, smell, temperature and aesthetics of the dishes. Accompany all this with a relaxed atmosphere, without distractions that allows you to be 100% present.
Respect your body
Normally diets are accompanied by a rejection of the body, except for those specific due to health problems: “I don’t like my body so I’m going on a diet to change it”.This attitude is not positive, it is quite the opposite. It is negative and destructive. In fact, it makes us carry out acts that do us even more harm, like starving yourself, having thoughts that are detrimental to your self-esteem, or feeling guilty when you skip your diet. To feel good about yourself, you must respect your body. The first step is to accept that all people are different and that there is no single form of beauty. That the only way to take care of ourselves and accept ourselves is to start from a feeling of love and that satisfaction will never be achieved from self-rejection. Recognizing yourself, accepting yourself, wanting to take care of yourself from affection, respect and connecting with your own intuition, are the essence of a stable self-esteem.
Pay attention to your feelings without using food
Is it real hunger or is it emotional?Surely it happens to you or you know someone who when he/she is nervous, feels the need to eat or his/her appetite disappears. Feelings generate the need for affection and we feel how food is capable of producing very similar sensations. That is why we eat out of sadness, frustration, loneliness or boredom, because sugar causes dopamine to be released and makes us happy in the short term. But that false feeling of happiness does not last long, nor is it a solution to satisfy the emotional state. Besides, it can make us feel bad. Intuitive eating is based on knowing how to differentiate true physiological hunger from emotional hunger and find a way to comfort, nourish, attend and solve problems without using food. Food is neither a reward nor a punishment.
Move your body
Another of the erroneous mental relationships that diets cause is that sport is done to burn calories or get the body that advertising says you should have. Sport is made to take care of health, to feel good, generate resistance, take care of the mind and gain energy, among other benefits. Intuitive eating invites you to change your relationship with food, but also with physical exercise. Forcing yourself is not successful in the long term, so it is essential to find pleasure and have fun to motivate yourself. Start small and you will see over time how moving makes you feel good and that will change the concept of sport. If you look closely, physical activity is always present on all health-related lists. Movement is extremely important, regardless of age.
Your health is the most important
Above all is your health. Choose those foods that are good for your body and mind. Because trusting intuition does not mean not taking care of yourself, not being interested in nutrition or eating unhealthily. But be interested in the foods that nourish you, those that your body needs and recognize those that do not help you at all. An example would be: If you eat and in a short time you are already hungry, the body would be indicating that you are consuming fast-absorbing foods and with very few nutrients and fiber. Food should be something good for you and does not make you sick. It is about going little by little, with awareness and keeping in mind that perfection does not exist.