My Top 3 Intuitive Eating Tips for Beginners

If you are anything like me, you are overwhelmed with all the nutrition- and health information that is accessible. There are countless articles, websites and social media accounts that put out information on how to eat healthy and live a healthy life. Most of them are contradicting each other.

I would change my opinion on “the perfect diet” on a weekly basis. There is just too much information to navigate. Every day, I would come across suggestions like: “How to eat Keto for optimal health” or “Which foods to avoid if you want to be healthy” or “Try this meal plan to finally get back on track”. It was confusing to say the least.

With my history of various eating disorders, I came across Intuitive Eating a couple of years ago and it instantly spoke to me. However, being a type A perfectionist, I wanted to do this Intuitive Eating thing perfectly, or not at all. (Where are my fellow Type A sisters at?!) What I wasn’t ready to understand for so long was that Intuitive Eating is not a “diet” or a weight loss plan.

It is a way of eating that allows you to actually stop obsessing over food and think less about what to eat and how much to eat. Basically, it is a way for you to get back in touch with your body’s individual needs and desires. It is about giving the power back to your body and letting it decide what to eat and how much to eat, without you having to micromanage or track it.

In this article, I am going to break down my Top 3 Intuitive Eating tips for beginners, so I can help you:

• Get out of the diet-binge-restrict cycle
• Stop sabotaging your health with restriction, over-exercise and “falling off the wagon”
• Learn to embrace the non-diet approach to food
• Stop feeling guilty for eating “too much” or “the wrong foods”
• Learn to find balance with food once and for all

Tip 1: Stopping the black-and-white approach to food

Remove the labels and moral values that you place on foods. Kale isn’t the saint and chocolate isn’t the devil. Kale is just kale, a leafy green vegetable. Chocolate is just chocolate, a yummy concoction of cacao butter and sugar. There is no right or wrong way of eating intuitively, because there are no right or wrong foods to consume – unless of course they cause an allergic reaction in your body, which should be the only reason you stay away from certain foods.

Once you internalize that no food is evil, you can slowly re-introduce formerly forbidden foods back into your life and see how you feel. Remember that you want to live and stay in the grey area, not the black-and-white space. The grey area is where all foods fit and you can choose your food based on cravings, hunger levels and satisfaction factors.

I suggest you start with one food each week that you bring back. For example, this week, you might bring chocolate or ice cream back into your life. Enjoy the taste, let it sit in your mouth and melt on your tongue. You will re-learn to get pleasure and joy from food. It’s incredible! You might eat a lot of it (totally fine, see Tip 2 for more on this!) or just a couple of portions (also totally fine, as long as you don’t stop yourself out of guilt, but you truly are satisfied).

Tip 2: Navigating the food guilt

I love talking about this, because I learned so much from my own experience.

The food guilt is REAL yo.

You have trained your brain to feel guilty, sad or anxious when consuming certain foods or certain quantities of foods. The guilt can be overpowering when starting out on your Intuitive Eating journey. You might go through a period of eating large quantities of food and feeling like you are always overeating.

This is a very common and normal part of the journey. The key is to lean into it and let it happen. You need to re-train your brain to stop feeling guilty, sad or anxious based on what you eat. You also need to un-learn your former behaviors and thoughts about food and stop putting food on a pedestal.

Over time, as you focus on not feeling guilty, but instead focus on enjoying your food and letting it satisfy your needs, your body will bring your hunger and fullness-levels back into balance. The time window is different for everyone, but I would definitely suggest to give yourself at least a full year, before you re-assess how balanced your approach to food has become.

Tip 3: Knowing that Intuitive Eating is not about being “on track” or “off track”

As you start focusing on eating intuitively, you might still deal with your “diet-brain” as I like to call it. You have taught yourself to feel as if you are “on track” or “off track” with your eating. This can result in eating way past fullness when you are “off track”, because you tell yourself: Screw it! I am already way off track, so I might as well keep eating!

Let me tell you, I dealt with this mindset for many, many years. Once you stop this mindset in its tracks and remind yourself that THERE IS NO MORE WAGON, you will be able to eat in a way that feels good to you. Personally, I feel great eating a large variety of foods (and that includes SUGAR – gasp! -), because that is what makes me feel great. You have to give yourself time to find out what a non-diet approach means for your individual life.

In order for your body to give you signals and let you know what it needs, you have to get our of your body’s way. You have to understand that there will be no more diet in the future. You are not on a diet right now and you won’t be ever again, if you truly trust in this process.

[Disclaimer: The content of this article is for informational and educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, health care or eating disorder treatment.]