Intuitive eating is simple. It feels natural. You eat when you are hungry, and stop eating when you are full. No foods are off-limits and common food labels, such as “good” and “bad”, do not exist. You rely on your body’s natural cues to guide your eating, even if it means eating those cookies you once swore off. You honor your cravings instead of wishing them away and being self-critical.
When you practice intuitive eating, you reduce your risk for eating disorder behaviors, improve your behavioral health, enhance your body image, and better your overall quality of life.
Anchor Therapy is a counseling center in Hoboken, NJ with mental health therapists specialized in helping children, teens, adults, couples, and families with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, trauma, life transitions, and more. Anchor Therapy is accepting new clients and is now providing in-person sessions and teletherapy sessions to residents of New Jersey, New York, and Florida.
What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating is a powerful way to reclaim your relationship with food. You are going back to your basic instincts, emotions, and a rational thinking process so you can re-learn how to nourish your body intuitively.
Intuitive eating can be thought of as one of the highest forms of self-care. Intuitive eating is self-care because it encourages you to get in tune with your body and your needs, learning your hunger and fullness cues. This will help you create a healthy relationship with food which is essential for good mental and physical health. For more information, check out our blog “The 8 Forms of Self-Care & How You Can Practice Them.”
Intuitive eating offers a path towards a lifestyle that is aligned with your beliefs and values. When you rely on your body to tell you whether to eat or not, you feel good. You also lessen any feelings of shame and guilt you may be experiencing associating with your eating patterns and behaviors.
A study has shown that intuitive eating can be a protective factor if you are a woman experiencing weight-related shame. With that being said, men can also practice intuitive eating.
There is nothing gendered about intuitive eating but, for men sometimes, having a conversation about their body image can be a foreign topic. It is simply not something that men talk about much in comparison to women.
For men, intuitive eating requires overcoming certain societal standards while reconnecting them with their bodies. Men are taught from childhood and teenhood to disconnect from their emotions, therefore learning how to trust their emotions and bodily cues can be understandably difficult. To learn how to eat intuitively, keep reading!
Defining “Diet Culture”
To understand and adopt intuitive eating, we first must understand diet culture and the major role that has played and continues to play in American society. Societal expectations often inform the way we recognize and pick beauty standards. For decades, thin has been ideal, but it does not always mean healthy.
Diet culture refers to the cultural myths around food, weight, and one’s health. According to diet culture, thinness is ideal, and foods are solely labeled as “good” or “bad.” If diet culture is not managed properly, it can lead to a negative body image, disordered eating, and poor mental health, such as food anxiety or the fear of food.
Some mental health difficulties that can occur due to diet culture include:
Emotional dysregulation (Read our blog “How to Regulate Your Emotions”)
Depression and low mood
Anxiety
Obsessive or intrusive thoughts (Check out our blog “6 Ways to Handle Intrusive Thoughts”)
Diet culture has been responsible for creating a hierarchy of ideal body types, with “skinniness” mounting its place on top. Excess weight equates to fear and negativity under diet culture. Social media, passing health trends, and consumer products (e.g., diet pills, meal replacement shakes, detox teas, and so on) add to diet culture.
This unhealthy food notion can be toxic in numerous ways, traditionally leading people down a path of a negative relationship with food through harmful behaviors.
Here are some ways that diet culture can be toxic:
Labeling foods as “good” and “bad”
Promoting unrealistic body standards
Promoting restrictive eating
Promoting quick fixes (e.g., “miracle” juice cleanses, yo-yo dieting)
Producing unrealistic expectations (e.g. a waist trainer changing someone’s physical body shape)
Ignoring different health needs
Associating thinness with health and happiness
Equating weight loss with success
Diet culture can also contribute to people constantly comparing themselves to other people. Diet culture is known to promote a specific body type. Through the media, you are bombarded with images and messages of that body type being the only beautiful kind. This may cause you to compare your body to unrealistic standards, causing you to feel inadequate or dissatisfied with yourself. If you are struggling with this, check out our blog “How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Other People.”
If the social media influence, from popular apps like Instagram and TikTok, is taking too serious of a toll on your mental health, it may be time for a social media detox. Social media apps are filled with heavily-filtered, highly-curated images of certain body types, workout routines, and what I eat in a day videos and posts. A culture of comparison can be created by constantly viewing the profiles of influencers and celebrities who are getting praised for their bodies by other people. For more information, read our blog “Do I Have A Social Media Addiction?”.
Navigating the Journey to Overcome Diet Culture
Let us face the truth- it is not hard to find diet culture being promoted. From books to social media influencers, diet mentality is everywhere you look. With promises of dramatic, jaw-dropping before and after transformation photos, it can feel easy to cave into body-shaping garments and other celebrity-endorsed products. Although diet culture is prominent, it does not mean that it is 100% safe.
The false hope that diet culture offers only moves you further and further away from truly knowing your body. In fact, diet culture actually sets you up to fail. By trying to avoid thinking about food, you will only end up thinking about it more. Avoidance can lead to over-eating food and having a lack of control around foods you would label as “bad.” Check out our blog “How to Stop Binge Eating: CBT Can Help” for more guidance.
