Honor your body: learn how to eat intuitively
Heal your broken relationship with food and your body
Do you trust your body to know and listen when it needs food – any kind of food? Because the truth is: most people don’t know. When we grow up, we learn to ignore our instincts like hunger (it’s 4 pm, too close to dinner time for a snack) and we learn that sugar and fat are the enemy. But what if your body actually got it right all along and those made up ‘rules’ messed up our relationship with our bodies? That is what intuitive eating is all about. And I believe it can save us as a society.
I am in no way a dietician or medical expert and would never claim to be one. If you really want to learn about intuitive eating, this one blog won’t give you all the information you need. All I want to do is make sure you are aware of the alternative. That there is more than your disordered relationship with food. If you want more information on intuitive eating, I recommend you contact a healthcare professional or check out this resource.
Do you know what it means to eat intuitively? I didn’t know when I was younger. In fact, up until a year ago, I was pretty sure that my intuition couldn’t be trusted when it came to food.
But that is what we learn, isn’t it?
I don’t know about you, but I never really thought that I actually knew what my body needed. Whenever I was hungry, and it wasn’t the predetermined time for one of the three meals we ate in a day, my parents would tell me that I couldn’t be hungry.
They would even go as far as saying that my hunger wasn’t real. That I didn’t know what hunger was because I wasn’t born in a country where food wasn’t a given. As if hunger and starvation are the exact same thing.
That experience taught me that the hunger I felt wasn’t real. That my body wasn’t something I should listen to. Because according to the people that I trusted the most, its signals were just plain wrong.
And they had to be right.
Because whenever I got offered a piece of candy or some other snack, I would want to take two, three, four – as many as I could get my hands on. And that made me the embodiment of gluttony. So how could the signals that my body gave me be a good thing when it resulted in such sinful and out of control behavior?
Short summary for quick readers
- Your body has mechanisms in place for taking care of itself intuitively, yet we never learn to trust our sense of hunger
- Babies eat intuitively but when we get older, people start worrying about the food we eat and whether it's 'enough' or maybe 'too much'. People label food as 'good' or 'bad' in our presence and we pick that labeling up ourselves.
- But the truth is that a varied diet is more important than just eating 'healthy'. Because your body needs all those nutrients. Not just the ones that diet culture labels 'good'. And your body knows what nutrients it needs.
- Restriction is what causes binging: denying yourself something makes you crave it more. Treating all foods equal will make you less likely to restrict and therefor binge. If food becomes 'normal', you wouldn't eat three bags of chips a day.
- When you treat all foods as equal, your body will start giving off signals that you might not recognize and you start craving different foods. Like vegetables when you've been eating fatty foods for a few days.
- Trust in your body is the first step. After you feel like you can trust your own body's sensations, can you start the steps for intuitive eating.
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Your body knows what to eat
I can’t remember when I started to mistrust my body. But what I do know is that there must have been a time when you actually knew what your body needed. Just like you know that, when you doze off on the couch at 4 pm, your body really must have needed some sleep. There had to be some kind of mechanism in place that kept track of your needs when it comes to food, too.
And it turns out that there was.
Our bodies are pretty amazing. We feel it when we challenge the capabilities it has. Like when we hike up a mountain or run a marathon, or when our body gets us where we need to go even though our mind just wants to stay in bed.
Our bodies have all these automatic mechanisms in place to keep us healthy. It cleans itself, heals itself and with a little helping hand from science, it can fight off some of the deadliest diseases in the world.
So it almost seems strange to think that the same body wouldn’t have some mechanism in place to help you eat intuitively. To make sure you eat plenty but never too much. To make sure you eat different kinds of food to get all the nutrients you need. And to provide you with the energy you need from all types of food without ever eating harmful proportions.
Babies eat intuitively
When you were just a little baby, you knew exactly when you felt hungry. You might not remember this, but when you needed food, you would cry. And when you were provided with milk, you would drink right until the moment you were full.
And then you stopped!
You didn’t have FOMO because you knew you were going to have milk again whenever you were hungry. So you didn’t stuff your face just because you were scared of missing out. And you didn’t tell your little baby butt to stop whining ‘because you just had milk and couldn’t possibly be hungry again’.
