One of the most common questions I get from clients is how to make “healthy choices,” without trying to control—which really means restrict—their food choices,

 (ya know, since restriction/control isn’t usually sustainable, and often leads to rebellious behaviors, like binge-eating, emotional eating, etc.).

This is where many coaches, myself included, describe the primary behaviors of “Intuitive Eating—”

which are essentially, listening to your body for guidance in making food decisions, rather than rigidly depending on your mind or an external health guru to tell you what to eat.

In essence, Intuitive Eating helps women get back in touch with their biological instincts around food after years of dieting or restricting— so if you’re new to these ideas, I highly recommend you pick up a copy of this book ASAP to learn more.

That being said,

Intuitive Eating is not, in my opinion, “the answer” to feeling-crazy-around-food— nor will it necessarily fix your feeling “out of control” around food in and of itself.

This is primarily because practicing Intuitive Eating doesn’t necessarily do anything about your thinking — that is, your diet mentality— which is where the root of this problem really lies.  

The problem is NOT intuitive eating vs. traditional dieting/restriction, because the problem is NOT what we put in our mouth at all—

The problem is…

…that we think there’s a “right” and “wrong” way to eat to begin with
…that we believe our weight, and thus what we eat, is the marker of our value as women
…that we don’t trust ourselves around food
…that our performance with food is more important to us than almost any others of our daily activities
…that the pressure we put on ourselves to be thin is SO great, that we can’t stop thinking about (or eating) food, no matter what we do.

Doing something different with food, is NOT what solves these problems — only thinking differently can do that.

On that note, here are some of my favorite posts about how “Normal Eating” differs from Intuitive Eating (including what many health professionals get wrong about Intuitive Eating…)

1.  A Common Intuitive Eating Pitfall (aka the Hunger-and-Fullness Diet)
2.  #1 Reason Intuitive Eating Fails (on forgetting what “intuition” actually means)
3.  3 Myths about Intuitive Eating (& the dangers of Intuitive Eating for weight loss)

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