The 3 Things I Wish I Could Go Back and Tell You Before You Started Intuitive Eating

Welcome back to Rebuilding Trust With Your Body, Katy here. Today’s episode is about 3 things I wish I could tell you before you started intuitive eating. And the overall theme is essentially about Principle 3 from the book Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, which is about making peace with food. You can’t eat intuitively if you don’t have peace with food, and there are a few really important things about that that are going to be such a game-changer for you in how you are approaching your journey towards peace and freedom with food.

AND this is a very special episode because I dropped not just this episode, but another episode for you today as well, and these are sister episodes so when you’re done with this one I want you to go listen to the next one because they go hand-in-hand together for you. So these episodes are going to be a little shorter than my usual ones, because I don’t want to overwhelm you 2 long episodes this week. These are more like little snacks rather than the full 3-course meal.

In this episode we’re digging deeper into principle 3 and making peace with food, and in the next episode we’re going to be talking more about the one specific 10 principle you need to focus on if you’re feeling stuck, or lost or confused with intuitive eating.

So, whether you’re new to the intuitive eating world and you’re just getting your feet wet, you’re just dipping your toes in the water to see if you want to swim, OR if you’ve been on this journey for a while and you understand the gist of it but you haven’t quite mastered all of the skills or fully experienced the transformation and healing in your relationship with food that you’re hoping to achieve,, the lessons I’m going to share here are going to help you become more of an intuitive eater, and you’re going to have a more peaceful and neutral relationship with food, which is going to allow you to better listen to your body and take care of your health.

Like I said, these sister episodes (this one and episode #140 the next one) are a little shorter than my usual episodes and we’re going to get right into the nitty gritty here so there won’t be any Wellness Woo today, but don’t worry that segment isn’t going anywhere, it will be back next week so send me your examples of woo that you see out in the wild and I’ll add them to my Wellness Woo list. For today, let’s dig into the 3 things that I wish I could go back and tell you before you started intuitive eating.

If you’re eating the food but you’re still judging/labeling it, you’re going to stay stuck. You’ve GOT TO work on making peace with food, which means changing the way you are thinking about and judging food. That’s the essence of principle 3 of intuitive eating, and why it’s super important that you don’t overlook this principle.
- Let’s say you’re letting yourself eat donuts, pizza and ice cream, but it feels too good to be true that this could possibly be healthy. And you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.
- Tell jellybean story
- Making peace with food means that we neutralize our judgments about food.
Eating whatever you want, whenever you want isn’t intuitive eating, it’s impulsive eating
- Making peace with food doesn’t just mean eating whatever, whenever. When you’re just eating whatever pops into your head you aren’t listening to your body.
- One of my clients inside my program IEE, which is where we go through the Intuitive Eating Workbook together, told me that this one shift in her approach towards intuitive eating has made all the difference for her. It was like the lightbulb went off in her mind like fireworks, and she instantly realized this is where she had been treating it like a free-for-all with food rather than actually listening to her body. It was at that point that she was able to start slowing down and asking herself if she was actually hungry, and noticing if she had any judgments about what she “should” or “shouldn’t” be eating.
Peace with food = freedom to say yes AND no to food
- Most people think making peace with food and having freedom with food means eating all the foods all the time.
- It’s also important that you learn how to say no to food without it being part of the diet mentality. There’s a difference between saying, “No, thanks,” to dessert because you’re full, vs saying no because you feel like you don’t deserve to have dessert or you worry it would make you gain weight. Peace with food also means that sometimes you might recognize you’re full and still say yes to dessert because you really want it, and you’re making that conscious decision. When you do this, you are knowingly eating past comfortable fullness, and you’re not judging yourself as “bad” or “unhealthy” for doing so. Ideally, this would be a learning opportunity so that next time you can stop when you’re comfortably full. Maybe that means taking a few less bites of your entree so that you have room for dessert if that’s what you’re desiring.
- Another example of peace with food and being able to say no to certain things is if you have a medical condition. Let’s say you are allergic to peanuts. It’s essential that you say no to anything with peanuts in it. That doesn’t mean that you are stuck in diet mentality, or that peanuts are unhealthy. It means that you are honoring your body’s medical need. Same thing if you have diabetes or pre-diabetes. You may need to have gentle boundaries with the quantity of carbohydrates you eat, and aim to pair your carbs with protein and/or fat, because that’s going to be more friendly to your blood sugar. It doesn’t mean that sugar is bad or you can’t have bread or pasta. Having peace and freedom with food means that you are able to make these adjustments without being rigid, without going to extremes, without labeling food as healthy/unhealthy, and without feeling deprived. You’re able to find satisfying ways of including the foods you enjoy, while also honoring your health. I know this can be one of the most challenging parts of intuitive eating, and I want you to hear that it 100% is possible to make adjustments to your eating for your health as part of intuitive eating. In fact, that’s what we encourage you to do as part of intuitive eating. It’s just tricky wrap your mind around it when you’ve been existing in diet culture for your entire life. This is where we get to shift those beliefs, approach food differently, and honor your health while creating peace with food. Once this clicks for you it’s such a beautiful thing.

RECAP – The 3 things I wish I could go back and tell you before you started with intuitive eating (and again, these are all based on principle 3 of intuitive eating). I would LOVE for you to DM me on IG or FB and let me know which of these you most needed to hear and what resonates with you the most:

If you’re eating the food but you’re still judging/labeling it, you’re going to stay stuck.
Eating whatever you want, whenever you want isn’t intuitive eating, it’s impulsive eating
Peace with food = freedom to say yes AND no to food

Go listen to the next episode, Episode 140 called How to Refocus If You Feel Lost or Stuck With Intuitive Eating. Inside that episode I have a special invitation for you. It’s totally free and it’s happening LIVE next week, so you’re not going to want to sleep on this. I’ll just leave it at that – with a little bit of mystery and intrigue.

In case nobody has told you today – you are worthy just as you are. I’ll see you in the next episode….

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