Are you familiar with the concept of Intuitive Eating?
What Is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive Eating is based on the belief that you can achieve a healthy weight by connecting with your body's natural hunger and satisfied signals. It's the direct opposite of "dieting."
If you are a lifetime dieter it may seem a rather radical concept.
Especially if you have been conditioned by our diet-obsessed culture - where diet plans are way too popular to believe that the answer to healthy weight loss lies in some externally prescribed diet.
Related Content:
- 28-Day Smart Start Weight Loss Challenge
- 7 Biggest Mistakes Dieters Make & How to Avoid Them
- The Secret to Ending Emotional Eating
The whole concept is gaining in popularity and goes by lots of different names, such as instinctive eating, non-dieting and conscious eating, for example.
When I first read Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works by Evelyn Tribole, I couldn't believe that it was possible to trust my body and was convinced I would gain a hundred pounds if I tried it.
Watch this video on Intuitive Eating: Making Peace with Food, Mind and Body with Evelyn Tribole:
So instead, I continued reading diet books and jumping from program to program, believing that the answer to my weight issues resided outside myself.
Several years later, I discovered Geneen Roth and Breaking Free from Emotional Eating, and decided to give the whole intuitive eating thing a go.
Finding Joy with Geneen Roth:
The Benefits of Intuitive Eating
By then, I had discovered the mind-body benefits of yoga and was much more in tune with my body and it's signals, so it finally seemed plausible that I might be able to eat what my body wanted and not lose control.
I had also adopted many of the healthy eating habits of French women suggested by Mireille Guiliano in French Women Don't Get Fat, another non-diet approach to weight loss, so was already learning to tune into my hunger and full signals.
Related Content:
- Why Yoga is the Best Exercise for Weight Watchers
- 7 Ways Yoga Helps with Weight Loss
- 6 Week Mindless Eating Challenge
You have to be in the right frame of mind thinking the right thoughts for any weight loss plan to work. Intuitive eating is not about abandoning your common sense, throwing caution to the wind and eating everything in sight. It doesn't give you license to eat poorly. Your body actually prefers nutritious food.
It's about ending your battles with food and finding your personal happy healthy balance instead.
It's an approach that advocates being in tune with your hunger, sensible eating and allowing your body occasional indulgences without guilt. It's about freeing yourself from the food anxiety that is so prevalent in our society.
The Skinny on Weight Loss: Weight Watchers and Simply Filling:
What It Takes to Be Successful With Intuitive Eating
To be successful requires that you really learn about yourself and your eating habits, that you become more mindful of your eating and that you learn to be keenly aware of the situations that present big challenges for you and develop mechanisms for dealing with them.
Here are 7 healthy eating guidelines developed by Geneen Roth to help with your transition to an intuitive eating lifestyle.
Are You Ready To Firmly Plant Yourself
On The Path To Lasting Weight Loss Success?
What Are the 7 Intuitive Eating Guidelines?
1. Eat when you are physically hungry.
2. Eat sitting down in a calm environment.
3. Eat without distractions such as radio, television, newspapers, books, intense or anxiety provoking conversations or music.
4. Eat what your body wants. (Your body, not your spoiled inner child!)
5. Eat with the intention of being in full view of others.
6. Eat with enjoyment, gusto and pleasure.
7. Stop when you are full.
Although, I've committed them to memory, in the beginning, it's helpful to keep them posted where you can refer to them often.
As Geneen explains in her books, these are not meant to be another set of rigid rules, but rather guiding principles to support you in developing a happy, healthy relationship with yourself. And remember, this is an ongoing process of self discovery, not a quick fix!
Martha is the founder and main content writer for Simple-Nourished-Living.
A longtime lifetime WW at goal, she is committed to balancing her love of food and desire to stay slim while savoring life and helping others do the same.
She is the author of the Smart Start 28-Day Weight Loss Challenge.
A huge fan of the slow cooker and confessed cookbook addict, when she's not experimenting in the kitchen, you're likely to find Martha on her yoga mat.
This post contains affiliate links to products I like. When you buy something through one of my Amazon links or other (affiliate links), I receive a small commission that helps support this site. Thank you for your purchase!
Subscribe to Get: Top 10 Reader Favorite Recipes
The Top 10 Most Popular Recipes (PDF) on Simple Nourished Living + Weekly Support Emails with Tips & Easy Healthy Recipes Not Found Anywhere Else!
Scott
Intuitive eating is eating to perform in life. It's not about weight. Eat to perform. Your body gives you desire, and, response-indicators to make sense of it all, such that you can moderate or increase certain foods(and other aspects of your life) if or as necessary. We are machines of sorts. Keep your machine well and in good shape. Thrive. It's up to you.
Weight is just a curiosity, not the emphasis. Health and tone 'is' the emphasis. Live to perform. Got it? "No rules, just right",...your body can guide you appropriately if you live to thrive and enjoy life.