Intuitive Eating: The Non-Diet Approach
From the title and author of this post, you might be thinking, has my yoga practice now crashed into my diet? Well, the short answer is, sort of. There is no denying that once you are introduced to a yoga practice, mindfulness becomes increasingly easier to explore. This includes time off the mat. Intuitive or mindful eating is approaching meal time with the attitude of trusting our bodies to tell us when we are hungry/full. It is about plugging into ourselves and really listening to what our bodies need, rather than following a strict diet to attain a healthy weight. When it comes to diets and eating habits, as a personal trainer, I am often asked about appropriate diets. This is especially true when it comes to losing or gaining weight, depending on a client's specific goals. As a CPT, I may offer broad nutritional advice for my clients in regards to their dietary needs, however, from my personal experience, to create the biggest impact on our diets, we must first awaken ourselves to the idea of being present while we eat, and what it feels like to allow our bodies to experience and notice the feelings of hunger. In this industry, I am often ask what sort of dieting trends do I agree/disagree with or follow myself. I am not a “diet” person at all, and always find myself fumbling around with this question when asked in the professional world. I studied nutrition, and I care enough about the food that I put in my body to know what things I should avoid and encourage, but I never fancied myself as a trendy diet follower. It wasn’t until after graduation that I learned about intuitive eating and realized this is exactly the type of “diet” I can embrace and encourage in others. If you have the chance, I highly recommend learning/reading more about intuitive eating. For the purposes of this post I am going to outline the 10 principles of this diet and you can see for yourself if this is something worth introducing into your life.
Principle #1 - Reject the diet mentality. Let all that emotional garbage go, promises that you can shed weight quickly or easily, reject the disappointment that comes in a wave when you step outside of this so called diet, or punish yourself internally for experiencing a moment of food bliss. This type of thinking is destructive and could bring more harm than good in the long run. Diets are just a fad that changes with the weather. Eating a balanced nutritionally dense diet is optimal to creating a happy mind/body.
Principle #2 - Honor your hunger. If we practice listening to our bodies and recognizing real hunger, we know when we need nutrients. Give your body what it needs to expend energy. If you are in tune enough to know when your body needs food, you can avoid those moments of frazzled hunger where we are more apt to over eat, especially those comfort foods that may taste wonderful, but do not deliver adequate nutrition.
Principle #3 - Make peace with food. Do not avoid something and punish yourself when you inevitably fail. Let go of the idea that you must always punish yourself for eating certain things. This can often lead to our bodies knowing we are depriving ourselves of something which can bring feelings of overwhelming guilt.
Principle #4 - Challenge the food police. Dismiss the idea that you are “good”, or “bad” because you eat a certain way, or avoid specific things. Diets create unreasonable rules. The more we are able to quite the food police monitor within our psyche, the more we are able to plug into the core of intuitive eating.
Principle #5 - Respect your fullness - Notice your body when the hunger feeling has passed. This encourages you to stop and listen to your body. Are we eating now because something tastes good, we are bored, or we are genuinely hungry? The more we stop and pay attention to our bodies, the easier it is to come into balance with our eating habits.
Principle #6 - Discover the Satisfaction Factor - This invites you to explore the feelings of satisfaction that can be associated with eating the foods we enjoy. Once we plug into our body, this process becomes second nature and we may find that it takes much less food than we originally thought to find that feeling of satisfaction.
Principle #7 - Honor your body without using food. Find different ways to resolve issues that come up in life, other than food. We all have those overwhelming moments of anxiety, loneliness, boredom, or anger that we have fed in the past. Food can not fix any of these issues. While it may comfort for a moment, you will need to face these emotions in some other way eventually.
Principle #8 - Respect your body. Embrace the genes you were given and learn to love the blueprint of you. It does not serve us to wish for something other than what we were given in life. Find peace and contentment with who you are right now.
Principle #9 - Exercise. This is a big one. A lot of folks control weight loss with diet alone, and never think to invite movement into their routine. Just choose to get active and then stop and notice the subtle changes. Focus on the feelings that exercise brings you. It can make all the difference when the alarm clock rings and you are trying to find your “why” to jumping up and moving. It is much easier to remember the good feelings that exercise brings us as the motivation we need to keep it going.
Principle #10 - Honor your health. We have one body to house us throughout life, and one diet, or one extra helping, one mistake is not going to be the deal breaker. It is what we do over the course of time that makes the difference. Do not become paralyzed by perfection, but instead celebrate those moments towards progress.
In closing, I urge you, the next time you are contemplating whether or not to jump onto the next diet train, discover all the wonderful that exists when adopting a healthy lifestyle. Working to build and grow our mind/body connection. When we learn to trust and honor our bodies, balance is encouraged to grow. On your journey towards wellness, I encourage you to discover more about intuitive eating. Amazing things happen when we put a little trust into ourselves!
