"Intuitive" Eating Might Not Work For You
Intentional Eating is my path instead
Hello, readers
I love the idea of intuitive eating. It sounds natural, unforced, and free.
I love the concept of being able to let go of the reins and let my body decide. What should I eat? I’ll just follow the sweet, sweet signals.
I wanted it to work for me. I gave it a real try, took an online course, and read a book about it. I booked a coaching session. I experimented with hunger signals, and feeling my body. I looked for feelings of fullness. I gave it a real shot.
This kind of work isn’t new to me. I’m a meditation instructor. I spend time following my hunches and doing inner work. So I thought intuitive eating would be my ticket to happiness.
It didn’t work out.
Some intuitive eating proponents say things like, “When they’re hungry, intuitive eaters pick something to eat without debating about it or feeling guilty.”
Too bad it doesn’t work for many human beings. Any amount of your addictive substance can derail you. It’s pretty hard to tell the difference between a true intuitive signal and your lizard brain looking to get its fix. Maybe it’s impossible.
It might work if all we had was real food. But we are surrounded by food-like creations that bypass our natural intuition. Ultra-processed food lights up our brains. It’s very similar to the way drugs and alcohol affect an addict.
There’s a reason why the general approach is NOT to teach alcoholics how to intuitively drink. Handing an alcohol addict a big ‘ole glass of vodka and telling them to just have a couple of sips and let their body enjoy it, savor it, would end badly.
Disclaimer: By referring to these food problems as an addiction, I am not making light of drug addiction, or claiming that I have anything as severe as a drug addiction. If your life has been darkened by drugs or alcohol, my heart goes out to you. Those are terrible situations to be in and I am so fortunate to have never experienced them.
Second disclaimer: if intuitive eating works for you, I’m glad. Keep doing it!
Dwayne walks over to my workstation.
“Tim, how about a chocolate chip cookie?”
“No thanks, I don’t want one right now.” Trying to be polite.
Badgering: “Come on, I brought one just for you.” Holds the plate out over my desk. “One cookie isn’t gonna hurt yah.”
“Okay, fine,” I take a cookie.
I put the cookie on a napkin on the desk and keep working. That sneaky snack stares me down until break time.
I get a cup of coffee and think, why not? It’s just one cookie.
I take a bite and savor it. I’ll just enjoy this one cookie. I deserve a treat.
Mindfully, slowly, I enjoy the heck out of that cookie. I “intuitively” eat it.
But now, the monster has awoken.
My lunch of a fresh garden salad with chicken is okay, but I feel like I’m missing out. I need something else. I’m ravenous. All I can think about is food.
One part of my brain is obsessively looking, hunting for another cookie, but there’s nothing handy.
I leave work. It’s a short commute, but there are a hundred places with junk food in them between here and home.
As I drive I try to stay focussed, but I’m drawn to stop and feed that inner pig that is squealing so loud I can’t even think.
Halfway home, I buckle and pull into a gas station. I pick up six dollars of candy and a bag of potato chips.
I finish it all on the way home. And I make sure I get rid of the garbage so my wife doesn’t see it. I head into the house and eat a full plate of supper.
I’m still hungry, and my inner pig is still squealing.
My food intuition is broken, because I’m an addict.
That’s what happens when this addict eats a cookie. There’s nothing intuitive about eating for me. I need to be intentional. I NEED a plan.
And I think if many of you out there were honest with yourself, you’d realize that you have the same problem as I do, to one degree or another. But it isn’t your fault. There’s no blame in this.
Is Food Addiction Real?
In general, the answer is no. Food addiction is not real.
No one gets addicted to boiled eggs, or cucumbers, or pork chops, or olives. No one buys a bag of kale and “just can’t stop eatin’ it” until they puke.
But.
Frankenfood addiction is so, so very real. (Read my article about Frankenfood here)
People have addictions to food-like substances that are ultra-processed and designed to make you crave them over any other edible item. Food scientists slave over a hot Bunsen burner to create treats so good you can’t say no, and your entire body gets hijacked.
White sugar and its evil twin, high fructose corn syrup
Bread made from modern wheat. That’s right, bread is not your friend.
Fruit juice— concentrated fructose that gives your pancreas a pounding and leaves your metabolism reeling.
Deep-fried anything (fast food)
Foods loaded with vegetable oil
Think about it for a minute. How intuitive is it to avoid fruit juice? It isn’t. Society programmed you to think juice was good, natural, and healthy. I bet you like the taste of it. I bet your body enjoys the shit out of a glass of juice now and then.
Too bad it’s terrible for you. Too bad it’s so much less healthy than a piece of fruit.
I think it’s possible to build your intuition up again. But maybe not about something like foods that you’ve abused and become addicted to. Once a tree grows crooked, it will never be a straight, tall tree, and my food intuition is a crooked tree.
If you CAN foster your intuition, you should start with something else. Something that has less emotional weight to it.
If you were learning to swim, you would start in a swimming pool or at a calm beach. You wouldn’t jump off of a boat in the middle of shark-infested waters. Trying to eat intuitively when you’ve had an eating disorder can be like jumping in with the sharks.
I intend to live a healthy, vibrant life. So, most days I eat intentionally.
I do my best to eat nourishing, nutritious food that I enjoy, that is minimally processed, and that I can eat until I’m satisfied without sidetracking my health goals.
You can call that a diet if you want. I call it sanity.
Are Diets “Bad”?
Your diet is what you eat. We all have one.
To design your diet intentionally is to live intentionally. How can it be wrong to consciously choose what direction your life will go?
This isn’t about weight loss. This is about health: Mental, spiritual, and physical health.
This is about taking control of your life instead of letting someone else dictate it to you. There’s plenty of evidence that certain food-like substances are bad for you, addictive, and designed by corporate scientists to hijack your brain. So the obvious choice is to CHOOSE your diet and limit certain things while emphasizing others.
Intentional eating is the path back to health for those of us who have been suckered by the sad, sad, Standard American Diet. We can’t afford to sit around intuitively eating cookies and toast.
Coming Soon:
A zero to 5K running plan for total beginners
Stress reduction tools for work
How to eat more intentionally
I was always suspicious “intuitive” eating for exactly the reasons you mention.
My intuition is telling me I would thoroughly enjoy a huge piece of cake.
Tim, I’m able to eat intuitively. I listen or my body tells me: protein! Fruit. A cookie please. Not hungry! Coffee. Tea 🍵…. Etc. As an ex bulimic of far too many years, I realize how lucky I am. That ‘thing’ has vanished. It’s now been over 33 years of freedom & trusting myself.