Weight Loss with Intuitive Eating: Why Does This Make People So Mad?
/Intuitive eating is a framework to help people heal their relationship with food. People attracted to Intuitive Eating come from a variety of disconnected eating experiences. Because of their fraught relationship with food, and the strong impact of diet culture, people often want to know "Will I achieve weight loss with Intuitive Eating?".
Social media influencers who haven’t experienced weight stigma will say yes. Health practitioners who know how harmful attempting weight loss can be will say no.
There is also a weird thing that happens when we enter the body acceptance space where it suddenly becomes blasphemy to discuss weight loss (just look at Adele and you’ll know what I mean). It makes people very angry.
This is understandable because weight loss is an emotional topic and it’s complicated. Diet culture has also caused much suffering for people in all different-sized bodies and we don’t want it to cause any more.
But to get yelled at for co-opting Intuitive Eating for intentional weight loss is not going to help you. So let's not get mad at people for asking the question. Let's listen to their stories without judgment and explore how to support people in feeling better in their bodies.
How can we empower people to heal their relationship with their bodies if they can't even talk about how they are feeling?
To try to understand where people are coming from, let’s consider; why do people want to lose weight in the first place? Also, what is appealing about Intuitive Eating for those who are attracted to it? These are the questions that will help people get to the root of their disconnected eating. It will also help them put the weight loss question to rest.
Why do people want to lose weight?
There are many different reasons but it often includes one of the following:
They want to look good and were taught that thinner is better.
They want to feel good and were taught that thinner is better.
They want to be healthy and were taught that thinner is better.
They want to be happy and think they need weight loss to get there.
People are always telling them that thinner is better.
They compare themselves to other people and think that thinner is better.
They are already thin but think that thinner is better.
We have been taught ad nauseam that life is perfect when you are thin. We get this message from parents, friends, teachers, doctors, and the media.
How ironic because it doesn't appear to be true that being in a smaller body saves you from life's challenges. I know as many people in small bodies who have gotten a divorce as people in big bodies. Or had financial trouble. Or health issues. You get the idea.
But if people told you that thinner is better, you are going to do what you can to stay thinner. Most of us learned that eating less and moving more was the solution to being thinner. So that is what we did.
What also doesn't get talked about very often is what we do with food as a coping mechanism for survival. For way too many people on this planet, trying to control food and body is a way to ease childhood pain and trauma. This critical point is often missed because people are too busy body-shaming each other.
Take covid eating for example. “Who gained the covid-19?”
Turning to food to deal with life is actually a brilliant attempt by our brains to deal with life’s complexity. Rather than shame ourselves for it, we need to better understand our behavior.
“Weight management” can start as a way to feel safe and to fit into our families when we are kids. Or we may have overeaten as a way to soothe and comfort ourselves during traumatic experiences.
We need to understand why we want weight loss. Then we can revisit whether you can achieve weight loss with Intuitive Eating.
Why are people attracted to Intuitive Eating?
As I mentioned, people attracted to Intuitive Eating come for a reason. They have some kind of a dysfunctional relationship with food. If you didn't, you'd already be an intuitive eater.
Some people have restricted food for years and want to know how to stop. Stop people have engaged in punishing exercise for decades and want to know if there is a better way to be healthy. And some people binge and overeat regularly and want to learn how to listen to their bodies.
Trying to lose weight or fit in is what leads us to an uncomfortable relationship with food in the first place. The number one precursor of an eating disorder is going on a diet. You aren’t going to get an eating disorder without starting there in some way or another.
If people weren't trying to lose weight, they wouldn't track calories or count points. They wouldn't judge foods as good or bad or push themselves to work out when they don't want to. If people weren't trying to lose weight they wouldn't eat foods they don’t like or eat less than their bodies need. They also wouldn't binge in reaction to restrictions. Or they wouldn't binge because the foods they eat are not satisfying.
Dieting introduces shame, guilt, and judgment. Intuitive Eating then comes along and says you can eat what you want when you want it. The principles of Intuitive Eating also suggest that you don't have to move your body unless it's fun.
You can only imagine the joy and freedom that comes to chronic dieters if they embrace this new paradigm.
Intuitive eating is a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. It offers a path out of negative and self-critical thinking about food.
Fun and joy with food and movement? Is that even possible? Most people don't even know what feels like. They have spent a lifetime not listening to their bodies. They follow external rules and the latest best-selling book when it comes to food and movement.
Still, the idea of needing or wanting weight loss is rooted in our psyches. It's only natural people also want to know if they will find weight loss with Intuitive Eating.
Can Weight Loss with Intuitive Eating Co-exist?
People exploring Intuitive Eating want to find freedom from their challenges with food. Many of these people also still want what they wanted in the first place, which is to be thinner for some reason.
So they come to coaching and ask, can I experience weight loss with Intuitive eating?