But as we got older, and became interested in other kinds of food, our parents and society started to freak out about the things we ate.
They worry because they want us to grow up healthy and they pay a lot of attention to the way we grow. From the moment we are born, doctors pull out charts to make sure we are tall enough and fat enough (but not too fat, ’cause; fatphobia). They measure our feet, our fingers, our head, they look at the way we stand, sit, crawl; everything is measured and monitored. And that is important.
But with that comes a preoccupation with eating plenty of vegetables, fruits, and all the foods that we label as ‘good’. And when that happens, the people around us also become preoccupied with how much sugar and butter we eat, and all the foods that society collectively labels as ‘bad’.
Food labeling
And that right there, is a big part of the problem. Because food is just food. There is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ food.
Unless your hamburger has committed a crime, it can not be labeled as ‘bad’.
One of the quotes I like that my favorite Instagram food scientist uses when she talks about food, is ‘the dose makes the poison’. And even though that applies to the chemical components that foods contain, it can also apply to the whole concept of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods.
If you eat one hamburger, you aren’t going to die (to be fair, you might not die right away if you only eat hamburgers all day every day, but bear with me here). Only if your whole diet consists of hamburgers, or you eat multiple hamburgers each day, will your health be influenced.
And guess what?
The same applies for fruits and vegetables too.
Variety is important
You can not eat a diet that consists only of vegetables or fruits. Eating apples all day isn’t going to help you live longer.
You need everything in order to be healthy. All the types of foods: fat foods, salty foods, sugar, vegetables, protein, fruits… You don’t pick one of the groups and stick with it, you eat a little bit of all of them. Because your body needs it.
That includes salads, fruits, vegetables, nuts, water and dairy. But also cake, candy, chips, fries and hamburgers. One of the main types of fuel for your brain is glucose. Guess where glucose comes from? Right, sugar. People that decide to go on some crazy diet that completely cuts out one type of food basically deny their body necessary nutrients that it needs in order to be healthy.
And the most surprising part? Your body knows exactly when it needs a certain type of food.
The enemy of intuitive eating
I can hear you questioning me.
You’re wondering why, if your body knows exactly what you need, you have been binging on every bag of candy or chips that you could find. There is a logical explanation for that too. We have all accepted this notion of sugar being addictive and with that, dangerous. But more and more research shows that sugar actually isn’t addictive like drugs or cigarettes are.
You might want to read that again if you always thought you were completely helpless when it comes to snacks and candy.
Sugar is pleasurable to eat. Our brains enjoy the feeling of eating sugar – there’s no denying that. But it is not the reason for you grabbing another handful of Sour Patch Kids. Have you ever been on one of those diets that allows cheat days? Days on which you get to eat everything that you couldn’t eat during the rest of the week? If you have, then you probably know what happens during those cheat days. If you really, really let yourself cheat on the rules you set for yourself, you will binge on everything that you’ve been craving all week.
And it makes complete sense. That is what restriction does to your body.
If you tell a child not to touch something, you can be sure that five seconds later, their hands will be all over it. And when you label foods, you tell your body that it can not have something or that it should be doing things differently. And that will only make you want it more. Just like the weird (and toxic) appeal of a ‘bad boy’; bad foods are just as tempting.
And that is why we need to treat all foods the same.
Eat intuitively without labels
Just picture it with me for a second. What if no one ever told you that certain foods were ‘bad’ and others were ‘good’? What if you grew up knowing that if you wanted a snack, you could choose between an apple or a lollipop and both would be exactly the same? Imagine what would happen if, whenever you ate five pieces of chocolate in one sitting, no one would tell you that you couldn’t have any more for the rest of the week?
As someone who was very much restricted in food options, I know that for me that would be a complete game changer.
And I know people worry about their children. Or themselves. Whenever we eat a whole bag of chips we worry about our weight, our health and we worry about the way our bodies will look if we keep this up. But have you ever tried to just not feel guilty about it? Do you really think that if you let yourself, you would continue to eat three bags of chips every day? Or would you eventually get sick of chips and find something else to eat?
