Intuitive Eating- Reject the Diet Mentality Part 2

Intuitive Eating is a mind-body integration program developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. You can get their book here (insert link) It is a personal process of honoring your health by paying attention to the messages of your body and meeting your physical and emotional needs.

There are 10 principles within Intuitive Eating that build upon one another. This post will give you tips around the first principle of Intuitive Eating. My previous post covered part 1 of rejecting the diet mentality, including physical and psychological damage, and becoming aware of diet mentality thoughts and language. This post dives deeper into diet mentality around dieting tools and self-compassion.

If you haven’t read Intuitive Eating Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality, do, and come back and read part 2!

Get rid of dieting tools. For example, your scale. You step on and see the number you want, you feel good about yourself. You see a number you don’t like, and your negative feelings, your judgment about yourself and your value can be the result. This reinforces the belief that being a certain weight is good or bad. It also can increase self-doubt, lower self-esteem, and even increase your mind’s preoccupation with food, your body, or dieting. And scales don’t account for water weight, muscle gain or loss, menstrual cycles, etc. Another example is a strict meal plan, or a calorie tracking app, or even your Fitbit if it reinforces your good or bad self-judgments depending on the numbers displayed. The attachment and positive and negative associations with the numbers can be detrimental to your mental health. Note: for some people, calorie counting is helpful. But for the purposes of intuitive eating, calorie counting goes on the back burner in order to learn to trust your body and your relationship with food. Research has shown links between calorie trackers and disordered eating and anxiety around food. They don’t take into account muscle mass or energy expenditures, so there are some holes in what the information is trying to tell you. Weighing yourself doesn’t tell you much about your health, and apps can’t tell you what your body needs. These tools have a time and place, but they need to be on the back burner as you’re learning intuitive eating. A much better gage of your health is your regular habits.

Be compassionate to yourself. Through this process, you may be tempted to diet again. Of course, you’re getting dieting messages over and over again. In fact, you may not be ready to give up dieting just yet, and that is OK! Intuitive eating takes time and patience. There will be setbacks, but take them as learning opportunities rather than failures.

Resorting back to “diet talk” looks like saying things such as, “Do I deserve this?” “That food is bad for me.” “That food is good for me.” “I am eating clean.”

“Non-diet talk” sounds like this. “Am I hungry?” “Do I want to eat this?” “Am I in the mood for this?” “Will I be deprived if I don’t have this?” “Will this taste good?” “I deserve to enjoy eating food without feeling any guilt.”

When it comes to exercise, “diet talk” sounds like: “I want to burn as many calories as possible.” “If I miss a workout, I feel bad.” “If I work out for another hour, I can work off the donut I ate earlier.”

“Non-diet talk” around exercise sounds like: “Exercising makes me feel happy.” “I feel strong and energized after my workout.” “I am less stressed after working out.”

Now that you know the four steps and the first principle to reject the diet mentality, try this practice: Clean up your social media feeds. As you scroll, pay attention to diet mentality. Look for words like “clean eating” or “good food and bad food comparisons” or “earn your meal” or “cheat days,” flag and or unfollow. Tune in to the language around dieting and look at the language, images, and messages as you try and look at food in more morally neutral terms. Fill your feed with people who have supportive relationships with food.  Intuitive eating is all about listening to and feeling and respecting your body’s natural cues and desires. It should be noted; intuitive eating does not address how trauma impacts our relationship with food and our body. Reach out to a licensed therapist for the support that you need.

Next principle is HONOR YOUR HUNGER.

If you’d like to join my next Intuitive Eating group coaching program, email bcbtelluride@gmail.com to join the waitlist.