Have your cake & eat it too
In a world obsessed with dieting, weight loss and having the perfect body, the concept of intuitive eating is a refreshing long term approach to healthy eating that allows you to have your cake and eat it too.
And to be clear, intuitive eating is not another fad, it’s quite the opposite in fact. It’s disconnecting from external, harsh diet rules, and all about going internal and reconnecting to your own body and using it’s creative intelligence to make food choices.
Eating healthy and having a healthy body has now become so confusing with so many contradicting influencing factors involved, such as social media, diet culture body stereotypes, weight stigma, TV nutrition misinformation, the war against obesity, then the contradictory movement of Health At Every Size (HAES) and positive body image. Then we have the opposite end of the scale with an ever-growing incidence of eating disorders and mental health issues, as well as a flourishing global weight loss industry profiting an astonishing minimum of $60 billion annually.
So are we meant to be eating the cake and just loving our bodies, or cutting out the cake and losing weight? Arghh!
Somewhere in the middle I say.
Health is not measured purely by nutrition. Who wants to live a life on two celery sticks and five almonds a day? No thanks. Living by these kind of diet rules and restrictions makes eating stressful, it becomes all-consuming and means missing out on the joy of socially connecting through food. The constant physical hunger and emotional deprivation of dieting creates obsessive thinking about food and only drives you towards overeating on all the foods you’ve restricted anyway.
A major component of good health and happiness certainly includes nutrition, however neuroscience studies show that social connection is the number one key, along with embracing balance and freedom. And I believe that includes freedom of choice with food.
Missing out on a piece of cake to celebrate your child’s birthday, or not being able to share restaurant food with friends because of a self-imposed strict diet, even when you are hungry or really feel like the food, can cause more stress than actually just enjoying it. And the negative judgements we place on food and ourselves are also more harmful to us than the food itself.
Food is pleasure and it is meant to be enjoyed and bring people together. It’s ok to enjoy it. And I can almost hear your mind worrying if you’ll gain weight if you enjoy your food. But never fear, it’s only when we are disconnected from ourselves and our bodies that we end up overeating on high energy foods and it can become unhealthy. It’s also when food is our ONLY pleasure and joy in life, or when we are reliant on food to soothe our stress and emotions that it becomes an issue affecting our bodies and our health. That's why the hero part of our Body Love Lifestyle is to love yourself and your body first, so that you are more present, connected with your body, and actually want to take care of yourself.
So you can have your cake and eat it too, but when you’re truly listening you’ll notice your body doesn't feel like cake, and feels like healthy foods most of the time anyway.
So it’s OK to say no at the party if your body doesn’t really want it. And when you do feel like it, you’ll actually enjoy it. When you've truly healed your relationship with food you will trust yourself with food and feel safe around the cake, and be able to trust your body to tell you the amount that feels good inside your body. And when you learn how to love yourself and your body more, you’ll want to actually honour these cues.
Breaking free from the ‘masculine’ control energy and restraints of strict dieting and becoming an intuitive eater can relieve stress and highly contribute to a life of balance, health and happiness. Because, the good news is, intuitive eating not only supports your nutritional but your social and emotional needs, so that you can be healthy and also enjoy your life. It also relies on, as well as some basic nutritional knowledge, listening to your body’s intuitive communication signals to make food decisions, rather than being confused by external food rules and which diet is the right one to follow.
There is no imperfectionism with intuitive eating, therefore you can’t fail or get it wrong. It's purely making food choices that support your hunger and fullness levels, with delicious and nutritious food that makes you feel good.
Having your cake and eating it too through intuitive eating is a lifestyle change that focuses on becoming more present with yourself and developing a healthy relationship with food and learning to become intune with your body. This also helps develop self-love and happiness. Let’s delve a little deeper to help you determine whether this could work for you, and if you’d like to live a Body Love Lifestyle.
Where did Intuitive Eating come from?
Intuitive eating is a nutritional philosophy that was developed by two dieticians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resche, in the early 1990’s. It challenges the conventional diet mentality and encourages people to rely on their own internal hunger and fullness cues and personal food likes and dislikes, rather than external diet companies, food rules or calorie counting in order to get healthy.
So instead of worrying about what's ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ or good’ or ‘bad’ with your food choices, you get to choose for your own unique body. We each have unique energy and nutritional requirements due to our own unique bodies and lifestyle, this is why strict diet rules don’t work for long term health as a cookie-cutter approach. Intuitive eating however is more sustainable in the long term, because it supports not only your nutritional requirements, but your social and emotional needs. Therefore it’s ok to eat the cake and enjoy a dessert or glass of wine when you go out for dinner - nobody has been ‘bad’ or fallen off the wagon!
So instead of worrying about what's ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ or good’ or ‘bad’ with your food choices, you get to choose for your own unique body. It’s ok to eat the cake and enjoy a dessert or glass of wine when you go out for dinner - nobody has been ‘bad’ or fallen off the wagon!
There are 10 core principles of intuitive eating include the following, and are incorporated throughout the Body Love Lifestyle program:
Reject the diet mentality
Honour your hunger
Make peace with food
Challenge the food police
Feel your fullness
Discover the satisfaction factor
Cope with our emotions without using food
Respect your body
Joyful movement
Gentle nutrition
Will Intuitive Eating work for you?
You're tired of yo-yo dieting, weight fluctuations and feeling like a failure. You have found diets are not sustainable, and that you keep finding yourself even further back from where you started. Body Love lifestyle coaching lovingly supports you to love yourself more, break free from unhealthy eating patterns, and how to eat intuitively in order to create a healthy body that is sustainable. This provides the beautiful life of food freedom, where you get to have your cake and eat it too!
You want a healthier relationship with food: If you're tired of feeling anxious or guilty around food, counting calories or struggling with ‘all or nothing’ eating, intuitive eating can help you develop a healthier relationship with food.
You're looking for a long term approach so that you can relax with food and love your body. You are ready to let go of quick fixes that don’t last. Eating intuitively is a new sustainable way of life where you learn to love yourself more, and embrace a much more enjoyable way of healthy eating for the rest of your life, because it supports not only your nutritional, but your social and emotional needs.
You want to have a healthier relationship with your body: If you've lost touch with your body's hunger and fullness cues due to restrictive diets, you’re not sure of what it needs, you want to stop obsessing about how your body looks, and are ready to focus on how it feels and on your health, then intuitive eating can help you reestablish this connection, relieve stress around food and help you become best friends with your body.
Intuitive eating may need to be carefully considered if:
You have specific dietary restrictions for medical reasons: In cases where specific foods must be avoided due to allergies or medical conditions, intuitive eating can still be adapted, as it involves honouring your body’s unique needs. For example if there are foods that don't feel good inside your body or will cause harm ie. gluten, dairy, nuts, then you choose alternative foods that will sit well and not cause any reaction for you. This is being intuitive to and honouring your unique body’s needs.
You have a history of eating disorders: It is important to note that a long history of dieting or undereating may result in turning intuitive eating into a diet. However, intuitive eating is intuitive, not fixed rules. Therefore it is crucial to work with your food freedom coach who specializes in breaking free from eating disorders or disordered eating, and heal your relationship with yourself, food and your body first. Intuitive eating is not possible until this healing has happened. Hence why the Body Love Lifestyle is designed to show you how to love yourself and your body first, break unhealthy eating patterns, then become best friends with your body to become an intuitive eater.