Recognizing that food is not the enemy is the first step to freeing yourself from the mental chains of diet culture. You eat for sustenance and pleasure. You want eggs and toast for breakfast? You have it. You want popcorn while you watch a movie? You have it. You want a slice of pizza with your salad? You have it. And the best part is, is you have it all with zero guilt attached
When you eat intuitively, you eat freely according to your unique needs. Intuitive eating respects individual needs, considering your activity level, metabolism, and health conditions. Instead of following strict food rules, you tune into your body’s signals so you can eat in a way that honors your hunger cues and energy needs.
It is undeniable that food is deeply intertwined with your culture and social experiences. Intuitive eating allows you to embrace the diversity of food and acknowledge the impact of food on your overall well-being.
If you’re looking to overcome diet culture and adopt intuitive eating practices, try the following:
Educate yourself
Reject diet mentality
Listen to your body
Honor your craving
Eat your food mindfully
Practice body positivity and acceptance
Practice self-compassion
Move mindfully (Check out our blog “5 Ways Exercise Benefits Your Mental Health”)
Challenge media messages
Set boundaries (For more information, read “6 Ways to Set Boundaries & Enforce Them”)
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) for Intuitive Eating
Healing your relationship with food takes time, especially if you are an adult trying to press the rewind button on food habits or beliefs you have held since childhood or teenhood. The good news is that, as human beings, we are natural-born intuitive eaters. However, through the years, media messages and yo-yo diets have made an impression on us, shifting our eating behaviors. With practice, you can learn how to tap back into your natural ability to lean into your hunger cues.
So, the question is- how can I practice intuitive eating when I am so out of touch with my intuition? What if I do not trust my intuition?
Intuitive eating requires time and effort. You have to learn about your body again instead of living in a programmed world of food. For example, maybe after practicing intuitive eating, you recognize that you are not really hunger in the morning so you have something small for breakfast (e.g., some fruit, granola bar, etc,) or skip it altogether, naturally practicing intermittent fasting. Whatever option you choose, it is because it naturally feels good to you. You are not doing it to fit into some societal standard or diet.
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). MBCT combines cognitive therapy with mindfulness techniques. MBCT can help you create a better relationship with food, your overall welfare, and your body image. For more support, read “How to Overcome Body Image Issues.”
Here are some key components of MBCT for intuitive eating:
Mindfulness meditation practices
Such as, a mindful eating meditation
For more information, check out our blog “How Meditation Can Lead to Stress Reduction”
Cognitive restructuring tactics
Pinpointing thought patterns
All-or-nothing thinking with dieting
Cognitive reframing
Diet mentality thought: “I cannot eat carbs if I want to lose weight” versus Intuitive thinking: “Carbs are an important part of a healthy, well-balanced diet. I will listen to my body’s hunger cues, choosing foods that make me feel satisfied and nourished.”
Emotional regulation
Emotional awareness
Mindful coping mechanisms
Body image acceptance
Body appreciation exercises
Values-based goal setting
Getting clear on your values
Creating realistic goals and planning
A MBCT therapist at Anchor Therapy can pull back the curtain on your underlying thoughts, feelings, and behaviors linked to food and body image. This also encompasses challenging any cognitive distortions you may be experiencing with food, such as perfectionism. You may adopt black-and-white thinking with diets, never rearing off of a specific way of eating due to control issues. If this resonates with you, our blog “7 Ways to Let Go of Control Issues” is a must-read.
The first step of working with a MBCT counselor for intuitive eating is getting to understand your thought patterns. Perhaps negative self-talk is contributing to disordered eating behaviors or a generally negative relationship with food for example. Read “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for Negative Self-Talk” for help.
Present-moment awareness is one of the most powerful things you will learn in MBCT therapy for body image issues. By practicing present-moment awareness, you will simply observe your thoughts in a non-judgmental manner while practicing self-compassion. For instance, let us say that you had breakfast at 8:00 am and now, at 10:30 am, you feel yourself getting hungry again. Instead of casting harsh judgment on yourself for being hungry again so quickly after eating breakfast, you can lean into the beauty of listening to your body without forcing anything.
Intuitive eating also addresses hard-hitting topics, like emotional eating. Many people use food as a way to deal with stress, anxiety, or difficult feelings. A MBCT therapist will assist you in discovering underlying triggers for emotional eating and will teach you ways to construct emotional resilience through mindful practices. This resilience to diet culture can be built by exercising your critical thinking skills, promoting body positivity, and encouraging a value-based approach to food and health.
It is common to have body image concerns along your intuitive eating journey as body image often goes hand-in-hand with food and eating behaviors. A MBCT counselor will teach you how to build a more positive body image by challenging negative thoughts you have about your body and encouraging body appreciation.
There are many benefits to working with a MBCT therapist, including:
Challenging unhealthy beliefs
Mindfulness skill development
Emotional regulation
Support for behavior change
Body image acceptance
Your body does so much for you without you even realizing it. It carries you throughout the day, from work to home. It has amazing automatic functions, keeping your lungs supplied with oxygen, sustaining your heart beat, digesting your food, controlling your body temperature, and more. The list goes on and on! Your body goes beyond your physical appearance.
The more you can let go of external forces controlling your food behaviors and learn to lean into your natural hunger cues, the more likely you are to build a relationship with food based on both health and happiness.
Victoria Scala
is the Social Media Manager and Intake Coordinator at Anchor Therapy in Hoboken, New Jersey. She is a graduate of the Honors College of Rutgers University-Newark. In her roles, Victoria is committed to managing the office’s social media presence and prioritizing clients' needs.
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