Round here, no food is off-limits…and the same goes for your questions!

I polled the members of my Intuitive Eating Made Easy Facebook group for their burning questions, and boy oh boy, did they show up! Let’s dive in and explore your biggest questions about set point weight, intuitive eating, decharming, and more! 

How do you know that you are living your life the intuitive eating way? 

“How do you know that you are truly living your life the Intuitive Eating way? Sorry if this seems silly, but as much as I feel I’ve got this, there are days when diet rules sneak into my thoughts. There are days that I have poor body image. There are days when I long to be in a smaller body. Does that mean IE is not fully integrated in my life?” – Diana

Intuitive eating is one of those things that doesn’t have a finish line. It’s kind of like yoga, or meditation, or a sport like golf – there’s not a moment where you’re going to feel like you can check that off. 

It’s more about continuing to show up for the practice and what it looks like each and every day. Each day will be different and you may have to lean on different principles of intuitive eating in different seasons of life. 

That longing to be in a smaller body is a really normal ongoing part of this process. How could it NOT be, given the world we live in that continues to bombard us with messages about how we need to be smaller? 

Get curious about what’s going on outside of food, your body, or weight on those days. Write it down in a notebook or in an app on your phone. Try to notice the patterns to uncover what may be at the core of those poor body image days. 

Do we really lose weight or do we just buy bigger pants?

I want to know if anyone actually ends up smaller or do we all just intellectualize a new set point and buy bigger pants? – Kerry

This is the million dollar question that’s on almost everyone’s mind, isn’t it? (Not to mention it’s the question that will practically get you kicked out of some intuitive eating Facebook groups.) 

Short answer: it depends.

In a recent email newsletter, I shared an analogy about how a bad body image day is like when I stubbed my toe at the beach and almost called 911, which would have been an overreaction. (Sign up here to get the newsletter!) 

We need to make sure that you’re not responding to your weight or body image distress by symbolically calling 911 and reverting back to dieting behaviors.

Let’s talk about your question about set point weight. For a lot of people, the assumption that intuitive eating only “works” if you’re losing weight underlies this question. It’s like you’re tricking yourself into magically losing weight while not dieting. 

We want to watch out for this sneaky type of diet mentality that creeps in because it will undermine your efforts to do intuitive eating correctly. 

The goal is to focus on honoring your body’s appetite signals, to make peace with food, practice gentle nutrition, move your body because you respect it (not forcing yourself to do it out of hatred like a drill sergeant), and honor your health. 

When you are doing these things, your weight will settle where it is meant to. 

We don’t have to put our head in the sand. Stay curious about what your body is telling you with weight. 

One last thing…YES, buy bigger pants. Your body will thank you. 

Intuitive eating tips for emotional eaters coping with mental illness 

What do you recommend for emotional and/or impulsive eaters who also have a mental health disorder that impacts their emotions, thoughts, and judgment? – Dana and Rebecca 

When someone has some kind of mental health disorder, whether it’s a mood disorder like depression, anxiety, or something like ADHD where it impacts your impulsivity, we need to treat the mental health disorder with evidence-based treatment. This may often look like therapy, medication, and working with a psychiatrist. 

A lot of times, if we deal with the mental health disorder itself, the food issues will settle down. 

Be aware of the impulsivity and find ways to slow down. Think deleting the Door Dash app off your phone or putting the food in the cupboard or pantry rather than where you’ll see it. You’re not restricting the food, but you’re slowing yourself down enough to check in to make sure that food is what you actually want. 

The other thing I would say is learn the skills of emotional regulation. Learning to regulate and cope with those emotions without using food. To a point, everyone uses food to deal with emotions, but if you’re doing it to a point where it’s problematic, then we want to help build out your toolkit to navigate the emotion. 

– First, name the emotion. The more specific you can be, the more obvious it is how you can respond in a way that’s helpful. The Feelings Wheel or Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart are game-changing tools to have on hand. 

– Develop non-food ways to cope with the emotion. Food is still an option – we’re not taking it away – but we’re adding more coping options in so you don’t have only food to choose every single time. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills are great for this. 

Intuitive eating principles and philosophy still apply here. Remember, dieting and restricting don’t fix impulsive or emotional eating – it often makes these things worse. 

Navigating night eating syndrome

“I’m reading the book to try to work on intuitive eating. I also suffer from night eating syndrome. I thought once I started eating enough during the day & I stopped depriving myself that the night eating would stop. It hasn’t. I also struggle with insomnia and depression and I am on prescription medications to treat that. (Also dealing with menopause) Help! – Tracey  

Night eating syndrome (NES) is a sleep disorder and it needs to be treated by a medical provider with expertise in this area. 

Getting properly medicated for the insomnia and depression will be the key here, as well as addressing any menopause symptoms because that can disrupt sleep as well. Your doctor can help you with these things.

As a dietitian, whenever I have someone struggling with this, one of the first things we do is make sure they’re eating enough during the day. If it’s continuing to happen after that, we need to dig deeper. 

Another behavioral strategy is to put things in place to wake you up and make you more conscious before you can eat at night. 

As an example, I was working with a client once who struggled with this, and we had him put a chair in front of his door that he would have to move to open it if he woke up at night. Another client put a ribbon across her doorway to help wake her up and bring consciousness. 