What actually matters more is figuring out when you first learned your body was a problem. How long you have been trying to fix your body? What brought you to this crossroads in the first place?
It’s also important to discern the difference between the messages of diet culture telling you you are not enough and the messages from your inner voice directing you to live a life you love.
Whatever prompted you to try and control your eating has actually been your problem all along. What you do with food (binge, obsess or restrict) is a symptom of how you are dealing with your inner discomfort.
Before you concern yourself with weight loss, you need to understand the dynamics at play underneath your relationship with food. You also need to get on the same team as your body. You need to make friends with your body. You need to attune to your body. You need to learn to listen to your body.
You need to love and respect your body and you need to learn to trust your body. When that happens, your weight will settle where it (and you!) feel comfortable.
That is what Intuitive Eating helps achieve.
A normal weight is a weight that fluctuates with the seasons. It varies with illness and health and with bigger and smaller life stresses. A normal weight is easy to maintain and does not need an extra effort that doesn't feel natural to you.
A normal weight varies from person to person even if you are the same height. A normal weight has dozens of variables that impact how it came to be. For example, weight is affected by what your mother ate while you were in the womb. Weight is affected by where you live and your access to quality food. It is affected by the prevalence of environmental toxins or the culture you were raised in.
Each body and every body's experience is unique. There is no way we can compare one body to another. And there is no way to know if it is a healthy or normal weight for a body, based only on what size they are.
I was a health actuary for 20 years. I'm sad that actuaries created the insurance height and weight charts. Actuaries love variables and assumptions. But we sure didn't refine those tables very much.
That's kind of the point. There are hundreds of variables that affect our weight. It would be impossible to create a chart that includes them all. There is also a very wide range of what bodies look like, and they are all “normal”.
Because of our diversity, there is no single approach that can guarantee sustainable weight loss for all.
Including intuitive eating.
No one can ever promise you that Intuitive eating will cause you to lose weight. Sometimes people lose weight while practicing Intuitive Eating. Sometimes people gain weight while practicing and sometimes they stay the same.
The Paradox of Weight Loss with Intuitive Eating
Now, remember, no one has to lose weight to be happy, and losing weight will not solve all your problems.
And ironically, if we try to use Intuitive Eating for intentional weight loss, we will block it from happening.
Why does this happen? Because it means we have put too much importance into our weight. We have attached to an outcome. As soon as we attach to an outcome, we have narrowed the world of infinite possibilities down to one.
Now we end up with too much urgency surrounding the perceived problem. “If weight loss is the only way I can be happy, well then it better happen now!”
We end up so focused on the weight as the root of all issues, that we are blind to the real opportunities for growth. We commit to workout plans rather than to finding the real cause of our internal discomfort.
(It's a lot easier to talk about trying to lose weight than what to do about a challenging job or relationship.)
Intuitive Eating invites you to detach from the outcome. It helps you release the urgency around weight and your body. This enables you to become more engaged and in love with the life and body, you already have.
You will then naturally start to refine your thoughts and habits from a loving and stable place. You will respond rather than react. Your body will then take care of itself.
Going after weight loss intentionally is like trying to hold water in your hand. It slips away the more you try to hold on. If you give weight loss too much importance, it will end up clouding every decision you make. It will take you further away from listening to your own wisdom.
If you have a difficult relationship with food, learning how to eat intuitively will improve the quality of your life. And if you want to lose weight, as you heal your relationship with food, you will learn what it is you really want. Your intuition will guide you to what you and your body needs.
How your body is meant to look happens without you having to make it happen. It's the byproduct of your self-discovery process. It's the result of the time you take to nurture yourself. It's what happens when you support yourself with loving-kindness.
Then why does intuitive eating often get linked with weight loss?
For several reasons. The first edition of the book Intuitive Eating was written in 1995. Initially, it was promoted as a way to help people achieve a "normal" weight.
For years the title of the book promoted a "revolutionary program that works". What did they mean by "normal" or "works?" Most people would assume that "works" equals "weight loss". This isn't surprising since that's what so many people are looking for.
It's true, the principles of intuitive eating could have an impact on someone’s size. Some people have the experience of losing weight. This is why intuitive eating ends up getting promoted as being a method for weight loss. When something achieves the desired result for someone, naturally they think have the answer for everyone and will want to share it.
How does weight loss with Intuitive Eating sometimes happen?
Let's also review the principles of Intuitive Eating and see how it could lead to weight changes.
Principle 1: Reject the Diet Mentality. When people stop restricting food, they also stop the yo-yo cycle of losing and gaining weight. This helps the weight to stabilize. For some, "stabilizing" means weight gain and for others, it means weight loss.
Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger. If we don't honor our hunger, we can end up ravenous and eating more than we want later. By eating regularly and honoring our hunger, we may end up eating more or less than we used to. Some bodies need to put on more weight to be healthy and some need less weight to feel good.
Principle 3: Make Peace with Food. When we fear food, we often end up in the restrict and binge cycle with food. By making peace, we improve the functioning of our digestion and our nervous system. Both of these systems can impact our weight.
Principle 4: Challenge the Food Police. We also cause continual stress in our bodies when we think of food as good or bad. This can also lead to the restriction and binge cycle. It might trigger our rebellious eating habits causing us to eat more than our bodies need. Or fearing food can cause us to restrict and not eat enough for our bodies.
Principle 5: Discover the Satisfaction Factor. If we aren't eating foods we like, we might graze later and eat even more and more, looking for that satisfaction. Studies show that the body doesn't digest as well if the food isn't satisfying. This could lead to being less nourished than we think we are. The body knows what it needs and we need to listen. Sometimes that might be a piece of cake and sometimes it might be broccoli.
Principle 6: Feel Your Fullness. When we are not in touch with our fullness, we may overeat. If we are scared of fullness then we might undereat. If either happens routinely, it can impact our weight. The solution is to learn why we have lost touch with our fullness and get to the root cause.
Principle 7: Cope with your Emotions with Kindness. When we aren't kind to ourselves, we need to find comfort somewhere. For this people often turn to food when they aren't physically hungry. Others will react to stress by forgetting to eat. On occasion, this happens for everyone. But as a continual pattern, you might want to investigate why.
Principle 8: Respect Your Body. If we don’t' respect our bodies then we don't take care of them very well. Participating in punishing exercise, and fad diets are not respecting the body. Lack of nutrition, lack of sleep, and lack of self-care put extra stress on the body. We might then try to soothe the discomfort with food. We can also incur a stress response where the body's weight is destabilized. The body’s processes might be over or under-active as they cope with stress and try to survive.
Principle 9: Movement - Feel the Difference. Many people have been trying to exercise to lose weight for decades. All the joy of moving the body has been lost. When we reclaim joy and find movements that we like to do, this leads to all kinds of health benefits. Weight is the least important of these. Movement is wonderful for our mental, emotional and spiritual health. Tying it to weight loss puts our focus in the wrong place.
Principle 10: Honor Your Health With Gentle Nutrition. If we are trying too hard to eat "clean" and be strict, we can end up bingeing on fun foods. When we eat only fun foods, we may end up eating more than we need because the body is looking for nutrition. Incorporating gentle nutrition balances nutrition and fun foods. This rebalancing can result in a weight change.
Each of these principles could lead to weight gain, loss, or no change in weight. It's not the principles, it's your body and what it wants to do that is in charge. What is your lived experience and when does your body feel it's best? How have your habits been protecting and serving you all along?
Speaking From Experience
When I incorporated Intuitive Eating into my life, I was not doing it for weight loss. I was doing it to save my sanity from chronic dieting and knew it was possible I would gain weight. I was coming from a restrictive mindset and needed to unhook from all the judgment I had around food.
I was also terrified about gaining weight. Growing up in a privileged faction of Western culture, I had a very narrow view of weight and fat. I was fatphobic and blind to my size bias. Seeing my bias was an opportunity for me to learn to accept myself no matter what size my body wanted to be.
I learned that bodies come in all different shapes and sizes and no one size is better than any other. No one is better based on what they choose to do with their bodies either. An ironman triathlete is not a better person than a couch potato.
In the beginning, Intuitive Eating helped me understand the voice of my inner critic. I started learning how hard I had been on myself all my life. I also started to learn how to let go of my perfectionism in life and with my food.
Intuitive Eating was a spiritual awakening for me. It helped me see to see the way I was programmed and conditioned to look for happiness from my body and my weight. It also showed me how focusing on my weight for decades had stunted my growth as a person.
When we expect one thing to make us happy, we limit what is actually possible.
My body changed while exploring Intuitive Eating. At first, I gained weight as a reaction to 30 years of restrictive eating and self-judgment. But my body was taking me through exactly what I was here to learn. My body and brain were healing. First stop - see the prison I put myself in for 30 years with self-compassion and non-judgment.
During this time I also learned how to eat what I wanted when I wanted. This is a very necessary healing step. It's so important for people to learn what they want to eat and how much without judging everything as good or bad. It’s necessary to be able to consistently show up at the table and receive a meal without fear.
Yet, I was still disconnected from my body. I still didn't understand myself on an emotional level. After decades of dieting, I was disconnected from hunger and fullness cues. I also couldn't incorporate gentle nutrition without being triggered by old dieting thoughts.
I persisted. I did the work. I grew to love and respect myself and my body. I felt worthy. I was grateful for my body. I cleared away layers of shame, guilt, weight stigma, and bias and connected with my body on a deeper level.
