Intuitive Eating is the practice of responding to the cues of your body in order to feed it food that is satisfying based on your natural hunger and fullness signals. There are no food rules - meaning no foods are "good" or "bad" or "off-limits," and its main goal is to allow you to embrace the needs of your body without obsessing over food and exercise.
Let me be super upfront here:
Beginning Intuitive Eating is really, really hard.
I wanted to write this blog today, just four weeks into this process so that I could write from a place of true compassion for anyone who is just starting this journey. I saw the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: freedom from constantly thinking about food, freedom from allowing the amount of calories I'd consumed that day determine whether it had been a "good" or "bad" day, freedom from depriving my body of nutrients because I'd already hit my calorie goal, freedom from abstaining from all sweets for a week only to binge out on a batch of chocolate chip cookies on Sunday because I had "earned it." My life, my interests, my gifts are too important to be held back by arbitrary rules about food. So yes, the "why" was very clear - God created me to be free to love Him, and I needed to remove all obstacles in the way of that.
So, I bought Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch's book - the holy grail of Intuitive Eating - and began reading. I was floored to learn that dieting causes the body to go into starvation mode, meaning that when you finally start eating enough again, your body holds onto it because it's so afraid that it might be starved again. I learned that restricting certain foods only makes us more likely to crave them, and when all foods are on the table, people often experience "habituation" - meaning that they don't really want ten cookies or even one cookie since they're always available and never off-limits.
I also learned a lot about myself. I learned that, in situations that are stressful or when I'm not in control, I turn to food and exercise to control the one thing I know that I can - my body. I might not know if that person is going to return my email, or if I really just double-booked my non-refundable ticket home for Thanksgiving - but I can cut out sugar for a week. I might not be able to control the realtors who are taking forever to get us our corporate office - but I definitely can make myself run five miles to burn off the pizza I ate last night. Stressor -> control exercise, stressor -> control food. The cycle goes on and on and on.
Can you see why starting this process was so challenging? I had to let go of my desire for control, the one well-rehearsed response I had to deal with stress. I had to let go of the unrealistic expectation that my healthiest body was my skinniest body. I had to stop turning to articles on the internet that promised "Lose 10 Pounds in Two Weeks" and "Lean Out Thighs with These Three Moves" because they were only fueling my belief that in order to be of value, in order to be "beautiful" and "beloved" I needed to look a certain way. And intuitive eating requires that we accept our bodies the way that they were created to be - knowing that resting at our set point weight allows us to trust that our body will take care of us.
So what have I learned?
1. The first weeks are very hard.
Whenever I experienced a diet-related thought, I had to stop and think "where is this coming from? What am I really stressed about?" This moment to stop and reflect allowed me to recognize that I had been avoiding the stress of this move, throwing myself into work and other distractions, instead of sitting with the feelings and allowing myself to feel sad, or excited, or lonely, or frustrated.
2. Eating Without Distraction Is Uncomfortable
An important aspect of Intuitive Eating is eating without distraction so that you can listen to your body express its hunger cues, recognize when you are satisfied, and stop eating when you are full. Let me be the first to tell you, I love distracted eating. I love eating while I'm reading, watching tv, talking on the phone, walking, working - it soothes me when things are stressful and when I'm busy. But in order to understand my hunger/fullness cues and which foods actually satisfied me, I needed to tune out the noise and just eat. This has brought so much peace to my meal times. Sitting in silence, or with a friend, and enjoying my meals has shown me which foods do fill me up, and also enlightened me as to which foods I don't really like. For example - popcorn was my FAVORITE distraction meal, but it actually doesn't really fill me up. It's basically air. It's nice and salty but doesn't seem to ever satisfy me - I could eat and eat and eat and never reach fullness. So I've stopped eating as much popcorn.
