#intuitive eating principles
intuitive eating principles, #9
9. movement–feel the difference
what this is not: a double demand to exercise AND to enjoy it
what this is: an open invitation to explore movement that feels good to you, whenever, however, if ever you’re interested
let’s first be clear that exercise is only a minor health determinant. our health status is much more affected by our social location than our individual behaviors. the benefits of exercise have been grossly exaggerated in popular culture. exercise is not a cure, a guarantee, or available to everyone. i like the word “movement” bc it removes the false promises, strictures, and inaccessibility of formal exercise. movement can be a LOT of things.
what feels good to you? a deep inhale with arms stretched upward? rolling your neck? vagus nerve yoga? gardening? dancing? walking? flipping giant tires? lifting weights among grunting men? scrubbing the bathtub? swimming? shopping? playing with kids? any of these can be practiced as movement. notice the sensations it brings, check in with your body. where do you feel it, and how? even sitting upright can be a movement practice when we turn our attention to the muscles it engages and the feel of the position. our bodies are always working.
what you want w movement is something that feels good while you’re engaging in it, and afterwards. if you do something you hate, you’re unlikely to benefit from it long term. if you do something you love but which has negative physical or emotional consequences, also not beneficial. this is a tender approach, right? that’s the deal in intuitive eating! we are kind to the body.
intuitive movement honors the changes that life brings. what feels good at one time may not feel good at another.
intuitive movement incorporates rest.
intuitive movement requires no “discipline.” it is a practice, but one that is driven by its intrinsic benefits–if those are absent, the practice is unlikely to improve health status over time.
and, while we are guided by certain ideals, exploring movement will be a little messy! separating the mandates of diet/fitness culture from our own honest experiences can be hard. there is no arriving at perfect movement habits, perfectly physically and emotionally healthy. it’s a process! always reorienting toward body respect, kindness, and pleasure.
intuitive eating principles, #7
7. cope with your emotions without using [restriction]
restricting food intake can serve many functions for us, and has done for millennia: it can numb or blunt difficult emotional states; it can be experienced as an act of piety; it can temporarily lead to weight loss, helping us better meet social standards of acceptability; it can save money or resources when they are scarce. but it does so at very great cost to the body, and in cases of chronic restriction, also at great cost to other dimensions of the self. for many people throughout history, using food restriction to cope with life’s difficulties and uncertainties has proved fatal.
in today’s diet culture, it makes sense to want to conform to its (ever changing) standards for eating and exercise behaviors, as well as body size and shape, which garner social approval, access, and even safety. we are social creatures! and life is hard, uncertain, oppressive. the promises that we can control our physical & mental health and our relationships thru food restriction are very pervasive. who wouldn’t want to be in control, “healthy,” safe, and approved? it is natural to seek these things in the ways that we’re conditioned by our social context. but…
none of these promises is truthful. acceptance based on unsustainable behaviors and body size manipulation is not the kind of acceptance we really seek (that’s unconditional, based on on our inherent worth as humans). emotional dulling from restriction becomes another kind of profound suffering, and a deprivation of positive emotional states. preoccupation with eating, exercise, and weight breaksrelationship, alienates us from one another and from our bodies/selves. the control we feel we exercise soon turns into the total loss of control when the body reacts to restriction and negative energy balance with hyperphagia (extreme hunger/eating) and other metabolic adaptations.
so, what’s the better alternative to using dieting or disorder to cope with difficult emotions? it’s turning toward those emotional states with compassion. it’s practicing skills that allow you to experience and attend to your emotional states. it’s connecting with others, sitting with them in shared experience and empathy. it’s turning emotions like anger into catalysts for action! it’s boundaries. it’s self acceptance. none of this is easy, but this process is what actually has a chance of yielding what we misguidedly seek thru dieting and disorder.
feed yourself (with food), feed your creativity, feed your compassion, feed your relationships, feed your inner child, feed your action and efficacy in the world. it is nourishment and not deprivation which makes this life livable.
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[a word on this principle’s original meaning: hunger and emotion are not distinct functions in the brain–all eating has some emotional valence. both our hunger and our emotions–and their interrelatedness–are essential to our survival. eating for comfort, for celebration, to appreciate the sensory experience offered by a place or event… these are part of living a full life. when you are energy balanced and fully fed, eating for ‘emotional’ reasons naturally falls into its healthy place.]
