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Last updated on July 17th, 2024 at 07:13 pm
The phrase “intuitive eating” is hot right now. You might seek out intuitive eating weight loss with the presumption that you’re going to unlock the thin body you’ve been told is locked away inside of you.
Intuitive eating involves
- Learning to trust your hunger cues
- Getting rid of the food police dictating food choices in your head
- Respecting your Body
- Creating a new relationship of joy with exercise
- Trusting our body to know what size it should be
Contrary to popular belief, none of the principles of intuitive eating have anything to do with weight loss.
This is shocking to many people because we are taught the hallmark of good health is taking up as little space as possible.
Let’s explore why an intuitive eating weight loss goal negates the purpose of the practice and how to shift your mindset when it comes to weight and eating intuitively.
Is It Possible to Lose Weight With Intuitive Eating
Yes.
Intuitive eating is not an “anti-weight loss” diet. In fact, it’s not a diet at all!
This means your body can do whatever the hell it wants with the unrestricted access to food it is now enjoying with intuitive eating.
And yes, this even includes your body naturally losing weight.
Intuitive eaters sometimes see weight loss because:
- They’ve broken up with the binge restrict cycle
- They know how to listen to their body’s hunger and fullness cues
- They’re not stressed about food, which keeps their hormones in check
- Their hormones aren’t rapidly shifting, so they don’t get weight loss rebound
- They’re practicing body respect which helps with hormone regulation
- When they stop restricting their food, the body feels safe enough to move to a smaller set point weight
As your body learns to trust you to feed it, it will be able to reach its set point weight. However, trying to create a set point weight that is smaller than your current size (aka weight loss) will not work. This will lead to mental and physical food restrictions.
In fact, as soon as your goal turns to weight loss, you are no longer intuitively eating.
Intuitive Eating Honeymoon Phase
The intuitive eating honeymoon phase lasts for about 6-8 months.
Steps that typically occur in the honeymoon phase of intuitive eating include:
- Incorporating 1 or 2 off-limits foods and feeling slightly liberated
- Allowing yourself to increase portion sizes
- Begin to notice diet language everywhere
- Practicing language like “I trust my body” and “I know my value is more than my body”
- Beginning to bring forbidden foods in your home
- Start to notice different levels of hunger
- Practice starting and stopping at different levels of hunger
- Start keeping all foods you like in the house
- Feeling like you could eat anything and trust yourself
Following the honeymoon phase of intuitive eating, people may start to feel concerned about body changes. They might also start to have diet culture thoughts about health creep back into the mix.
They may start to feel a loss of identity and disconnection from peers.
This is completely normal and part of the intuitive eating process.
Intuitive Eating Overeating
Eating past your fullness threshold or “overeating” is very common in the early stages of intuitive eating. It can feel scary to feel this hungry. But don’t panic!
Overeating or extreme hunger in intuitive eating:
- That does not mean you are doing anything wrong
- Is a common and necessary part of learning intuitive eating
- Will gradually decrease as you allow yourself unlimited access to food
Some things that will help with overeating include:
- Making sure you are not mentally restricting your food
- Practice food neutrality
- Stop body checking and weighing yourself
- Stop seeking out zero and low-calorie foods
- Have a plan for food apathy moments
- Stop exercising for weight loss
Intuitive Eating Weight Gain
One of three things will happen to your body when you start to practice intuitive eating. You will either have weight loss, weight gain or your weight will stay the same.
Weight gain happens in intuitive eating because:
- your set point weight is higher than your pre-intuitive eating weight
- Years of food restriction have kept us at a low body weight
- Your weight gain is temporary. As you allow access to all foods your body will find its desired weight.
Weight gain during intuitive eating can come with a lot of emotions. But if we are truly intuitively eating, we are trusting our body to know what size it needs to be.
It’s okay to grieve for your smaller body. This can also be part of the intuitive eating journey.
Some things that can help with intuitive eating weight gain include:
- Mentally working through what “feeling fat” really means
- Walking through where your weight gain fear comes from
- Breaking up with bullshit BMI standards
- Preparing for social events that can be difficult like bikini season
- Having a strong HAES network
- Working with a HAES dietitian
You can also check out these body positivity books to support you.
Can I Still Do Intuitive Eating If I Need To Lose Weight
Smaller weights do not equal better health. Before dismissing intuitive eating altogether, I would first critically examine where you got the information that stated you “need to lose weight.”
Weight loss is often preached by:
- Medical providers
- Education systems
- Friends and family
- Media
We’re told we need to lose weight for health reasons, even if we have no health concerns to speak of.
Before marrying yourself to a “need for weight loss” consider this:
- There is no medical condition that exists exclusively in people of higher weights
- 95% of people that lose weight gain that weight back and more
- Medical providers are often prescribing “weight loss” for conditions that don’t even
- There is no guarantee you will develop a medical condition because you’re in a larger body
- There is no guarantee you will not develop a medical condition if your body is smaller
It is completely normal to desire weight loss and begin the journey of intuitive eating. However, the moment the weight loss becomes the focus our intuitive eating journey will come to a screeching halt.
How To Let Go Of Weight Loss Goals With Intuitive Eating
Letting go of weight loss goals in intuitive eating can be difficult. Weight loss goals offer a clear destination with seemingly actionable steps to get there. Diets also come with a strict set of yes or no rules that can make the process seem simple (even when it sucks).
Intuitive eating offers none of that. Intuitive eating can feel like you’re being tossed into the abyss with no clear direction, no goals, and a pack of wolves who are screaming “don’t let go of diets!” all along the way.
Here are some tips to let go of weight loss goals:
- Mark your wins. For example, keep a calendar with stickers for days you didn’t weigh or used a hunger scale.
- Journal using body-positive journal prompts to look back on your progress later on
- Practice reframing negative thoughts
- Notice how eating enough food improves your mood
- Set weekly intuitive eating goals (for example: make myself dinner 2x this week, reduce body checking by 20%).
- Track how many times you body check
- Celebrate non-scale victories
The appeal of diets is that they have clear starting and stopping points. A clear problem to fix.
In intuitive eating, we don’t believe that our body is a problem to be fixed. Thus we must find little ways to reward honoring our body that doesn’t involve “fixing a problem” to stay motivated.
Creating small wins, clarifying intuitive eating goals, and finding community will help you to let go of the structure of a weight loss goal.
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