Intuitive Eating - What It Means and How To Apply It To Your Life

If you’re like a large portion of people in the world, you’re not totally in tune with your body when it comes to fueling it with food. Somewhere along the line, things have gotten a bit messy (but don’t feel ashamed - it's common, and you’re not alone). As a baby, you naturally knew to cry if you were hungry as well as push away food when you were full. No one ever told you that, it's just something that you did on your own. 

Intuitive eating is, in its most basic form, exactly that - reconnecting with your body in relation to food. Intuitive eating is when you eat based on what your body needs. It’s eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full. It’s about enjoying the whole experience of eating and leaving the meal (or snack) feeling completely content. Shame and guilt have no place when you’re truly eating intuitively. Unfortunately for the majority of people, we’ve gotten sort of used to either not eating enough, or eating too much. When we don’t fuel our bodies with what they need (and want), they start creating cravings (which are extremely hard to ignore sometimes), and they decrease our muscle mass/increase our fat storage. The same is true when we are constantly eating too much and not nourishing our bodies in the way our bodies want. 

By adopting the mindset and lifestyle of intuitive eating, you no longer have to question whether or not you should have a salad or a burger - or if you should completely avoid dessert altogether. Of course, nutrition is important (and we’re the first to admit that we crave vegetables more often than we crave cake) but what’s more important is removing all the talk and attachment to any sort of restriction. Instead of getting so caught up in what’s a ‘good food’, what’s a ‘bad food’, and if you should choose a healthy alternative even though it looks awful, you’re to focus on simply making peace with food. Food is fuel, and being that we’re all human - we actually need food to survive.  

It’s not an easy thing to do - come to peace with food, but it's extremely rewarding if/when you do. It all comes down to judgment, in a way, and if you can work on the judgment inside of you when it comes to food and nutrition, soon you will have a better relationship with food. 

It’s not an easy thing to do because let’s face it, we’ve been conditioned to believe that a happy person is a fit person; a successful person is a thin person; a sexy person is a strong person, and a healthy person is a person with less than 10% body fat. There is so much talk about weight (in conversation with others, in conversation with ourselves, and in conversations that come in the form of media) that it's completely overwhelming, and impossible to not, at some point, be concerned about your weight - no matter what your weight is. We all have this little voice inside of us that pipes up every now and then trying to tell us that one cookie is acceptable but two is a hard no. That same voice sometimes tries to tell us that we don’t deserve to eat anything other than boiled chicken and broccoli. That voice is trying its hardest to take care of you/help you and when you successfully switch over to intuitive eating, it can feel really flippin’ scary not to listen to that voice because for so long, that voice has maybe been the one thing that has you believing that you’re going to achieve those things - being happy, being healthy, being sexy, and being successful. Intuitive eating isn’t about getting rid of that voice and simply eating what you want when you want, instead, it's about teaching that voice to speak a different language. It’s saying goodbye to a language of control and judgment and hello to a language of self-care, acceptance, and empowerment. 

You’re probably thinking that this all sounds great but where in the heck do you start?

Good question.

Just like your body tells you that it’s tired and wants to go to sleep, and tells you that you need to go to the toilet - you’ve come equipt with something called an appetite - which, should tell you when you’re hungry and when you’re full.

Your hypothalamus will generously receive messages from your gut when you’re hungry. Some days you will burn more energy than others, and your body will adjust its hunger messages accordingly. Your only job, from the get-go, is to listen to the cues that your body sends you.

Eat when you’re hungry.

Stop eating when you’re full.

If you wait too long and you’re #starving (we all know that you’re not actually starving, don’t worry) often you tend to reach for foods higher in sugar/fat and you also tend to ignore the cue to stop.

So what do you do?

When you’re starting to feel hungry - eat something. Maybe you don’t have time to sit and have a full-on meal (and maybe that’s not what you need at that moment) but, what you do likely have time for is a handful of nutrient-dense foods to curb your hunger. 

When you learn to respond to the cues that your body gives you, both about hunger and fullness, you open a whole world of opportunity and freedom because your body will naturally guide you to make healthier choices - which leads you to spend less time obsessing and worrying about whether a decision is good/bad.

Don’t watch the clock for meal time and snack time - instead, listen to your body. It’ll be REALLY weird at first and you’ll feel like you’re doing allllllllll the wrong things. However, if you don’t start, you’ll never get there. Preparing yourself to start this journey might take a little bit more effort. Having a boatload (aka a lot) of small snacky items available to you if you’re not going to be around for meals might be necessary. When a hunger cue comes along, all you need to do is respond. Eat a little, and see how you feel. If you still feel hungry, have a bit more. 

It may also be a bit tricky to make sense of your hunger cues (especially if you’re guilty of ignoring them for a decent amount of time), so take your time. 

Something that we’ve found in our research on this topic is what is known as the Hunger Scale (see below).

**Image source: https://www.secondnature.io/au/guides/mind/habit-change/identify-emotional-eating

The idea with the hunger scale is that you start eating when you’re around a THREE and you stop eating when you’re around a SIX. Obviously, you’re not going to be great at this in the beginning, especially if you’re someone who has been dieting over the years. If you’re someone who, as our clients at Dunnebells, is more into tracking macros vs restricting foods, then this might not be a far stretch for you. Still, listening to your body used to come naturally, and now it’s likely going to take a bit of effort.

What will be interesting, if you’re watching closely, are the patterns that you’ll likely see. 

For me, I know that I am quite hungry in the mornings and then I just deliberately don’t eat anything. Even though I know it’s best to eat before coffee, more often than not, I don’t. Then what happens is I go for hours and hours without eating. How does that happen? By the time noon comes around I am #starving (but not actually starving, obviously) and I shake my head because I can clearly remember how hungry I was at 9 am. 

Anyways - watch your patterns and see what comes up for you. 

After you’ve tried it for a week or so, take a step back and see where changes can be made (they’re probably small changes, honestly). For me, what I should do is have something small when I wake up and then drink a big glass of water before consuming any coffee. This would make the most sense and when I stop and really think about it, it’s exactly what my body is asking for but for some reason, I tend to ignore those cues.

Don’t be like me. I’m working on this too and it’s only fair that I share from a place of honest vulnerability.

You and I both, if I am thinking correctly, need to think of food as self-care. Self-care is so important and it doens’t need to come in the form of bubble baths, face masks, or shopping sprees. Self-care is, in fact, so simple. 

Take care, of yourself.

One small step at a time - one hunger cue at a time.

To end, I have to admit - in true Kelsi fashion, I’ve asked Lucy for her advice (who wouldn’t really, if they had access to someone as experienced as her). I asked her where I could send you all so that you could learn about this from someone who is well versed in the topic and instantly she said, Deanna! So, head on over to Instagram and follow @DIETICIANDEANNA to dive even deeper into Intuitive Eating (if it’s something you think could really help you).

Obviously, if you want to chat with Lucy, her DM’s are always open on Instagram as well @DUNNEBELLS_

Happy Tuesday Friends!!! Stay tuned for next week’s blog all about our upcoming apparel launch!

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