12 Intuitive Eating Myths You Should Know
Intuitive eating is a concept that many people have never heard of. I myself only started practicing it 3 or so years ago. Nevertheless, now that intuitive eating is a part of me, I would never wish to unlearn it. For one, the freedom I have in terms of my food choices and beliefs about my body are invaluable. And my relationship with movement and myself is in a place I never thought possible. Regardless of my own benefits with using the framework, I ultimately want to share it with the world because I believe everyone deserves to feel this type of freedom… Freedom with themselves and the way they honor their physical, mental, and emotional needs.
To define intuitive eating, it is a dynamic self-care framework of eating that integrates instinct, emotional and rational thought. Its focus is on healing your relationship with food, body and mind and the mission of intuitive eating is to help you regain trust with your body, to drop the shame and guilt with food, to learn how to quiet all the external noise of diet culture and to turn inward to be able to listen to what your body is telling you. Intuitive eating is a process of honoring your health and body by getting in tune with the messages your body is communicating to you in order to meet your physical and emotional needs. Through intuitive eating, you are able to find joy with food again, to enjoy movement again, to feel good and confident in your body again, and ultimately, to take back your life.
One of the reasons I believe so many people have not heard of intuitive eating is that it is misunderstood and therefore, not enough people give it a fair shot. There are 10 principles after all, and each one is somewhat complex. But once you ease into the process, and continue working through the principles with enough self-compassion, the complexity lessens and you wonder why you never heard of it before. Here is a list of some of the main intuitive eating myths that I come across, and the actual truths behind them.
Myth 1: “Intuitive eating is simply ‘not dieting.’”
A lot of people think that intuitive eating is simply ‘not dieting.’ They feel it is eating whatever you want, screw dieting, “I’m going to eat chips, ice cream, burgers and fries all the time.” It’s true, intuitive eating is about allowing all foods back into your life. But the real truth is, intuitive eating is a self-care framework of eating with 10 principles, not just one.
When we are simply “not dieting” that is certainly part of it, specifically while following Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality, and Principle 3: Make Peace with Food. But intuitive eating involves SO much more than that, such as understanding our emotions, tuning into our body, and healing our relationship with movement.
Myth 2: “If I wait too long to eat, I will get overly hungry and then binge eat. This means I did it wrong.”
Intuitive Eating Principle 2 is Honor Your Hunger. There is no right or wrong way to learn intuitive eating. It is a process and it’s about finding comfort in the grey area, which means there is no pass or fail grade.
In the past, it may have become a habit for you to wait until you’re overly hungry, and therefore you overate or binged on a frequent basis. Overeating or binge eating isn’t going to vanish overnight. It takes some time. It’s important to give yourself compassion and learn to live in that grey area. You will continue to improve as long as you keep at it.
Myth 3: “I will lose all self-control if I allow myself to eat whatever I want, whenever I want.”
This myth is referring to Intuitive Eating Principle 3: Make Peace with Food, where you give yourself unconditional permission to eat. The truth is, when you allow yourself to eat whatever you want, whenever you want it, this process leads to habituation, a diminished psychological or emotional response to a frequently repeated stimulus. When you expose yourself more frequently to a previously forbidden food, the response to that food becomes neutralized. I often ask my clients to imagine if they were only allowed to eat pizza and ice cream for every meal, for a week straight, what would happen? They tell me that they’d in fact, get tired of eating pizza and ice cream, and not want to touch the stuff by the end of the week. That is habituation.
After listening to diet culture for so long, you start to believe that your body needs to be a smaller size and that the solution to shrinking your body is to restrict yourself and follow endless food rules. This cannot be further from the truth. Intuitive eating is about throwing out all the food rules. When you start to practice eating intuitively, you will likely overeat certain foods that you’ve been restricting. But rest assured, this feeling of loss-of-control will lessen the more you practice unconditional permission to eat.
Myth 4: “Food is only for fuel. My eating experience does not need to be pleasurable.”
Diet culture negatively impacts our quality-of-life in various ways, and decreased pleasure and satisfaction with eating is one of those ways it does so. The truth is, eating food that you enjoy and that makes you feel good is a way to connect with your body more deeply. Satisfaction is in fact, at the hub of the intuitive eating wheel. If you are not satisfied with a meal or snack, you are likely to eat more and seek something else that is satisfying, regardless of how full you are.
Intuitive Eating Principle 5 is Discover the Satisfaction Factor. In order to figure out what foods you actually enjoy and to get the most enjoyment out of the eating process, engage all of your five senses to discover all the sensual qualities that food has to offer. With practice, you will pick up on the foods you like and enjoy the most.
Myth 5: “You should be able to stop at comfortable fullness every time you eat.”
Intuitive Eating Principle 6 is Feel Your Fullness. When you are early in the intuitive eating process, you are still healing from years of dieting and disordered eating. If you have gone YEARS denying your hunger, you are not going to instantaneously jump to respecting fullness every time you eat. And the truth is, you shouldn’t, because there is a crucial healing phase that needs to happen before you get there. So, get comfortable with living in that grey area and you’ll get there.
Myth 6: “Body respect and acceptance means you have to love your body all the time.”
