What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive Eating is a self-care framework to help you improve your relationship with food, eating, and your body. Rather than listening to outside rules about what, when, and how much to eat, you learn trust your body’s wisdom about what feels best for you.
In this article, you’ll learn about the history of Intuitive Eating, what the ten principles are, how I put Intuitive Eating to use with my clients, and how you can get started today.
Table of Contents:
How to Get Started (plus a Freebie Download!)
History of Intuitive Eating
While there is a long history in the US of fat activism, the term Intuitive Eating was made popular by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995. They had been practicing dietitians working with clients on weight loss strategies for years, but realized their efforts were not long-lasting, and their clients were plagued by disordered eating patterns like restricting food, fixating on foods, and feeling out of control with certain foods.
The team worked with mental health professionals to explore a more intuitive approach to eating, and through their research and experience developed the framework for Intuitive Eating.
In the years since, Intuitive Eating has been studied by the scientific community and found to be an effective and helpful tool for people to improve their health and wellbeing. It has been written about in more than 200 journal articles and studied around the world.
Research around Intuitive Eating has found that it has many positive outcomes, like:
Less disordered eating, emotional eating, and binge eating
Can help prevent eating disorders, and can be used (with adaptations) to help folks recover from eating disorders
Improved body image and life satisfaction
Improved health markers, like cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar
Increased variety of foods eaten and pleasure from eating
Since I started studying and applying Intuitive Eating in my personal life and with clients, I can say firsthand how much improvement I have seen, how it helps so many find peace with food and eating, and led to less stress about eating.
10 Principles
Intuitive Eating is not a set of rules. Instead, it’s a group of guiding principles to help you find peace with food and connection with your body. Here is a summary of the 10 Principles:
What Intuitive Eating Is Not
As it’s become more popular, the true spirit of Intuitive Eating has been kidnapped by random corners of the internet, and twisted and manipulated to fit a different agenda.
Not a diet
You may see some folks advertise Intuitive Eating as a weight loss diet. But know this - that was never it’s intention, and it is not meant to be used in that way. Intuitive Eating is specifically against dieting, and encourages people to find acceptance of their body size no matter where it is. Weight loss plans are the exact opposite of that.
This is not to throw shade on people who want to try a diet or weight loss plan. I believe in body autonomy, you have the right to do what you want with your body. I don’t promote dieting or weight loss plans, but I wouldn’t judge you for wanting to do it. I’ve seen folks who criticize Intuitive Eating because it “didn’t work” for them, meaning it didn’t result in weight loss, but that is not the point.
Not a set of “rules”
I often warn folks to not get caught up in an “all or nothing” mindset when practicing the ten principles. For example, Intuitive Eating asks us to listen to and honor our hunger feelings. But that doesn’t mean “I should only eat when I’m hungry, and never eat past fullness”. There are many situations where we eat for reasons other than physical hunger, like for practical reasons (I can’t eat later, so I’m going to eat now so it’ll hold me over), for comfort (isn’t it amazing that food can offer us comfort from time to time?!), or for fun (like savoring every bite of a fancy birthday dinner out).
Many of my clients have a tricky time navigating the “no rules” nature of Intuitive Eating, but with guidance and support, you will learn that your internal wisdom, your values, and the principles provide you with structure and guidelines, so you can live and eat in alignment with your body.
Adapting Intuitive Eating
Remember how Intuitive Eating does not have rigid rules? This makes it easily adaptable to many different situations and concerns. Here are a few ways I work with folks to adapt Intuitive Eating to work for them:
Medical Conditions
I often hear “But, I have diabetes/high cholesterol/high blood pressure, I can’t practice Intuitive Eating, I have to be really strict with my food!”.
Not always true.
For many medical conditions, food might not play as big of a role as we think in how to manage it. For example, getting enough sleep can be a really effective way to support healthy blood pressure and blood sugar. Sometimes when working on Intuitive Eating, our priority may lie with rejecting diet culture and pursuing food freedom, so to support health and medical conditions you may decide to lean more into other ways to support your health other than changing your food. That’s totally ok and it’s your choice.
When you’re further along in your Intuitive Eating journey and feel a greater sense of peace with food, many people like to explore the last principle “Gentle Nutrition”. This is where we can explore ways to enhance nutrition to support our health. For those newer to Intuitive Eating or with a lot of diet mentality in their minds, this concept can feel very diet-y, so it’s best to wait until you truly feel ready to explore it.