Once I was able to be more kind to myself, I also had to face the fact that I used food to cope with emotions and discomfort. It took me years to understand that my weight had never been my issue. My weight started as a symptom of using food to fill a void I felt in my life.
I also had very little self-awareness so I hopped on the diet culture train and rode it into my 40's which is not at all uncommon.
And then I woke up.
I started to explore who I wanted to be as a person. I worked on being more connected to my body and my emotions.
I wasn’t trying to lose weight, I was trying to feel strong, nourished, empowered. I was trying to be as loving and nurturing to myself as I could be, in everything that I did. This included being loving to myself in my relationship with food.
My weight is now stabilizing. I could say that intuitive eating “made me” gain weight just as much as I could say that it “made me” lose weight. But my changes really didn’t have anything to do with Intuitive Eating. It was all about where I was on my unique healing journey. It was about the condition of my thoughts, my beliefs, and my energy.
Along the way, I also learned that weight was never the point. The important part is identifying where are you in your relationship with yourself and where do you want to be?
Is food on your mind 24/7 because you are tracking and restricting? Is food on your mind 24/7 because you are emotionally eating and numbing out with food? Are you using food as a distraction from other things that aren't working? If so, intuitive eating can help. You may lose weight or gain weight depending on where your individual body wants to be.
What can you do if you want both food freedom and a body you feel good in?
First, understand that the food peace journey is about so much more than weight. The journey is about why you do what you do with food. It's also about how you've been taught to think about yourself. What is your relationship with your inner self?
You are on this journey to discover your authentic self and to reconnect to your inner guidance and wisdom.
You may need to gain weight on that journey or lose weight on that journey. Either experience will be happening for you so you can learn and grow as a human. Neither experience is better or worse than the other.
How can you learn and practice self-compassion and presence? Can you accept your body in sickness and health and until death do you part?
Exploring intuitive eating taught me about weight science, weight stigma, and fatphobia. It also encouraged me to learn about body positivity and self-love. It taught me about self-acceptance and self-compassion.
Intuitive eating mirrors a way of being in the world that many of us on the spiritual path are pursuing. It shows us how to unhook from external expectations. It guides us to drop in to listen to our own wisdom and guidance. These are skills we can use in any area of life, not only with food.
I have definitely come to learn that a certain number on the scale says nothing about me or my health or my life goals. How aligned I am with my values, how I feel in my body, and how connected I am to my spirit are now infinitely more important to me.
Learning how to embody my life force energy is the part of the work I most enjoy right now.
Diet culture and our traumas create disconnections between our hearts, minds, and bodies. Intuitive Eating is one way to begin to repair that fracture.
What is the bottom line on weight loss with Intuitive Eating?
The body is resilient. It has self-healing abilities and it wants to feel good. Sometimes life gets in the way of that and sometimes the body DOES use weight to communicate with us. This is not gaslighting or diet culture in disguise.
We can’t deny that some people do have health issues where weight is a symptom. Weight does not cause the issue. Correlation is not causation. But weight might be an indicator of an imbalance whether the person is in a smaller or a bigger body.
Some people feel uncomfortable in their bodies and want to feel better. I support my clients in discovering what "better" looks like for them without judgment. That may lead to weight loss or weight gain.
We can't say one is ok and the other isn't.
I also help them learn to feel into the energy underlying the choices they make. Are they making choices based on the external expectations of diet culture? Or are they making choices based on joy, pleasure, and love?
Weight is a complex and personal situation that only you can make peace with for yourself. And many of us are here to learn that we are SO much more than just a body.
Do you still want to know if you can use intuitive eating to lose weight? Intuitive Eating should not be used to intentionally achieve weight loss. The purpose of Intuitive eating is to increase your quality of life. It does this by helping you heal your relationship with food.
Focusing on weight loss will slow down your healing journey.
If you want to know if you WILL lose weight, the answer is not a simple yes or no. You are a complex being with a rich and unique history and your path forward needs to be specific for you.
And if you still WANT to lose weight, let's talk. You have all the answers you need. But it can still help to work with someone who has walked this road before.
Last Words (finally right?)
If this ends up sounding like a pro-weight loss post, the truth is I'm not pro or con anything. I'm open to whatever feels like the most loving action for someone in their body. Big body, small body, it doesn't matter. What matters is how you feel and how you want to feel. What matters is how awake and aware you are of your life experience and owning your choices.
I'm also open to exploration, awareness, growth, and expansion. We can't evolve if we don't get real about what we are thinking and feeling.
I've lost weight and I've gained weight. And I've learned that what matters is not your body size but the journey to know yourself.
Life is full of infinite possibilities. Don't let anyone limit you to just one.
Thanks for reading. If you still have questions, please download this free pdf. It will help you determine your next steps to improve your relationship with your body today.