When I decided to stop dieting and stop engaging in disordered eating behaviours, I felt an overwhelming sense of fear:

What will happen to my body? Will I just gain more and more weight every day? Will the weight gain eventually stop? Why do I feel like I literally can’t stop eating?? Somebody take this bag of chips away from me!

To be fair, I tried to stop dieting multiple times before I actually followed through with it. That overwhelming panic held me back for months. I kept going back to my “safe zone” of tracking my meals and exercising to “burn off calories”.

I knew that these habits weren’t serving me. They made me feel obsessed with food and my body. They made me engage in very disordered behaviours, such as binge eating, severe restriction and other purging behaviours… Not fun. Not the life I wanted to live.

In this article, I’m going to break down 3 tips that helped me to keep moving forward with my intuitive eating journey. To not go back to my old habits no matter how tempting it was at the time. My intention for this article is that you, my friend, will feel a spark of hope that you can do this, too. Because you can.

3 Tips to navigate intuitive eating despite the weight gain

#1: Understand why weight gain happens (in most cases)

It’s really important to understand that your body isn’t trying to hurt you or be mean to you by putting on weight. There is a scientific reason this is happening.

As soon as we start restricting food or even just thinking about restricting food, the “mammal part” of our brain lights up.

This part of our brain is the remainder of ancient times. It’s the part of our brain that regulates our hunger, fullness, metabolism and other functions that happen without us actively thinking about it. It basically takes care of the household in our body. It’s trying to keep us well-fed, rested, hydrated and functioning.

It’s number one job is for us to survive, which means that we need enough energy through food to do so.

We are all here, because our ancestors had this gene, that part of their brains that kept them hunting for food when food wasn’t readily available. That part of their brain that slowed down their metabolism to be able to persevere and survive long period of famines. If it wasn’t for that mammal part of our brain, we wouldn’t be here today.

Now of course, that part of our brain doesn’t understand that our culture teaches us to restrict food on purpose.

As soon as we restrict food even for just one day (juice cleanse anyone? *face palm*), or just think about maybe restricting food in the future, our mammal brain lights up all the red flags and screams: OMG WE ARE GOING TO BE IN A FAMINE!

When starting to eat intuitively, you may find yourself feeling like a bottomless pit. You keep eating and eating without actually feeling satisfied.

This is happening, because your “mammal brain” thinks the following: “YAS, we found food. We need to get all this food in us and store it all up, so we can survive the next famine that will for sure happen.” You have trained your body to consistently prepare for the next famine aka diet/food restriction.

The only way to calm your body down and help your mammal brain understand that you are not in a feast or famine situation is to eat consistently and as much as your body asks for.

This helps your body in balancing out hunger and fullness and bring your metabolism up to speed again. You need to keep reassuring yourself and your mammal brain that food will always be available and you won’t go on another diet in the future.

This is when the weight gain will come to an end and your body will settle at its own ideal weight set point. No more yo-yo-ing up and down, it’s fantastic!

#2: Practice self care like your life depends on it

This goes without saying: Your self care has never been more important than it is now… I am not talking about bubble baths and face masks – unless that’s your thing. What I mean is that it is SO important to find ways to take care of yourself that aren’t rooted in weight loss or changing your body.

True self care is geared towards feeling good, mentally and physically. Not weighing less. This was a big learning lesson for me.

Everything you do for yourself on a daily basis should have the intention of self care. It’s a very delicate thing to navigate if you have a background of dieting. It can seem like eating a lot of food and resting/not exercising is neglecting your self care, when in reality it is exactly what your body needs.

Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to rest and eat a lot of food. Your body will thank you later.

#3: Listen to your body regardless of your weight

This was probably the most important piece that fell into place in my journey. Regardless of my body weight, I reminded myself that I still need to eat, rest and take care of myself.

I used to punish myself for gaining weight. I would beat myself up, restrict more food, exercise harder and be extra mean to myself… But guess what, that never ever helped me feel better. It made everything worse.

As soon as I truly understood that my body is sending out its signals for a reason, I learned to listen regardless of my weight gain. I ate when I was hungry, no questions asked. I rested when I felt tired. My body and I slowly became a team and stopped being enemies.

Listening to my hunger and my need for rest reduced stress levels big time and gave my body the signal that it is safe and food is abundant again. For good this time.

It felt as if my body finally understood that food is not scarce anymore and we’re allowed rest. That is when everything changed, including my weight finally balancing out for good.

Where are you currently at in your journey? Have you given intuitive eating a try? Let me know in the comments, I always love hearing from you!

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