Then focus on “sleep training,” – yep, like with our kids – yourself to go back to sleep without eating. We need to show you that you can fall back asleep without food instead of your body waking up and thinking it’s time for your 2 am feeding. 

If you can’t fall asleep because you’re lying there hungry, it might be a sign you didn’t eat enough during the day. 

Perimenopause, set weight point, and intuitive eating 

How does the perimenopause affect the body’s ability to regulate its set point properly and allow for intuitive eating when hormones are strongly running the show and influencing cravings? – Jo

I am getting SO many questions lately about perimenopause, and I think it’s because it’s getting talked about more in our culture. It’s not so hush-hush. I’m also seeing that diet culture has (of course) latched onto it and is making women distrust their bodies even more. There’s all this propaganda about trying to control your weight and your body, and lose belly fat, and lessen cravings, and all sorts of wellness woo that’s targeted towards women in this age bracket. 

Instead, think of perimenopause as puberty part 2. It’s a lot of changes in your hormones, your emotions, and your body, including some degree of weight gain in menopause, and that’s a GOOD thing. 

There are a couple of things that are important from a gentle nutrition standpoint with perimenopause:

– We become more insulin resistant, which can cause us to have higher blood sugar and A1c after menopause. Things that can help with food are including more protein and more complex carbs as well as pairing them together to help regulate blood sugar and keep A1c lower. Strength training can also help as it makes your muscles more sensitive to blood sugar.

– Our cholesterol tends to go up. From a gentle nutrition standpoint, you can increase unsaturated fats (salmon, olive oil, walnuts) and fiber intake (beans, fruits, veggies). Are you consuming enough fiber?

– Fiber

– Our bones start to demineralize some, so to keep them healthy and strong, make sure you’re eating enough. Restriction can destroy bone health. Get calcium (dairy products) and vitamin D, and lean into strength training to support your bone health.

Intuitive eating timeline

How long on average do most people take to learn to eat intuitively? – Betsey 

It’s highly variable. For some people it “clicks” pretty quickly if they were ready for it, and weren’t too far down the diet culture rabbit hole. But for most people, it takes longer than they think it will or wish it would. 

We don’t have studies showing us a clear timeline, but we can borrow from the eating disorder literature (which is imperfect and, of course, doesn’t represent everyone trying to do IE):

– People without eating disorders take around 1-3 years in my experience.
– If someone has a history of eating disorders, recovery can take several years, over 10 for some. 

Let’s keep in mind that most people have been struggling for DECADES with dieting by the time they start intuitive eating, so it’s going to take time to unlearn all that old diet mentality crap, and learn new ways of thinking and being with food. 

Behavior change is hard. It takes work, repetition, and time.

We can speed up this process by adding in support. Just like if you were trying to learn how to play the piano, it would go faster if you had a skilled teacher who knew how to teach piano, rather than trying to DIY it on your own from YouYube videos. The more you practiced, the faster you’d get the hang of it. 

It’s like that with intuitive eating, which is why I offer my programs like Intuitive Eating Exploration and Non-Diet Academy to speed up the process and make sure you’re doing it right, instead of driving in the wrong direction and ending up in a completely different state. 

How long does it take to truly “decharm” food?

“Ok, how dang long should it take to “decharm” food? I know everyone is different, but good grief, my slow progress in all of this is super discouraging! I’m an overachiever and it’s making me feel like a failure. Note, I’ve been TRYING to do IE for 7.5 months now.” – Julie

For those of you listening who are unfamiliar with “decharming”, it’s one of my signature strategies that I teach, and I go into the step-by-step for it inside Non-Diet Academy. 

There are 3 different levels of decharming that you can choose from, and it typically goes the fastest when you do level 3 (the most intense, structured, and systematic level). 

Now, I’m curious from the way you worded your question if you’re trying to globally decharm ALL food, or if you are systematically following the steps to do it for one specific food at a time like I teach? That might be what’s tripping you up here.

I also want to zoom out and give you perspective that you’re saying how discouraged you are that you’ve been doing this for 7.5 months and your progress is super slow. 7.5 months is not that long. I know it feels long, but in the grand scheme of this process it’s not. 

Take a deep breath and give yourself some grace and patience. Remember that you’re unlearning DECADES of programming towards the diet mentality with food. It’s going to take time to rewire your brain and build these new neural pathways. It’s also going to take time to reconnect with your body, and rebuild trust with your body (and for your body to trust you). 

Diet culture has programmed us to expect instant results, quick fixes, and to be really impatient. I wish that this process didn’t take as long as it does, but I really want to normalize this for you. 

(And like I said, having that expert support and guidance to help you through your specific stumbling blocks is so helpful where we can dig in there and see what’s working, what’s not working, and utilize some targeted strategies to make it all click for you.)

Wrapping Up

Intuitive eating may just have 10 principles, but making it work in your everyday life can feel overwhelming. I hope this post has answered some of your questions, but if you want to explore even further, join me in Intuitive Eating Exploration to dive deep into the power of intuitive eating and how to give up diets for good.

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Search for Ep.196 (Transcript): NOTHING’S OFF LIMITS: Ask Me Anything – Weight, Intuitive Eating, Night Eating, Perimenopause, “Decharming” and More!

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