Here’s a few examples of how gentle nutrition might look:
I’m craving lasagna tonight, and I also want to find a way to incorporate some extra veggies into the meal. I could replace the noodles with zucchini noodles, but the texture of that is too mushy. I could also add some zucchini and spinach into my lasagna. Another option is I could have a salad on the side. I think the salad on the side will be a nice cool and refreshing contrast to the warm and creamy lasagna, and I think it’ll pair perfectly!
In this example, you’ll notice that adding veggies into the meal was a choice, and the overall satisfaction of the meal was not compromised. It’s a win-win situation to find a way to add veggies and make it a more delicious meal!
Here’s another example of gentle nutrition:
I’m going out for ice cream tonight with my family, but I also need to watch my blood sugar. I could choose sugar free ice cream, but I really don’t like the after taste of it. I’m really craving cookies and cream ice cream. I trust myself to eat as much as I want, and I know if I restrict myself from what I really want, I’ll just end up eating more desserts when I get home. I’m going to have the ice cream. Plus, we’ll be walking around a bit after, and I know that can help support my blood sugars.
In this example, this person decided that choosing a more “nutritious” ice cream (the sugar free ice cream) would not be the right choice, because it would make them crave regular ice cream more, and they’d end up eating more than what felt good later on. Not every meal has to be the max nutritious. We don’t eat ice cream for it’s nutritional value anyways (although, it does have nutrition in it!). This example really shows the gentle part of gentle nutrition.
Food Allergies or Restrictions
Of course there are some situations where certain foods really do have to be avoided. This is true for folks with food allergies, medical conditions like Celiac or non-celiac gluten sensitivity. There are also some times where you’re not allergic to a food, but the way it makes you feel is so awful that you do choose to avoid it like the plague.
In these situations, I find it helpful to make sure we are maximizing the satisfaction of food and your freedom to enjoy your safe foods. This might look like:
Finding alternative safe food options that have a similar taste or texture to what you’re craving
Working on redefining what “healthy” means to reduce feeling bad about eating certain foods that might not be the most nutritious, but they are safe for you and taste good
Helping to make sure you have enough access and variety with your safe and preferred foods to reduce any feelings of restriction.
Neurodivergence
I work with many neurodiverse individuals, including autistic folks, ADHDers, and those with sensory processing differences.
Sometimes, being neurodiverse affects the sensory experiences of food and eating. Or, medications affect appetite and might make it harder to hear hunger signals.
It is absolutely ok to use additional tools and support with Intuitive Eating to make it work for you. In some cases, using additional structure around when to eat is helpful, like setting reminders on your phone or having set times to eat.
In times when you know your hunger signals aren’t super reliable, it’s kind to anticipate your hunger and eat more on a schedule. That doesn’t mean you’re doing Intuitive Eating “wrong”, it actually means that you’re doing it the right way for you as an individual.
Eating Disorders
Intuitive Eating can be used to support folks in eating disorder recovery, but it must be adapted, because and eating disorder is a mental health condition, and affects things like your ability to feel hunger and fullness.
When I work with folks in eating disorder recovery, we can talk about topics like rejecting diet culture, challenging the food police, and respecting our body.
We don’t tackle the topics of hunger or fullness until a person feels solid in their recovery journey and we’ve talked through the pros and cons of visiting this topic.
Some people in eating disorder recovery might never feel they can fully trust their hunger or fullness signals, and that’s ok. You don’t have to be a “perfect” intuitive eater to be in recovery from your eating disorder. You can absolutely rely on scheduled meals or other tools to support your ongoing recovery. We can find the path that best supports you as an individual.
Financial Difficulties
I don’t think it’s said enough - it is a privilege to be able to fully eat intuitively. Intuitive Eating is a distinctly modern way of eating that is only possible when our basic needs are met, and when we have enough resources to be able to afford food.
For those who are in difficult financial situations, they may have limitations on food they can buy for themselves, are not able to be relaxed around the idea of food waste, and may have stronger cravings for foods that are not available to them.
In this situation, my recommendation would not be to dive in to the hunger and fullness work, or the work around coping with emotions with kindness. Instead, we find ways to support food access. We can seek out resources to help ensure you have enough food to eat, like government programs, food pantries, and money-saving apps. We can also work on rejecting diet culture and reducing any feelings of shame around your food choices. And, we can get creative with the food that is available to try and create meals that are satisfying and nourishing.
How To Get Started With Intuitive Eating
Are you ready to learn more about Intuitive Eating and see if it might be helpful for you? Here are some ways I suggest to get started.
Read about it’s history on Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch’s website
Watch Evelyn Tribole’s short YouTube series about each of the 10 Principles
Listen to the podcast Maintenance Phase, especially episodes “Is Being Fat Bad For You?” or “The Body Mass Index”
Download your freebie Intuitive Eating Worksheets (with adult coloring sheets!)