Am I Doing Intuitive Eating Right?
Things that do not indicate if you’re doing Intuitive Eating right:
Your weight
Your food choices
How much you’re eating
How much you like how you look
There isn’t a ‘right’ way to do Intuitive Eating.
It’s not black/white, all or nothing! The 10 principles are guidelines, not rules. There is no expectation to practice all 10 principles, at once, all the time. There’s so much nuance when it comes to Intuitive Eating - this might be some lingering diet mentality.
Intuitive Eating (IE) is about repairing our relationship with food. It’s a framework that guides us back to the eaters we were born as. The eaters we were before diet culture and all these external, made up rules created a distrust in ourselves and our body’s internal wisdom.
Some notes about the list above:
1. Many people believe they will lose weight with IE, I thought I would, too. Some even sell IE as weight loss programs (this is a diet in disguise). But just because your body doesn’t lose weight, or even gains weight, does not mean you’re doing it “wrong”. It’s not about that, it’s about healing your relationship with food and your body.
2. We often think that once we get over the initial honeymoon phase and habitation kicks in, we will not crave certain foods or won’t want dessert every night. This may be true for a lot of things, many people discover they didn’t even really like the Oreos they couldn’t ‘control themselves’ around a few months ago. However, diet mentality may be sneaking in if you’re judging yourself based on food preferences, the food you have access to, or the cravings you have.
3. Just because we are eating more than we did when we were dieting doesn’t mean we’re ‘overeating’. On the flip side, eating less than we did doesn’t automatically mean it’s ‘better’ or ‘healthier’ either. Of course if the behaviors you were struggling with the most are no longer an issue that’s awesome, high fives!!
4. It’s not really about liking how we look, it would be nice of course, but it’s not necessary to live a big meaningful life. This can set us up for another unrealistic expectations to like how we look all the time. And based on what? Is this still through a narrow, rigid, white, oppressive idea of beauty? You are more than a body and your body is not your worth. You are here for so much more, your life’s purpose is not to fixate on food and your body.
