Intuitive eating is the hot topic in both popular media outlets and eating disorder recovery research right now. For those who have spent a long time stuck in a diet mindset, the idea of letting go of numbers and judgment around food — which is at the core of an intuitive eating practice — seems terrifying.
To calm your fears, we’ll tell you about:
- What intuitive eating is
- The ten principles of intuitive eating
- Why this form of eating is necessary for full eating disorder recovery
- Common obstacles that keep you from connecting with your needs, and how to overcome them
What Is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating is a weight-neutral approach to eating that involves building a connection between the mind and body through body awareness. This connection helps you meet your physical and psychological needs.
10 Principles of Intuitive Eating:
- Reject the diet mentality.
- Honor your hunger by eating throughout the day. Don’t fear hunger or feel pride in it.
- Respect when you are full (this can get tricky if you need to weight restore as part of your recovery.)
- Challenge the food police. Learn to challenge disordered thoughts about what, when, where, how, and why to eat.
- Make peace with all food, including your fear foods.
- Discover a sense of satisfaction around food. Food is not just a tool for your body. It’s also something you can and should enjoy. Find what you like and enjoy it.
- Honor your feelings without always using food as a coping mechanism. This includes binging and restricting food.
- Respect your body. You don’t have to love it, but respect what it does for you, especially considering the stress it was under in your eating disorder.
- Move your body in a way that feels good, not to “burn calories” or “earn food.”
- Honor your health with gentle nutrition. If you’re not prepared to eat intuitively yet, you may need to follow a meal plan. And that’s okay.
Why Do You Need To Learn Intuitive Eating In Eating Disorder Recovery?
Most eating disorder treatment providers incorporate the use of meal plans for patients in the early stages of recovery. This is because those in early recovery are not usually prepared to listen to their body and mind when it comes to food. The physical or mental restriction of food can distort your body’s hunger cues. Also, many patients do not have a realistic idea of a balanced diet or normal portion sizes.
If you are in early recovery, you will probably need to rely on a meal plan to meet your body’s needs — and that’s okay! In fact, accepting that you need some external structure around food right now is a part of Intuitive eating.
But even in those early stages, you will learn how to normalize eating regularly, check in with your body, and explore what foods you actually like (instead of just eating what your eating disorder tells you to.)
After your physical needs are stabilized, and you feel more confident in your recovery, you should transition away from using a meal plan and into intuitive eating. It’s how you would normally eat before your eating disorder and before diet culture invaded society.
The ultimate goal of recovery is to start listening to your physical and mental needs again, just like you did when you were a young child.
CHALLENGES OF INTUITIVE EATING WHEN YOU’RE IN RECOVERY FROM AN EATING DISORDER
- Diet culture norms
- Fixation on numbers like calorie and macronutrient counts
- Lack of hunger cues
- Fear of letting go of control
- Being on a meal plan long-term
- Fear of letting go of control
How to Overcome the Fears and Obstacles of Intuitive Eating: A Practical Guide
Not everyone has the same eating disorder thoughts and behaviors. So naturally, not everyone needs the same thing in recovery.
Not every part of this guide to intuitive eating in eating disorder recovery may apply to you. Take from it what you need.
1. REMOVE ANYTHING THAT REINFORCES FOOD RULES TO MOVE TOWARDS INTUITIVE EATING.
This can include:
- Calorie counting apps: Eating shouldn’t be about numbers.
- Food scales: This is just another numbers-based disordered habit.
- Fasting apps: Intuitive eating involves eating whenever you’re hungry, not just during a predetermined window of it.
- Fitbits: They reinforce the idea that you should control the number of calories you put in and the number of calories you have to “burn off” with exercise.
- Detox products: Detox products reinforce the idea that some foods are not “clean” and that you need to “repair” your body after eating certain foods.
- Foods you would only eat in your eating disorder: You wouldn’t eat these foods when you’re healthy, so why hold onto them?
These things, as well as exercise apps and body weight scales, will all hold you back in recovery. Get rid of them, and let food freedom in.
Related: You might not even realize you have these subtle food rules.
2. HIDE NUTRITIONAL LABELS ON PRODUCTS.
Some people find it helpful in recovery to remove nutritional info such as calorie counts and carbohydrate listings. It helps break their fixation on numbers, which is important when you make the switch from precisely meeting dietary needs to intuitive eating.