Intuitive Eating Principle 8 is Respect Your Body. Becoming neutral with and respecting your body means accepting your body the way it is. It means you quit fighting with reality and start appreciating the genetic blueprint you were born with. The truth is, you don’t need to love every part of your body, all the time. Instead, focus on accepting and respecting your body more consistently so that you want to take care of it. I like to ask my clients, what are some ways you can respect and take care of your body today?
Myth 7: “If I accept my body the way it is, I am giving up my goal to change my relationship with food and my body.”
When you have the belief that your body is ugly or that you are not worthy of adequate treatment, remember that those are only thoughts. When you hold on to those beliefs (repeated thoughts), you will act in ways that will align with those beliefs, which ultimately keeps your body in that exact same place. On the other hand, once you start doing the work to change your body image (how you view your body), you signify to the universe that you are worthy. Your actions will then align with your new beliefs, and your body will evolve into one you are more comfortable in.
Myth 8: "It’s only exercise if I sweat”
Intuitive Eating Principle 9 is Movement – Feel the Difference. Some people believe that exercise is not worth it, or benefits are not seen if you’re not sweating and panting profusely (or if you aren’t performing at least 45 minutes of intense activity). The truth is, all movement is beneficial, no sweat needed. You do not need to perform rigorous workouts in order to obtain health benefits from your movement. Simple activities such as walking, gardening, and mowing the lawn are all fair game. As much as 30 minutes of simple movement every day, broken up throughout the day provides massive health benefits. What are you going to do to get some movement in today?
Myth 9: “Intuitive eating is anti-weight loss.”
Dieting for the purpose of weight loss is the strongest predictor of weight gain. The truth is, you may or may not lose weight after becoming an intuitive eater. Intuitive eating brings your body to a weight that it is supposed to be at and a weight that is the healthiest for you. The goal of intuitive eating isn’t for weight loss and weight loss should not be the focus. However, desiring weight loss as a byproduct is perfectly fine and normal.
Myth 10: “Intuitive eating can be used to achieve weight loss”
There are bits and pieces of the intuitive eating language that have been finagled by diet culture and used as a means to control one’s weight and hunger. For example, “checking in with your hunger signals” has been used as a way to control portions and curb overeating.
This representation of intuitive eating is in fact, unethical to intuitive eating’s original purpose. The truth is, intuitive eating is 100% anti-intentional weight loss. Which means that the active pursuit of weight loss is NOT the goal. If you don’t completely let go of weight loss as the goal, it will likely be a challenge to find true peace with food, body, and mind.
Myth 11: “There is no structure with intuitive eating.”
It’s true, intuitive eating isn’t some rigid diet or plan. Far from! However, there is still a process to follow. For example, when beginning the practice, it’s important to drop the diet mentality, therefore principle one is the first place to start.
The next place will depend on what would best suit your needs. For example, if you have a really hard time sensing your hunger and fullness, this is a practical place to go next. However, it is important to honor your hunger first (Principle 2), in order to truly feel your fullness (Principle 6), therefore Principle 2 should be done prior to moving onto Principle 6.
And lastly, Intuitive Eating Principle 10 is Gentle Nutrition. This principle is strategically the very last principle, because if you focus on nutrition too early in the process, you may likely neglect to give yourself unconditional permission to eat all foods (principle 3). In other words, it is important to heal your relationship with food prior to moving onto gentle nutrition, so that learning to balance your nutrition is not looked at as a diet or more rules to follow.
Myth 12: “I can become an intuitive eater overnight.”
This is a BIG misconception about intuitive eating, that when someone decides to become an intuitive eater, they can simply take it up overnight. The truth is, intuitive eating entails so much more than simply acting on intuition. It involves getting in touch with what our body is telling us, working through the voices in our heads that dictate what we should or shouldn’t eat, undoing all of what diet culture has engrained into us, eating mindfully, and much more.
Truly becoming an intuitive eater is something that takes time and typically requires extra support along the way from a certified intuitive eating professional. If you are considering, or have decided that intuitive eating is the right path for you (because it likely is) there are options you can take to get there. Besides following other intuitive eating professionals on social media and unfollowing those who represent diets and diet culture, or reading the slew of wonderful books out there on intuitive eating (my favorite being Intuitive Eating, Fourth Edition, written by the founders themselves, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch), I offer a few options myself.
If you’ve struggled with the dieting cycle, you’re exhausted and worn out, you feel stuck, and you want to stop this cycle so you can finally feel at peace with food, your body, and yourself, and not to mention lead by example for your children and the rest of your family, I have both a group coaching program, and a one:one program you can check out.
It's called Freedom From Dieting and it’s my coaching program where a bunch of women with similar experiences come together, and with the help of my coaching and accountability, stop this generational cycle of chronic dieting, and finally heal in order to achieve your health goals, feel empowered, feel supported, and grow together in ways you’ve never thought possible. And better yet, you’ll have the reassurance that you won’t pass this down to your children or grandchildren, and you can lead by example for your entire family. To check out this group click here.
Intuitive eating is a framework that I believe is so misunderstood because it is vastly different from what we are used to in this culture, which includes all the diets, restricting ourselves, demonizing food and therefore fearing food, talking poorly about our bodies, and all this is due to diet culture. So, when questioning the intuitive eating process, remember these 12 myths to help you see that intuitive eating is a gentle process that is likely right for you and your treasured family.
Ready to start your intuitive eating journey? Click here.
