Is This Holding You Back on Your Intuitive Eating Journey?

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The Intuitive Eating framework itself is rather simple. The implementation of it however, is certainly not easy. The majority of people exploring Intuitive Eating come from a background of dieting, food rules and restriction (myself included hiii). Diet culture teaches us to think in extremes. You are either on the diet, or off it. Working out a ton or not exercising at all. Eating clean or eating dirty. It teaches us that you have to do A, then B, then C and if you mess up C, you start back at A. It also teaches us that we are to blame for any type of “slip up” and that it all comes down to willpower and motivation.

Spoiler alert - that is b*llshit - our bodies are incredibly resistant to dieting because they see a diet as a famine. Your body is trying to protect you from said famine - aw thanks body :)

When it comes to Intuitive Eating, that black and white thinking (aka all-or-nothing thinking) might be holding you back. The fourth principle of the framework is Challenging the Food Police and a CRITICAL step to the process. First things first…..who the heck are the food police? Oh you know….that voice in your head that says things like:

“Should you really be eating that?”

“OMG that’s so high in ___!”

“I can’t believe you ate that! You just ruined your entire day!”

This voice can police us about food but can also police us about our bodies. It often develops overtime with influences coming from loved ones, friends, trainers, nutritionists, coworkers, celebrities and the media. This voice tends to be very “all-or-nothing” and catastrophic. How might that voice show up on your IE journey? Well it might say things like:

“You’re failing at this intuitive eating thing!”

“You’re not doing it right!”

“You’re not doing enough so why even bother?”

“It’s been 2 weeks and I’m not an Intuitive Eater yet. I’ll never figure this out!”

Intuitive Eating is a process and each part of the process is an opportunity to learn about you, your body and your relationship with food. Even the parts of the journey that feel uncomfortable provide you with useful data. When we challenge the food police, we step away from that catastrophic, all-or-nothing thinking. We strive to foster compassion and understanding for ourselves (and others). We look for the grey, between the black-and-white. Here’s an example of how we can do that:

Black-and-white thinking: “I didn’t honor my fullness at all! I’m totally failing at Intuitive Eating. I should just go back to dieting!”

Grey thinking: “I definitely ate past comfortable fullness. Did I start the meal out way too hungry? Was I distracted while I ate? Did I eat enough this morning? Was there some other need I was possibly trying to fill? How am I feeling? What can I learn from this experience?”

You can probably FEEL the difference between those two statements. The first may make you feel tense, hopeless and filled with shame. The second is filled with curiosity and compassion. It feels like a breath of fresh air and like things are going to be okay.

The grey thinking allows you to get curious about your behaviors and experiences. This helps you LEARN from them instead of just making you feel terrible. Challenging the food police and getting away from black-and-white thinking can take time and lots of practice. If you’re looking for a supportive environment to help you do so check out my small group coaching program.