Weight loss (Diets) or Intuitive Eating are they one in the same?
If you, like many of my clients, feel like weight loss will solve all of your problems, my challenge to you is this: Consider shifting your perspective from wanting to change your body to changing how you feel about your body. It takes time, but it’s worth it.
Let’s talk about how we keep seeing pseudoscientific “wellness” claims that are, ultimately, really just about weight loss. Otherwise known as diets versus Intuitive Eating.
For those not familiar with this concept, intuitive eating is an evidence based approach to eating that was originally designed to help chronic dieters get back in tune with their body's unique needs, rather than rely on external food rules to determine what, when, and how much they eat. If you’ve ever dieted, you probably know that getting some of those rules out of your head is tough, even when you’re no longer actively trying to lose weight.
If we are using an intuitive-eating framework, then ultimately our goal is to learn to use our internal wisdom to decide what, when, and how much to eat, not external “diet” rules such as no eating past 8PM or limit your carb intake. When you first heard of intuitive eating it may have sounded like a hunger fullness diet, but it's a lot more nuanced than that. For example, maybe it’s 11 a.m. and you aren't hungry for lunch yet, but you know that this is your only opportunity to eat a meal before 5 p.m. Should you listen to your lack of hunger and skip that opportunity to eat? The intuitive eating argument would likely say no. Also perhaps it’s 9 p.m., and even though you’ve had more than your “estimated calorie needs” for the day, you’re still hungry. Do you just go to bed and ignore your body’s hunger signals? The intuitive-eating approach and myself would say no.
In other words, intuitive eating is definitely about listening to the body’s hunger and fullness cues, but it’s not only about that. It’s also about the practicality of eating when you’re not hungry because you might not have a chance to eat for several more hours. And it’s also about satisfaction—that is, eating what you really want to eat simply because it will satisfy you to do so.
For example, society tells us that chips are unhealthy, but for you they are a good, satisfying snack, and you may feel deprived if you don't get to have them. With intuitive eating, you can choose to have the chips and not feel guilty about it, even though diet culture says that we should. The idea here is that by paying attention to what your body and mind are asking you for, we will be satisfied rather than deprived and left craving foods that you aren’t “allowed” to eat because of a diet you’re following.
Right now you may be thinking, This sounds great; I’d give anything to have a better healthier relationship with food, but I also want to control my weight, and for that I do have to follow rules about what I eat. It’s a dilemma I hear a lot:
Is it possible to practice intuitive eating and have a healthier relationship with food, while also wanting to lose or maintain your weight?
The short answer: No, Not really, to be honest. Now let me explain why.
The main reason that the dual pursuit of intentional weight loss and intuitive eating is tricky is this: When we start to focus on losing weight, at some point we have to make a food or fitness decision that overrides our body’s natural cues. In other words, the very act of pursuing weight loss means that there will likely be a restriction of some kind. This contradicts multiple core principles of intuitive eating, including “reject the diet mentality” and “make peace with food.” According to intuitive-eating book and website, making peace with food involves giving “yourself unconditional permission to eat. [Because] if you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing.” I’ve seen this happen time and time again. When we are trying to lose weight, we often have to micromanage our food intake, which is essentially the opposite of intuitive eating.
Most of want to take an intuitive-eating approach to our well-being but also are not 100% happy with our body.
Here’s the thing: One of the core principles of intuitive eating is to respect your body or, at the very least, learn to be more neutral about it. One could argue that intentional weight loss is contradictory to body respect, because if you unconditionally respect your body, you wouldn’t go to so much trouble to make it smaller.
For example in the book on intuitive eating Evelyn Tribole gives the example of shoe size when explaining this concept. We wouldn't try to squeeze a size-10 foot into a size-6 shoe, right? For the most part, we accept our shoe size as something neutral and move on. Why, then, do we expect anything different of our bodies? We are sold that idea that a size 6 is somehow better than a size 10, a size 10 is better than a size 12, a size 12 is better than a size 24...and so on. Diet culture also sells us the idea that smaller isn’t just better; it’s healthier.
Because of weight discrimination and stigma, those in smaller bodies treated better in this society than someone in a larger body would be. This means that some don’t have to worry about being harassed by ignorant people on planes or scolded about weight by a doctor. So even though research supports the idea that we can pursue health at every size and that most diets fail, we still live in a reality in which people with thin bodies are privileged over those who don’t.
So my answer to the question is: No, intuitive eating and weight loss aren’t really compatible. This is because intuitive eating and weight loss are not answers to the same question. They are, in and of themselves, their own distinct goals. Can you work toward two different goals at the same? Often, yes. But when one goal requires behavior changes that the other goal requires you to forgo, the answer is no.
The truth is intuitive eating is its own journey, and it takes a lot of work to get to a place where you can really let go of the diet mentality. But before getting there, you have to make a huge emotional leap along with a massive behavioral change, which is to let go of the desire to control your weight.
