Intuitive Eating: What is it, and Can it Help You Lose Weight?

I’ve been talking about intuitive eating for quite awhile now, and I thought it was finally time I make a post all about it. Specifically, what it is (my take on it, at least), and especially, whether it can help you.

But first, let me ask you a question. Do you find yourself having issues with…

• Wanting to lose weight and not being able to?
• Eating because you’re stressed, emotional, or bored?
• Feeling hungry or craving something because you saw food on TV, social media, friends eating, etc.?
• Overeating because you’re starting your diet tomorrow, or because you failed at following your diet that day?
• Feeling guilty for eating?
• Not letting yourself eat even though you were hungry?

So did I. And intuitive eating is the reason I don’t have these issues anymore.

Intuitive eating is a term coined by the authors of this book, but the idea has been around in different forms for a lot longer than that. There are scientific studies from before 1995 and in more recent years showing that following the tenets of intuitive eating lead to weight loss, treat disordered eating like binge eating, reverse obesity, heal relationships with food, reduce depression and anxiety, and improve self esteem and body image.^1,2,3

The basic principle of intuitive eating (and related ideas) is simply:

Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full.

That may sound too simple, too good to be true, or just something you’ve tried before that hasn’t worked. But it can be tricky to get right, especially with society’s attitudes about food these days. We start out doing it as kids, but somewhere along the way, most of us lose the ability.

Maybe because we learned to use food to deal with our emotions, maybe because of our culture’s obsession with dieting as THE way to lose weight, maybe because we’re taught that desserts, carbs, sugar, etc. are “bad”.

If you’ve tried dieting, followed meal plans with scheduled eating times and portions, overeaten or undereaten, or felt guilty for eating, chances are you’ve fallen out of tune with your ability to eat when hungry and stop when full. I know I did, completely–hunger and fullness were almost irrelevant in my eating behavior for 10 years.

The more we learn to ignore our hunger and satiety signals, the more we start to rely on cues like emotions, stress, the presence of “bad foods” in the kitchen, and other people’s diet plans to dictate when we start and stop eating. And that’s how weight gain, guilt, and constant dieting sneak in.

Intuitive eating is all about undoing this: getting back in tune with our hunger signals, and learning not to let external or psychological factors determine when and how much we eat. As a result, it involves effortlessly maintaining a healthy weight, improving your health, and healing your relationship with food and your own body.

With intuitive eating, there is no such thing as dieting, restricting, binging, “bad” foods, or guilt for eating.

No more calorie counting. No more food scales. No more portion control. Just reaching your goal body by eating as much as you want, when you want it. Channeling all that time and mental effort that you were once spending on food into the rest of your life: your relationships, your work, your hobbies.

If it sounds too good to be true, don’t worry… I thought so too. Until it worked.

So, I’m starting a series of blog posts all about how to get started with intuitive eating, no matter how unattainable it might feel for you. I was stuck in a restricting/dieting and binge eating cycle for over 10 years, so I think I qualified as one of the more hopeless cases out there… so I’ll be sharing what worked for me, and incorporate tips from scientific research on it.

Maybe you already do intuitive eating, and still can’t lose weight. I still have advice for you coming up, and part of that involves tweaking what and how you’re eating (notice I didn’t say how much)!

So stay tuned for posts every other weekend on how to eat intuitively or troubleshoot your intuitive eating. If you’re looking to lose weight, escape disordered eating habits, or improve your physical and psychological health, this series is for you.

Some of the posts I have planned so far are:

• My 10 year battle with “unintuitive” eating, and my journey since
• How to get started with intuitive eating
• How to troubleshoot your intuitive eating
• How to stop binge eating

And more! (I’ll add a table of contents with links as the posts come out)

If you’d like to keep up, sign up below to get email notifications when I post! 🙂

(I know I probably sound like I’m trying to sell you something, but honestly, I just want to share this because I want to help other people not have these issues anymore too. Getting rid of them seriously changed my life… not only have I finally achieved my goal appearance, but more importantly, I’m so much happier. And I want to turn my gratitude into a way of helping others. I even paid to get rid of ads on this blog because I don’t want them to get in the way!)

References (scientific studies):

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212267213018960
2. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/eat.22041
3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1077722995800131

(There are many more studies on the benefits of intuitive eating, but this is a quick sampling of some)