True Health Benefits of Intuitive Eating
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The process of learning to eat intuitively can be confusing and scary at times. It’s intimidating to take the leap and fully trust that the benefits of intuitive eating will prove to be worth fighting through all the fears you’ll confront along your journey.
The science, studies, research, and testimonies of others reveal that intuitive eating does improve authentic health, but the hardest part is pushing through until YOU can actually experience the benefits of intuitive eating yourself.
Sometimes you just need encouragement and solid reminders that learning to eat intuitively is worth the hard work!
That’s why we’re going to walk through the science behind intuitive eating that demonstrates intuitive eating improves true health.
Our bodies and minds were never meant to endure self-imposed dieting and rules. There’s total freedom and peace in eating the way we were innately created to - what could be healthier than that?!
Intuitive Eating Research
There are nearly 150 research studies on intuitive eating and a validated intuitive eating assessment scale that measures and identifies key features of intuitive eaters.
Intuitive eating was around before diets busted their way into our culture. Intuitive eating is wired into our biology and the research studies simply prove that we are in fact meant to eat based on our own body’s cues. If it wasn’t for diet culture, intuitive eating would just be eating.
What are the Benefits of Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating has been shown to significantly improve health both physically and mentally. Unlike dieting, intuitive eating does not measure progress or results based on pounds or outward appearance.
As you continue in your intuitive eating journey, you’ll notice areas of your life that are gradually improving. Freedom and a peaceful relationship with food are the most clear-cut benefits of intuitive eating, but given time ALL areas of your life change for the better!
Physical Benefits of Intuitive Eating
Dieting creates health problems as it puts pressure and stress on the body. When you eat intuitively the body does a good job of healing and settling into its preferred healthy state.
Health from intuitive eating considers so much more than a diet that fixates solely on a number on a scale, including:
Improved cholesterol and blood pressure
Reduced risk for heart disease
Repaired and increased metabolism - no, your metabolism is not doomed!
Weight stabilization, instead of weight cycling up and down - yo-yo dieting has been associated with heart disease and premature death
Psychological and Mental Benefits of Intuitive Eating
Intuitive eating studies show that self-esteem improves, satisfaction with life increases, overall psychological well-being is greater, and your mood is positively affected. There’s less depression, anxiety, and stress - likely because you're not caught up in the vicious dieting cycle jumping on and off the wagon!
Intuitive eating is associated with lowered self-silencing, which is the suppression of your thoughts, feelings, or needs. Your confidence heightens as you become more comfortable with recognizing your mental and physical needs.
You gain interoceptive awareness (body awareness) as you become more in tune with your mind and your body. Identifying physical sensations and the ability to detect and attend to your emotions is a natural outcome of listening and responding to your body when you eat intuitively.
Intuitive eating helps nurture and cultivate body appreciation and body acceptance. You learn how your body works to communicate with you, and that your body has your best interest in mind.
Your awareness of your hunger and fullness cues and the act of responding to them, working with your body, develop body trust. You’re able to release your attempts at control as body trust increases. If your body is telling you to grab a midnight snack, you’re able to trust your hunger sensation.
Intuitive eating helps to diminish an internalized culturally thin ideal, which means you’re less likely to determine your self-worth based on your body size. Body image improves as you unlearn all the dieting beliefs and cultural messages, and you realize there’s so much more to life than your body!
There’s so much mental space recovered with intuitive eating. Food thoughts lessen and you no longer spend time on dieting behaviors, which leaves room for what you value in life! You’re able to invest more in relationships with friends and family, and you can even pursue and discover interests you’ve missed out on.
Positive Behavioral Changes and Benefits of Intuitive Eating
A reduction in dieting and disordered eating behaviors result from eating intuitively. You eat based on physical reasons, with less of an emotional reliance on food. However, contrary to popular belief, emotional eating does have its place in intuitive eating.
Intuitive eaters may eat for many reasons other than just physical hunger. You get to enjoy spontaneous dinner dates, thoughtful cookies from coworkers, and popcorn at the movies, all because food is a part of life!
You can also keep trigger foods in the house because you’re no longer restricting them or bingeing on them. You eat the ice cream in the freezer when you feel like it, and sometimes you even forget that it’s there.
When you give yourself permission to eat all foods as an intuitive eater, you end up eating a diverse diet with a variety of foods, giving you a more pleasurable experience from eating. You truly learn what foods make you feel good and what foods don’t.
You also have more energy and a desire to engage in physical activity for enjoyment. As you break away from the diet mentality, you end up choosing physical movement because you want to move. You might skip your planned solo jog for a nice evening walk with your partner simply because it makes your soul happy.
Intuitive eaters have higher proactive coping, psychological hardiness, resilience, unconditional self-regard, and a greater ability to recover from adversity. Intuitive eaters embrace flexibility and live in the grey rather than an “all or nothing” mindset. When your eating can ebb and flow with life, it’s such a better experience!
Do You Want to Experience the True Health Benefits of Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating is so much more than simply the absence of dieting or disordered eating, it’s the path to flourishing and thriving in all areas of life. Ultimately, with intuitive eating, you discover how to tap into your own self-empowerment and internal wisdom that you’ve had all along.
If you’re ready to leave dieting behind and personally experience the benefits of intuitive eating, let’s chat and get you started with 1-on-1 virtual intuitive eating coaching! As a Registered Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, I love watching people like you heal their relationship with food and achieve authentic health!