If you have no idea how to meet your nutritional needs yet, then you might still need to rely on nutritional info to understand the amount of protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals in foods. Don’t focus on the exact numerical breakdown of the contents of your food. Just understand where you can find different nutrients in food.
Ideally, though, you would work with a dietician to learn more about how to meet your needs. They can explain proper portion sizes, where to find different sources of nutrients, and how to meet your personal needs while maintaining flexibility around eating.
Once you feel confident that you know how to meet your basic nutritional needs, consider removing numbers from the equation entirely (no pun intended.)
Ask someone else to color in calorie counts and other triggering information so you can’t see it, or rip nutritional information off of containers altogether.
Admittedly, it can be hard to forget the number of calories and macronutrients of foods if you have memorized them. But it might help to not have to see those numbers printed on a cereal box every time you have breakfast.
Over time, as you practice intuitive eating, you will have more head space for the things that really matter to you. And you’ll forget the numbers that once ruled your life.
3. STOP LABELING FOOD AS GOOD OR BAD (BY DOING THESE THINGS.)
Food is not good or bad — it’s neutral. Every food has value. It may contain nutrients you need to live a healthy life. Or, it satisfies an emotional need. It could hold some sentimental value, or be something you share with loved ones.
Remind yourself constantly that food is not tied to morals, and that all foods are valuable in some way, by doing any or all of the following:
- Write it down on post-it notes and stick them around your kitchen.
- Write it down in a journal that you carry around with you.
- Make an affirmation like “food is not a moral thing” as your phone background.
- Write it down on your hand so you can see it while you’re eating.
- Say it to yourself over and over, as many times as you need to, until you instinctively know it.
- Tell other people, so they know it, too.
- Make it the topic of a social media story. Start a conversation about the fact that food has no moral value, if you’re up to it.
Reject the narrative that diet culture has crafted around “good” or “bad” foods. It’s only useful for weight loss companies trying to feed off of body insecurity and food guilt for profit. (You can write that down, too.)
4. INCORPORATE MORE VARIETY AND FLEXIBILITY INTO YOUR DIET.
After doing away with the idea that you can and should control food, it’s time to incorporate more variety and flexibility in your diet. To do this, you may need to:
- Reintroduce certain food groups if you cut them out (e.g. reintroducing carbs)
- Allow others to cook for you, to get used to the idea that you don’t need to control food
- Face your fear foods, so they can find a place in your diet
- Face other potentially triggering situations, such as eating out, to normalize them
If you do these things, you will be able to eat whenever your body and mind tells you it needs something. And you will have the freedom to honor your cravings (more on this below.)
Related: This is how to develop an all foods fit mentality in eating disorder recovery.
5. APPROACH HUNGER WITH MINDFULNESS. AND PRACTICE HONESTY WITH YOURSELF.
Regularly check in with your body. Scan it for hunger cues. Examine the messages your conscious mind is sending about eating.
For example, if you are telling yourself you’re not hungry, investigate it. Are you really just not hungry, or are you experiencing anxiety that’s suppressing your appetite?
If you’re telling yourself you’re too busy to sit down to a meal, are you just trying to avoid food?
If you feel ravenous, is it because you really are very hungry, or do you have an unmet emotional need and want to use food as a coping mechanism?
It’s okay to eat when you’re not very hungry. If there’s a food you really want to try, but you just had a meal, it’s okay to eat again. It is not okay to consistently use food as a way to dampen your emotions.
Hunger can be a scary feeling to someone with an eating disorder. Practicing honesty — finding your true voice despite a very loud eating disorder voice — can make hunger less scary.
6. PRACTICE EATING MEALS AND SNACKS MINDFULLY.
It is in no way realistic to eat every meal and snack mindfully. It’s a time-consuming and potentially distressing practice. Build a mindful eating practice slowly, and have coping skills at the ready in case being present in your body feels like too much of an ordeal.
How to start eating mindfully:
- Remove all distractions that take you away from the present moment.
- Take the time to engage all your senses while eating. Enjoy the smell of your food, the presentation of it, the taste of it. Notice if there’s an aftertaste.
- Take a pause every so often to check in with yourself. Notice the feeling of your stomach getting full.