The only way we can eat intuitively is if we let ourselves eat whatever we need and want, whenever we want it. Without feeling guilty. Have some compassion for yourself and stop beating yourself up when it comes to food. That is how you learn to trust your body. That is how you will understand that your body knows what it needs. Does that mean you might eat five tubs of cookie dough ice cream in one week? Maybe. Does that mean you’ll get diabetes immediately? Probably not. Will you be eating five tubs of ice cream every week for the rest of your life? Definitely not.
The truth is that after eating McDonald’s for six days straight, your body will ask you for something different. Your body will crave a freaking vegetable.
Eat intuitively: my experience
I have been trying to establish a habit of intuitive eating for a few months now, right after I finished reading ‘Intuitive Eating’ (100% recommend reading this book if you want to get into the subject and if you want to know more about the science behind it all). At first, I was scared. I had the same worries that I know you will have; what about my weight? What if I can’t stop eating? Or the familiar fatphobic question: what if I get fat?
But now, after a few months, I can only say that it is a freaking RELIEF.
Of course, I can’t say I’m an intuitive eater after only months of intuitive eating. I still struggle with food. With what I should and shouldn’t eat. With the nagging urge to compensate for food I have eaten the day before. And of course, the feeling of having to exercise after I have eaten more than I usually would. I struggle with my food FOMO which has always caused me to overeat. But it is such a relief to at least know that I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about the foods I eat or the ones I don’t eat.
It is peace of mind.
Trust is extremely important
And I love the feeling of trusting my body. As someone who hasn’t been able to trust their body for as long as I can remember, it is empowering to notice the small things. Like when we were moving for four days straight and I noticed that my body craved savory and fatty foods (Hi, Mickey D’s!). But when we were done moving, after four days of intense physical labor, and everything settled down; I really craved vegetables.
And that’s a feeling I didn’t recognize.
Because I have never in my life felt the urge to eat carrots or tomatoes. My cravings always involved chocolate, chips, candy; all the foods that I learned were ‘bad’. The fact that I actually noticed that I wanted to eat something healthy made me so proud of the vessel that I inhabit every day.
It wasn’t guilt or shame that made me feel like I really should eat something healthy now. It was the feeling of craving that I am so very familiar with. But this time, it was a craving for vitamins. And that little victory completely blew my mind.
Because even though green beans and chocolate aren’t the same to me yet (work in progress!), to learn that your body – and with that you – can be trusted, is so freaking valuable.
Some final notes
So, just eat whatever you want whenever you want it? That is the golden rule to intuitive eating?
I hate to break it to you, but no. That is not the golden rule. There are different steps to follow when you want to learn how to eat more intuitively. And I am in no way qualified to teach you exactly how to go about it. All I can say is that the first step is to trust your body and let it know that you won’t restrict foods anymore. Only by letting your body know that nothing is off the table (except when it comes to food allergies and intolerances, of course) can you completely recover from disordered eating habits.
Another important part of intuitive eating is recognizing the signals that your body is sending you. Like when you are hungry or when you’re full. I’m guessing a lot of you, like me, have no idea what it means to be hungry or full. I am still working really hard to figure it all out.
And it makes sense.
You have been taught that your body can not be trusted. You have been taught that you should only eat at certain times of day. That the clock knows more about your wellbeing than your body does (because you can’t possibly be hungry at 4 p.m.!). It makes sense that you can’t hear your body unless your stomach is basically screaming for food. Unless you’re so full, you feel like you might explode.
After you have given your body the feeling of trust that it deserves, it is time to work with it instead of against it. To stop labeling your body’s voice as the enemy’s.
As the villain that is just trying to get you to succumb to bad habits.
And the way to do that is to be gentle, compassionate and to listen to it. At all times. Because your body knows what is best for you. It always has. And your body isn’t afraid to advocate for itself. To make itself be heard.
It is time to listen.
I am in no way a dietician or medical expert and would never claim to be one. If you really want to learn about intuitive eating, this one blog won’t give you all the information you need. All I want to do is make sure you are aware of the alternative. That there is more than your disordered relationship with food. If you want more information on intuitive eating, I recommend you contact a healthcare professional or check out this resource.
