What is Intuitive Eating?

EVIDENCE BASED, PROVEN PROGRAMME

Developed by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch over 20 years ago, Intuitive Eating is a proven, weight-inclusive process that embraces body acceptance and shuns diets whilst finding a way to eat healthfully.

 

FOOD FREEDOM

This is about digging into the information around diet culture and weight loss and learning to recognise it, set boundaries and find out why it isn’t you that failed at dieting, but the diets that failed you.

We look into the science in order to truly understand why long-term dieting fails for so many and why in real life, it really ISN'T just calories in calories out. We are way more complex than that!

Worried that you won’t be able to stop without rules? We work through this together, taking small steps so that you don’t feel out of control around any foods.

 

HONOURING HUNGER

With busy lives dominated by apps, meal plans and shift patterns it's hard to hear our bodies. Sometimes we don't notice hunger before it's screaming from our bellies, and then we fall face first into the nearest food we can find. 

Find out how hunger presents in your body and how to disconnect from prescriptive plans that weren't designed with you in mind. We have unbelievably smart biological systems that relay hunger to us – it’s time to start listening.

 

UNCONDITIONAL PERMISSION TO EAT

It's like a nutrition blizzard out there. Foods are bad, good, unhealthy, low this, high that - it’s impossible to tell what's what and everything seems to be ‘banned’. Often that banned list turns into a pedestal - food that we are only ‘allowed’ at certain times like at a celebration or when we feel sad. Sometimes these cravings get super intense and we end up going in hard on the cake aisle – sound familiar?

Keeping these foods continually out of reach builds up their importance and it can get pretty overwhelming. Those foods we simply can’t be around because we don’t trust ourselves.

Unconditional permission means that all foods are on the table, so to speak. By removing the power of restriction, we give space to explore what we actually like to eat and guilt around food begins to fade. Is that really the best thing ever or was it eaten so quickly it couldn't even be tasted? Cravings diminish as restriction lifts, and along with honouring hunger, the likelihood of uncontrollably eating past comfortable fullness lessens.

 

FIGHT FOOD FEAR

There seems to be a general opinion that foods have moral value – aka, they're either good or bad and that's it (spoiler alert: it’s not true).

This section is about digging into the rules and ideas that exist around food and what they actually mean. Make informed decisions about whether those things are justified, or a product of diet culture.

We also work on strategies for how to handle this when out and about, as often well-meaning folx project their own beliefs and rules around food onto your plate. Ugh.

 

FEEL YOUR FULLNESS

Fullness can signal in different ways, and not just in that 'oh wow I'm never gonna eat again’ way'. Equally, sometimes feeling full can be mixed up with things diet culture tells us to avoid, and it the nuance of feeling can become unfamiliar and hard to recognise.

We spend some time learning to hear these signals and how they show up in your body. We also work on how to respond to them through difference scenarios with plenty of feedback and self-compassion

 

SATISFACTION

This part is linked to fullness, but with slightly more nuance. Satiety is a part of feeling full as being ‘bored’ of a meal can indicate fullness, but it can also indicate that satiety might come from somewhere else. This could be a bite of chocolate, a piece of cheese or even something crunchy. Sometimes there is another aspect that needs to be considered alongside the feeling of fullness.

 

EMOTIONAL EATING

We all experience a range of emotions on the daily and there are so many different ways to cope, but food is a frequently chosen blanket. Food is inextricably woven into the fabric of our lives – at celebrations, and gatherings we use food as a reason to meet up with friends, family and loved ones.

Finding comfort in food is completely normal, understandable and absolutely fine. However, only having food as an outlet might get tricky - we can't use the same tool for every job. We work on finding other outlets for emotion, stress and ways to cope with our busy lives.

Finding other ways to release your emotions can provide a different experience, one that might give a better outcome. Having a range of options at your disposal means you can choose the one which seres you best at that time rather than always hitting the same one (often with diminishing returns).

 

RESPECT YOUR BODY

Take the time to appreciate your body for what it does for you. This can be a difficult stage to navigate, we are taught to be hyper-critical of anything that doesn’t match the ideal we hold in our heads. We are so much more than a number on a scale. 

We all have our own shit going on - our bodies all work in different ways, and it's important to respect not only what they do for us but also everything else that makes us who we are.

GENTLE NUTRITION

Often, chronic dieters are overexposed to nutrition information and conflicted with multiple messages. By leaving this aspect until last we allow the body cues to come forward.

The key to nutrition is consistency over time, as a single meal cannot make you healthy or unhealthy. Gentle nutrition helps to make the best choices to honour your body and your taste buds whilst still working towards Intuitive Eating and freedom from diets.

INTUITIVE MOVEMENT

There is no doubt that moving our bodies has benefits. Research supports it for both physical and mental health, but that doesn't you have to drag your ass through a HIIT class after a shitty day unless it actually works for you.

Moving your body in a way that feels good, brings you happiness or release is incredibly powerful. Focus on how moving makes you feel rather than using it as a weapon of weight-loss. We can use movement to work towards goals that aren’t appearance based, like strength to carry bags, or flexibility to tie shoes. Layered block translucent