3. Perfection Doesn't Exist
This past week, I decided I wanted something sweet after dinner. So, I walked all the way down to Sprinkles Cupcakes, because I remembered that they had a killer gf chocolate chip cookie. I stood in line for about 10 minutes and then decided that a cookie wouldn't perfectly satisfy me. So, I left Sprinkles and walked up Wisconsin to Thomas Sweet, thinking I might like some ice cream. Well, after looking at the menu, I left and walked another mile to Safeway, where I eventually purchased a pint of Ben and Jerry's nondairy caramel mocha fudge ice cream. I walked home, opened the ice cream... and, people, it was so gross. Seriously, so yucky. It didn't satisfy me, and I wished I would have just bought the cookie and been done with this nonsense. The thing is, I was looking for the "perfect" satisfaction - and while, sometimes, I'm sure you can achieve that (i.e. any time I eat Salmon) - Intuitive Eating isn't about perfection: it's about "good enough."
The other factor is that when we stress out about eating something "bad," it causes our cortisol to shoot up and often harms our body more than just simply eating the thing and moving on.
4. Foods I Don't Love
In the same vein, once everything became "on-limits" I learned that I didn't really like that many things I thought I did. Baked and Wired cupcakes used to be my be all end all when I lived here in 2016 - but when I had one last week, I wasn't too blown away. Same with Georgetown Cupcakes, and even the Sprinkles cookie I finally got yesterday. I realized that when I was here in 2016, I deprived myself of all sweets until I allowed myself one "Sunday Sweet." When I came down to Gtown back then, it was the crowning joy of my week - my dessert time! But now, it wasn't that big of a deal. I could have this anytime, so now I don't really want it. In that vein, DC sweets really haven't been doing much for me and I miss my sweet Salt and Straw dearly. If you know of any great ice cream spots in this city, please let me know.
5. Exercise... The Great-Relearning.
Oh, exercise... a challenge I'm still walking through (no pun intended). Here's the thing: exercise is really good for our bodies. It's important to move, to walk, to get outside. But when exercise is a punishment for what you've eaten, it becomes disordered. Instead of running for a burst of endorphins, I would run to rid myself of the calories my ice cream contained, or the big dinner from the night before. I felt accomplished, not because I hit six miles, but because I could check off the calories burned. This process has meant that I need to redefine exercise and what it does for me. So, what to do?
First, I made the decision that I would not exercise because I "should" or "have to." Instead, the exercise had to become a way to move my body joyfully, to fill up on endorphins and celebrate my body's strength. Easier said than done.
I started going to Corepower and found that I love love love yoga. Slowing down, connecting movement to breath, breaking a sweat plus no mention of "burning calories" or "leaning out" - these things were really healthy for me. I put myself in the back row, usually right behind someone else, because I've found that if I'm in front of a mirror, I revert to my old habits of picking apart my body when I'm supposed to be celebrating it. I've also found a lot of enjoyment in going for walks. I haven't gotten back to running yet, and I hope that I will, but right now, it's about being gentle and exercising for joy and not because I have to.
6. Accept Changing Bodies
Moving into Intuitive Eating won't work unless you trust your body and accept that it will change. For some people, Intuitive Eating leads to weight loss. For some, they stay the same. For others, they gain weight. It depends on how you were eating beforehand. Yes, I've seen my body change, but honestly - I'm down for it. Because honestly, it hasn't changed that much. It's hilarious, actually (maybe sad) - I went from working out 60-120 minutes a day, eating no sugar, and following a zillion other obnoxious food rules to now barely working out, eating whatever my body is asking for, and tossing arbitrary rules. The result? My skin has almost completely cleared up, I'm dealing with my stress through prayer and conversation instead of controlling food, my binges on food have slowed to an almost complete stop, I get to enjoy dinners and events with my friends without fearing the food, and I'm happier and less focused on food. I may gain a few pounds, but not sure that even matters if my body and mind are healthy and I am happy.
So here we are - one month in. It's been hard, and I'm sure I will continue to battle diet thoughts for a while now. But I also know that this is a journey that is super important to me. So I'll continue through the harder days because it's completely worth it.
Let me know - have you tried Intuitive Eating? How has it worked for you? Or are you just getting started? Comment below and let me know - I'd love to hear how it's going and support you as you go!
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