MINDFUL EATING VS INTUITIVE EATING: AM I PRACTICING ONE OR BOTH?
A friend and I were recently having a conversation about Intuitive Eating when she said to me “I’ve tried to eat intuitively. I just can’t do it. I’ve tried to eat slow and pay attention to how I feel. It’s just not working for me right now.” It made me realize that Intuitive Eating can sound a lot like eating mindfully. And they can be practiced together, in fact practicing one usually leads to another. But they are actually very distinct mindsets and ways of thinking about food, and I would use them very differently with clients. So to help you decide where to invest your time and energy (since both are incredibly valuable in this day and age) let me break them down for you.
Mindful Eating
When most people hear the phrase intuitive eating, what they usually end up thinking about is mindful eating. Mindful eating is the practice of being present before, during, and after the act of eating. You’re probably thinking, uh how can you NOT be present while eating? I’m personally present at every meal shoveling that food in my face as fast as I can! Being present means you are focused on the act of eating, the experience of the food and the meal, and utilizing all your senses. Raise your hand if you’re a distracted eater. 🙋🏼♀️ 🙋🏼♀️ You say no? Do you eat in the car? Do you eat while working at the office? Do you eat while using your cell phone, watching tv, reading a book, snacking while cooking even? Then go ahead and raise your hand my friend.
Separating the eating experience from other activities and being mindful/present can aid in
Rediscovering the satisfaction factor
Honoring your hunger and fullness cues
Improving digestion eliminating symptoms like gas, bloating, and indigestion
Identifying food sensitivities or more importantly foods that make you feel good
Intuitive Eating
Mindfulness is a huge step in the process of becoming an intuitive eater but it’s not the only piece. Learning to eat intuitively requires turning a blind eye to all the external cues telling you how, what, and when to eat. Turning your mind OFF and letting your body tell you what to eat. We get hundreds of signals every day from our bodies telling us how well we are taking care of them. Feeling tired, sluggish, bloated, uncomfortable, tense in different areas? Your body is telling you that it needs something!
Evelyn Triobole and Elyse Resch are the two dietitians who coined the phrase “Intuitive Eating” and created a set of 10 principles to reconnect you with your body and find freedom from food. After years of practice and watching client after client struggle with weight cycling, yoyo dieting, and suffering from poor relationships with food, they dedicated the rest of their careers to developing the 10 Intuitive Eating Principles. It is a mental, emotional, and physical journey. This eating philosophy has been studied since the 90s when it was created and is effective at improving eating, weight, and psychological aspects of your life. The reason this works, is because the process helps you figure out to tune back into those super important and helpful physiological cues and signals that our bodies use to communicate with us.
So where does mindful eating fit into the equation? It is an important part of many of the principles including honor your hunger, feel your fullness, discover the satisfaction factor, and honor your feelings without using food. Mindfulness is a skill that we develop while working through the principles, and mastery of it can give us a ton of insight to ourselves and our eating styles. You can’t make it through the process without mindfulness, but it is not enough on its own to master intuitive eating.
If you're interested in learning more about mindfulness practices or the Intuitive Eating philosophy there are two fantastic books, both written by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, that I highly recommend:
Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works (found here on amazon)
The Intuitive Eating Workbook:10 Principles to Nourishing a Healthy Relationship With Food (found here on amazon)
Working through these books can be transformational but sometimes it takes a little more. I love guiding my clients through the process and helping them discover respect for themselves, their bodies, and the food that nourishes them. It would be my pleasure to hear your story and walk you through the process of becoming an intuitive eater once again. To book your nutrition consult and learn a little more just click the link below!
