An Intuitive Eating Word of Caution

Among other things, I'm a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor.  My clients come to me because they want to learn Intuitive Eating (IE). However, I'm also a Certified Professional Life Coach and what I really want to share a few bumps in the road I hit on my Intuitive Eating journey so you can avoid them on yours.

First up, jumping into the full permission phase of intuitive eating (because it’s awesome!) but without knowing anything about how my relationship to food and body developed.

For anyone, what you are eating and how you are moving, whether it's intuitive or restrictive, are the behaviors you have, which means they are the last step in the process when we make choices. But what is happening at the beginning?

What comes first, are the thoughts and feelings that arise from your beliefs about your life and your body. These thoughts and beliefs are what impact our actions. 

If your core belief is "I suck" then no amount of changing your diet or exercise or intuitive eating is going to change that. And if your core belief is “I am not ok and I need to change”, then doing something you have been taught to fear (eating what you want) can be scary.

Ironically, Intuitive Eating is supposed to be about connecting with your thoughts and feelings and exploring acceptance and self-compassion and how to respect our bodies and deal with our feelings. But if you don’t know how to do those things at the beginning, then IE can also put us in a bind if we start eating freely while also holding the belief that eating is bad for us.

We also want to believe this permission is “true” and not a fairy tale and yet we may not believe it is really possible. It absolutely is true - you really can eat what you want and when you want - but this assumes you are attuned to knowing what you want and how your body feels and you are aware of all the subtle factors at play that might interfere with your knowing.

It also assumes that you believe your body will know what to to do and trust it, not that you believe your body is going to freak out and be unwell.

If I had known then what I know now, I would not have jumped into IE full boar because I did not have any trust in myself or the process.

This had to do with how my brain and body had been conditioned from a very young age. Intellectually, I learned right away and totally understood and accepted that my body, no matter what size, was nothing to fear and I’d been misled all my life, but it's not like the cells in my body or my heart believed that right at the start.

I later realized that I was trying to be something I wasn't when I was dieting and fit in and I was still trying to be something I wasn't while not dieting. I was trying to be ok with the whole process when I was really really uncomfortable.  I hadn't yet learned how to listen to what my body was trying to tell me, including that it was uncomfortable, which is pretty much what the issue had been all along.

I hadn’t yet released the fear and shame and old programming that were the real things driving my behavior with food and movement.

This is what I wish I had known before I started - that my behavior with food was utterly tied to my feelings and emotions and thoughts and beliefs and was also wired into my body.

My food and my body wasn't my problem, my sad and pissed off inner 5-year-old and repressed anger was the problem. My shame and my fear and lack of acceptance and self-compassion were the problems. My lack of understanding about the complexity of my weight story and all the factors that were operating beneath the surface were part of the problem.

So if you are starting on your Intuitive Eating journey and it resonates with you- your instincts are absolutely leading you in the right direction.  It's a huge step and a great tool.  But chances are you will also want to go back to the beginning and explore what got you to where you are in the first place, with lots of compassion and non-judgment.

Then, you might want to take your time and learn more about all the factors that could be impacting your relationship with food and body and don’t assume it’s just how you eat that is the biggest issue. There is always going to be something that led you to where you are and how you eat/move.

Be sure to acknowledge and accept where you are in your healing and with your body - no matter where that might be. It’s all ok. Learn how to check in with your body and honor what it tells you.

And then as we calm down and start to trust, we can finally start to release the old programming from our minds and from our bodies and consciously install new programming. 

If you'd like to explore your healing journey from a mind, body and spirit approach and learn about both Intuitive Eating and what it looks like to go beyond Intuitive Eating, I invite you to sign up for a free 30-minute call .

I'm happy to help you uncover the places that might be calling for your attention so that your healing might go more smoothly than mine.