Intuitive Eating- Reject the Diet Mentality Part 1

Intuitive Eating is a mind-body integration program developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. You can get their book here. Intuitive Eating 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 (IE) that build upon one another. This post will give you tips around the first principle of Intuitive Eating.

Please note: I am not a HAES (Health At Every Size) expert, but I do firmly believe the psychology behind Intuitive Eating and the rejection of diet culture can benefit women of every size. Read this knowing that it may or may not be for you. I have seen intuitive eating work for many women, including myself, and IE promotes a more sustainable way of life than dieting.

Weight loss can improve health outcomes for many, but statistics show that the majority of people who lose weight regain it and more within the first year post-weight loss. Research also suggests dieting may cause more harm than good, but you and your health practitioner are the only ones who can decide if Intuitive Eating is right for you. Yes, you can lose weight, however, many women gain weight first, as I did, as they are learning to trust their bodies and learning their body’s natural rhythms and signals of hunger and fullness.

For many intuitive eaters, this type of eating without dieting is the only way to comfortably, and pleasurably sustain for a lifetime. We can’t magically change our weight, but we can change our behaviors. No matter where you are in this journey, let’s respect that. Approaching health from a behavior modification standpoint can often be the key to sustained change and greater well-being. Weight change could be a potential side effect from your behavior change.

Intuitive Eating Principle 1:

Reject the Diet Mentality

Diet culture is rampant. I know girls that haven’t even started menstruating and yet are already dieting or trying to change their body composition before even fully developing into womanhood. The harm is both physical and psychological. Yet, behaviors are a better indicator of health than body weight.

The damage that dieting causes includes: more intense binges and cravings, increased risk of premature death and heart disease, decreased satiety cues, slower metabolism, and increased belly fat as a result of yo-yo dieting.

Psychological damage of dieting includes: increased risk of disordered eating, increased stress and anxiety, loss of control around “forbidden foods,” decreased self-confidence, and belief that weight gain is a character flaw.

Rejecting the dieting mentality may mean getting angry at the lies that have led you to feel like a failure every time a diet stopped working and you gained back weight. If you continually place hope in a new diet to solve your problems, you won’t be truly free to rediscover Intuitive Eating (‘rediscover’ because you know eating intuitively is something you did starting at birth and were conditioned OUT of it) until you reject the diet mentality.

Become aware of diet mentality thoughts and language.

The language around dieting is pervasive. Eating, exercise, and behavior change needs to be approached with self-compassion. Discipline, will power, and self-control often re-emphasize diet mentality. If you feel you can’t have certain foods, and you try to have “self-control” but you feel that you fail because you eat a donut, you characterize yourself as a failure just for eating something that’s delicious. The foods you choose to eat or not eat says nothing about your self-worth. Cupcake eaters do not equal bad humans. Eating kale salads daily does not equal sainthood. Many diets have strict lists of foods to eat and to avoid. This makes our body want to rebel and go overboard if not during the diet, then the day before you start, the day after you end, or even in the middle! No two people like to eat the same foods, the same amounts, at the same time of the day. Diets assume that all bodies have the same needs. Diets fail because you were not designed to eat by someone else’s rules. Your body will want to rebel. Intuitive eating puts you in the drivers seat to set the rules for your body, intuitively. You cannot fail intuitive eating. If you eat too much or too little at a meal or snack, it simply informs your decisions as you move forward with your next choice of food. It is a lifelong learning process that naturally changes as your life evolves.

I will continue to share with you more tips around rejecting the diet mentality in my next post, Rejecting the Diet Mentality Part 2. To be a part of our next Intuitive Eating Group Coaching Program, email bcbtelluride@gmail.com to join the waitlist.