- Notice where your satisfaction levels are as you continue eating. Is the food starting to feel less satisfying? Are you still enjoying it?
- Stop eating when you are satisfied physically and emotionally. Don’t wait to get overfull, but don’t deprive yourself, either.
It will take time to develop your intuitive eating skills. Don’t panic if you have a hard time remaining present, eat past your fullness levels, or start to feel anxiety when you’re eating or after you’re full.
7. DEVELOP DISTRESS TOLERANCE SKILLS.
Eating regularly without compensating for food with eating disorder behaviors is extremely difficult when you have physically or mentally restricted food.
To get to a point of eating regularly, you might lean on distractions like watching TV or scrolling through social media to avoid feelings of anxiety or eating disorder thoughts. This can be a really good strategy to use when you’re first starting out in recovery.
But to get to a place where you can listen to your body, you have to be fully present when eating. That means you have to learn to sit with the discomfort of eating, and with the feeling of fullness afterwards.
Use distress tolerance skills such as grounding and radical acceptance to remain present in your body when it’s hard to. Staying present is the only way to get more in tune with your body.
8. IDENTIFY AND HONOR YOUR CRAVINGS, ALWAYS.
There are two main reasons that people don’t honor their cravings:
- Diet culture puts out the idea that cravings are a feeling you should ignore. They tell you to distract ourselves, have a “healthy substitute” for the food you’re craving, or to drink a lot of water in the hopes that the feeling will go away.
- You’re not sure exactly what you’re craving.
When you know what you want, but continually avoid it, that just leaves you unsatisfied and intensifies your craving — eventually, you will binge on it. Instead of continually restricting and binging on a food, let yourself have what you’re craving.
Many people in recovery worry about honoring cravings if they don’t know exactly what they want. They know they want something, but are afraid of eating “the wrong thing.” They worry about “wasting calories”, even though eating food is never a waste.
If this sounds like you, this is how to identify your craving:
- Tune into your body.
- Approach the idea of finding and having what you want with intention, and without judgment.
- Ask yourself what kind of food texture you’re craving: crunchy, crispy, smooth, creamy, mashed, mushy, light, airy, etc.
- Figure out what kind of flavor profile you’re craving: sweet, salty, sour, fresh, zesty, nutty, rich, earthy, etc. Or, are you looking for a combination flavor, such as sweet and salty?
- Ask yourself if you want something warm, hot, or cold.
- Decide whether you want to cook something, have something fast and easy, or order out.
- Decide whether you’re hungry enough for a meal or just want a snack.
After you answer all the questions above, brainstorm and figure out what fits the description of the food you’re craving. If you can get the exact food you want right now, that’s great. If not, is there a way to go get it, or something similar you have around the house?
Once you get what you’re craving, sit down and really enjoy it. Shut down any negative associations you have with this food.
Remember, no food is good or bad — it’s just food. And it’s okay to enjoy food, even if it’s not full of macronutrients or vitamins.
9. CHANGE YOUR VALUES WHEN IT COMES TO EXERCISE.
While not directly related to eating, the way you relate to exercise is a part of the ten principles of intuitive eating.
To start moving again (because you should stop all forms of exercise in early eating disorder recovery) in a way that honors your mind and body, change the way you view and value exercise.
Remember that exercise is not a “tool” to meet an end goal. It is something you do to make your mind and body feel good. Don’t measure the amount of exercise you do, the amount of energy you expend on it, and don’t set any lofty exercise goals right now.
Simply find something that you enjoy doing. Don’t judge yourself about your choice of activity, how often you exercise, or the intensity of your exercise.
Tune into your body as you engage in movement. Are you enjoying the activity you picked out? Do you feel worn out afterwards, or do you feel more energized? Do you sleep more soundly or feel an overall positive mood shift because of your movement practice?
If you are not enjoying your current movement practice, change it. If you notice yourself becoming obsessive about exercise, stop engaging in it and let your treatment provider know.
You can practice intuitive eating while in eating disorder recovery.
It will take a lot of adjustment to start listening to your body instead of toxic diet culture messages, but you can meet your nutritional needs and eat with total food freedom in recovery.
If you or a loved one is suffering from an eating disorder, take the first step today and talk to someone about recovery or simply learn more about the holistic eating disorder recovery programs we offer.