10. honor your health with gentle nutrition
this is the last principle in the intuitive eating process, in part bc specific nutritional considerations will not be pressing for many people if they are practicing the previous principles, but also bc it is the most advanced level. having first dismantled our diet cultural indoctrination, we can ultimately arrive at a place where nutrition is attended to out of respect for the body and not obedience to external authorities.
i should say that i am not a registered dietitian, and even if i were, you should unfollow me if i purported to know the right way to eat for everyone. individual nutritional and eating-behavioral needs vary significantly. my hope here is for you to get the idea, not specific rules or behaviors.
gentle nutrition requires that we consider all of our needs: a person with celiac will require a gluten-free diet, and if they also have a history of disorder, they may need a meal plan to be sure they get adequate calories in spite of their medically necessary restriction. someone with low or high blood sugar might consider what rough combinations of macronutrients and fiber content keep them feeling best (medication can also be really helpful). someone who is very physically active will need to supplement their diet with additional calories. those who tend toward iron deficiency anemia may need to think about eating iron-rich foods or pills separately from calcium-rich foods or pills. maybe you’ve had a heart attack: what fresh fruits and vegetables do you enjoy and how could you add them in them regularly? low blood pressure? get some more of your favorite salty foods. and so on.
notice what makes you feel good, and form guiding principles around those observations (which may change over time!). approximate; don’t be fastidious (except in cases of e.g. food allergy, but even then don’t let those restrictions seep into other areas of nutrition). and most of all, keep practicing the earlier IE principles! we all need to go back to the basics repeatedly. if you’re starting to feel obsessive/compulsive around nutrition, forget principle #10 and come back when you’re ready.
that’s the whole IE deal, friends! may you be gentle, kind, respectful, and free.
3. make peace with food
this principle rests on one of the most fundamental concepts in intuitive eating: unconditional permission to eat. diet culture has programmed us w innumerable reasons why we should not eat at this time, or in that way, or this or that particular food. it tells us to eat less, to plan on eating less in the future, to always be looking for things to cut out and avoid. our hunger in the moment is affected by past deprivation, current restrictions, and the threat of future deprivation. given that the body’s main concern is obtaining adequate energy and nutrient variety from food, could anything be less peaceful??
what distinguishes this principle from the previous (honor your hunger) is its focus on the effects of psychological restriction, the highly conditional permission to eat with which we’re all indoctrinated in this culture. when we think we can’t have enough, or can’t have certain foods, the drive to obtain them in large quantities can be just as powerful as the drive to correct a negative energy balance. our bodies know what we’re thinking, bc guess what we’re thinking with!
when you recommit to yet another diet/lifestyle change, do you engage in what resch & tribole call “last supper eating”? you can’t have it tomorrow, so you better have as much as possible today! you’re not allowed to eat that cake on the counter so you eat everything else in the kitchen and then eventually the cake too, since you already “messed up” this time? the body REBELS against the threat of deprivation and creates compulsions to eat that few people can override (those people have eating disorders and are not to be envied).
the solution is so simple, but not easy! unconditional permission to eat means you can have whatever you want, whenever you want, as much as you want. this is scary as hell at first, when the deprivation backlash is still at work. give it time, eat those previously forbidden foods (they won’t hurt you!), breathe, and watch your body & mind come to a place of peace with all food. food will no longer be a battleground when you stop the destined-to-fail attempts at and plans for restriction.
2. honor your hunger
this is the radical notion that humans ought to eat when they’re hungry! how many ways has diet culture taught us to try to override hunger signals? being hungry doesn’t mean you’re thirsty, bored, lonely, food addicted, or any other invented narrative, it means your body needs energy in the form of calories from food.
honoring your hunger can be really scary if you’re experiencing hyperphagia (extreme hunger/eating) after a period of deprivation. you may have a LOT of hunger! you may be eating far more than you think is normal. that’s part of the process of repairing biological and psychological damage from restriction.
structure may actually help you here, tho it doesn’t feel “intuitive” at first. honoring hunger may mean getting on an eating schedule, something like 3 meals and 2-3 snacks per day. eat every few hours, and notice how you feel beforehand (hunger can appear as difficulty concentrating, dizziness, nausea, thoughts about food, irritability, even a sense of euphoria for some of us). you’ll find as you eat regularly and consistently that your hunger cues become more refined and perceptible, and you will learn to eat before you’re ravenously hungry. hunger will eventually become gentle and manageable if you’re eating adequately.
honoring hunger also means eating what you’re hungry for. if you’re craving a cheeseburger, don’t eat a salad. obviously we all have some material constraints around food choice, but believe your body when it communicates its needs in the form of cravings. as much as it’s in your power, eat what you crave and watch the body crave increasing variety over time. human bodies have been driving eating behavior via hunger for 200,000 years, and they’ve quite got it down–the fact that we have more dietary choice now is not reason to think our bodies incompetent in this area.
i love this phrase, “honor your hunger.” respect it, trust it, attend to it, defer to it. the tricks of diet culture are not worthy of honor, but your hunger (that is, your body) absolutely is.
