How to be an Intuitive Eater

As I have worked as a nutritionist in different government health roles for the last 7 years I have come to learn that there is no one right diet and no one right way to think about eating. Eating differs from individual to individual based on personal preference, culture, environment, habit, finances, and a whole lot more. There are 7.53 billion people on this planet and, as such, there are 7.53 billion ways to eat.

This is by no means saying that what we eat is not important or that our nutrient intake is not worth studying. In fact, it is saying just the opposite. We can not depend on others to get information about how our particular body should eat. We must be paying attention to our own bodies’ internal cues and studying what makes our bodies work and feel their best. This falls directly in line with the concepts of intuitive eating.

An intuitive eater is someone who makes food choices without experiencing guilt or an ethical dilemma. The trigger for an intuitive eater is biological hunger (Tribole & Resch, 2003). This is an ideal example of someone who does not let food interrupt/control their lives and instead uses food to help them live a better life and to have energy to do the things that they would like to do. Intuitive eating is not just a behavior, but a lifestyle. It can be practiced universally and result in certain probable outcomes, such as a happier and a less traumatic life.

The intuitive eater is identified by certain characteristics. They honor hunger, respect fullness, and enjoy the pleasure of eating. Food is a large part of our life and certain eating characteristics can interrupt life on a very large scale. With the concept of intuitive eating comes the idea that we must challenge the “food police.” This means that we need to get rid of eating angst and guilt and challenge consumer eating morality.

Image of a partially eaten hummus garden sandwich that I made into 2 meals because I honored my satiety cues

Our nation worships a lean body and we pay homage to dieting and all of its associated rules of “guilt” and “no guilt” foods. Food companies are capitalizing on our “food consciences”, which are made up of ideas that we have grown up with that have been adopted as “well-known” rules which must not be broken (Tribole and Resch, 2003). This is not our “true-self,” and these components of our thought processes do not constitute into an integrated and well-functioning whole. As we acknowledge the intuitive eating characteristics in each of us we can bring about healing both mentally and physically.

We can learn to distinguish between informed and uninformed gut feelings. When it comes to making health decisions every person should gather as much information as possible, to allow their adaptive unconscious to make a stable, informed evaluation rather than an ill-informed one (Aronson, 2004). We see people making rash and ill-informed decisions daily. Often we see this with our own eating patterns and those around us.

This is especially true when the majority of people have been trained to eat in an unhealthy way. It may take months to years for people to overcome bad habits and negative eating characteristics. We cannot over analyze our gut feelings with intuitive eating. It is not about making a list of pluses and minuses.

“We should let our adaptive unconscious do the job of forming reliable feelings and then trust those feelings, even if we cannot explain them entirely” (Aronson, 2004). All food does not fit into a 2 column list of pros and cons. Often our unconscious is smarter than we give it credit for.

Image of A delicious Elmo Birthday cake made by my husband that we enjoyed eating.

To address the childlike resilience of our internal wisdom we may include steps to reactivate childlike spontaneity in relation to food. “Children are willing to try anything at a moment’s notice? The child within you wants to be spontaneous and adventurous. Sadly, spontaneity is one of the easiest things to kill within ourselves. Daily routine takes over spontaneity. It begins to make a quiet exit, day by day without any notice. Before you know it you are rejecting anything that is unfamiliar, out of the ordinary, and mysterious (Kwaning, n.d.).”

Learning to change our thought processes around eating can be effective when done in a different environment than that which one would typically think of learning. We can learn in the kitchen, the grocery store, or an ethnic food market. You could search on Pinterest for new foods you haven’t tried, or a restaurant that serves cuisine that is unique or new to you. Going into a different environment will help you experience newness and allow you to be more acutely aware of the differences in your senses. This awareness can take you back into yourself and help you to realize what you need to attain health on levels you may not have thought of without the spontaneous experience.

After eating the new dish you could also solidify your learning by describing this eating experience with those who were involved in the adventure. You could explain how it made you feel (happy, adventurous, excited, etc.), the tastes of the dish, the textures of the food, the satiety level, the presentation, the guilt or lack of guilt associated with eating the food, and the satisfaction in preparing the food.

After doing this, you might record in a journal the ways that you will try to include spontaneity and variety in your food habits and enjoyment in your eating style. This will help you learn that it is not necessary to plan every single calorie and fat gram that we will consume in our day, as one would do in a diet, but to be able to listen to our own biological hunger cues.

What about you? What kind of eater are you? Do you know how to listen to your body’s internal hunger and satiety cues? If so, do you trust that they can guide you in the way you need?

Please note: I am not meaning to cause offense for those who subscribe to a particular diet. I’m simply attempting to bring back the enjoyment of food.

Article by Kim Judd

Kim Judd, MS, CHES, IBCLC, Owner of Maternal Feed All

References

Aronson, E. (2004). Strangers to ourselves: discovering the adaptive unconscious.

In 9th Edition, Readings About the Social Animal (pp. 214-216). United States of America: Worth Publishers.

Jung, C.G. (1928). The Collected Works of CG Jung: Psychological types. Contributions to Analytical

Psychology (295-312). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Kwaning, A. (n.d.). How to be more spontaneous. Retrieved September 10, 2010, Ezine articles. Website:

http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Be-More-Spontaneous&id=837015

Stein, Murray. (1998). Jung’s map of the soul (pp.13-15, 105-106, 125, 181-182). U.S.A: Carus Publishing

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Tribole, E. and Elyse, R. (2003). Intuitive eating a revolutionary program that works (pp. 18). New York, N.Y.:

St. Martin’s Press.

N.A. (2010). Archetype. Retrieved November 15, 2010, from Wikipedia. Web site:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype