Intuitive eating, is as simple as that : it's eating when you body tells you via hunger cues. For someone who's struggling with restrictive eating, who's addict to dieting, and who's gaining and losing the same amount of weight all over again, intuitive eating is a way to recreate a healthy relationship with food :)
1 : How to eat intuitively ?
When you have a long love/hate story with restriction and diet, it's possible that you may have lost your sens of hunger (your hunger and fullness cues). Fortunately, these cues do return over time, but recognizing them initially can be a challenge. Try to slowly start to notice the sensation in your body after you eat, do you feel full ? Satisfied ? Before you eat do you feel the same ? Do you feel weak ? Angry ? Is your stomach starting to growl ? Try to notice all of this and eat accordingly ! It's time start to nourish and honor your body !
Here is a way to recognize your hunger and fullness cues :
2 : Reject the diet mentally
This can be hard to accept (I'm still struggling with this) but Intuitive eating is not about losing weight, and your weight have nothing to do with your health ! In fact, intuitive eating will help you to find your "Set Point" : the weight your body is the most comfortable with, and maintaining that weight is done without any effort. Acknowledging the destructiveness of diets is the first step. People will not be able to give up dieting if they do not understand the damage it causes
3 : it's a journey !
Respecting your body means taking care of your health. You can't "fall of the wagon" with intuitive eating. It's totally okay to overindulged from time to time, if you catch yourself ignoring your body signals that's okay. Notice how you feel right now and act accordingly. What ? You ate too much cookies and you feel nauseous ? that's okay, drink a glass of water, don't eat for a few hour and wait for your body to feel hungry again. Take care of yourself love. It can take a lot of time to be able to eat intuitively again. Trust your body, it's a journey
4 : Emotional eating
Food can frequently became a copying mechanism to handle your emotions. When I was taking the pills I was highly struggling with this. We see emotional eating as the enemy, but it's not. Everyone use food to cope from time to time. There's no shame in eating a Mcdo or an Ice cream as a way to cope after a very hard day. But food must not be the only copying mechanism in your life ! Starting by identifying your feelings is the first way to cope. Then try to notice what do you NEED : it can be some sleep, companionship, expressing your feelings... Then find a way to cope : go take a nap, call a friend, go journaling...
Hope all of this will help you in your journey with recreating a good relationship with your body and with food <3 (And I'm sorry for the mistakes in my article, I'm French) If you ever need someone to talk to, I'll always be here ! Love and light ! 🦋