A lot of my clients come to me expressing that they would like to learn how to eat intuitively, and to that I say: great! Often, in helping my clients explore nutrition strategies that can help them reach their goals, and keep their preferences and lifestyle in mind, intuitive eating is brought up as a way to potentially reach their goals.
But, how do you intuit something you've never been acquainted with and don't have the knowledge to approach?
Well, that is why I argue that even if you want to intuitive eat, macros is where you have to start. Eating intuitively is a whole system, you cannot "intuitively eat" if you're not willing to do most of the major aspects of Intuitive Eating, because it requires awareness and prior knowledge. That is what popular media tends to neglect to mention!
What is Intuitive Eating?
Let's chat a bit about Intuitive Eating. It's a great concept and practice, created by two Registered Dietitians and they published the first copy of Intuitive Eating in 1995. It's been reprinted since, with expansions on weight-stigma, baby-led weaning, and diet culture. Here are the 10 principals that define Intuitive Eating:
1. Reject the Diet Mentality
Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at diet culture that promotes weight loss and the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet or food plan might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
2. Honor Your Hunger
Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust in yourself and in food.
3. Make Peace with Food
Call a truce; stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing. When you finally “give in” to your forbidden foods, eating will be experienced with such intensity it usually results in Last Supper overeating and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police
Scream a loud no to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimal calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that diet culture has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loudspeaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the food police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor
The Japanese have the wisdom to keep pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living. In our compulsion to comply with diet culture, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence—the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes just the right amount of food for you to decide you’ve had “enough.”
6. Feel Your Fullness
In order to honor your fullness, you need to trust that you will give yourself the foods that you desire. Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full. Pause in the middle of eating and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what your current hunger level is.
7. Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness
First, recognize that food restriction, both physically and mentally, can, in and of itself, trigger loss of control, which can feel like emotional eating. Find kind ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your issues. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won’t fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you. But food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger may only make you feel worse in the long run. You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion.
8. Respect Your Body
Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally futile (and uncomfortable) to have a similar expectation about body size. But mostly, respect your body so you can feel better about who you are. It’s hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical of your body size or shape. All bodies deserve dignity.
9. Movement—Feel the Difference
Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie-burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm.
10. Honor Your Health—Gentle Nutrition
Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel good. Remember that you don’t have to eat perfectly to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or become unhealthy, from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters. Progress, not perfection, is what counts.
As we look at these principals, I recognize as a nutrition consultant that it would be an impossible ask to suggest to a client who grew up in a food desert, with limited funds for fresh foods, to be able to practice "gentle nutrition" when they've not had the life-experience or ability to know what is considered nutritious, and what is not. I also recognize as an expert, that my clients wouldn't know what foods to choose for satiety--this is why I argue that macros come first, even if you want and may even need to (for your well-being) graduate to eating more intuitively!
I would also argue that while my approach isn't considered Intuitive Eating, I do follow the practices and encourage my clients to as well, of gentle movement, coping with your emotions with kindness, and ditching the diet mentality. There is a huge difference between specifically-structured macros to get to a very specific outcome, and generally feeling more peace and ease with food, and therefore, being able to get to your goals.
But, they're both contingent on one thing. Knowledge.
This is why as I coach, I feel my most important duty is to educate my clients. You don't need to be an enclopedia of nutrition information to get to your goals, but you have to have a good understanding of what foods will help you feel satisfied (protein, fats, fiber), and what those foods are made up of. Macros aren't just for bodybuilding or growing muscle--upon reflection, I've coached many more clients who weren't athletes or had athletic endeavors to support, and my clients ALWAYS benefit when they invest time in to understanding macros and what foods will help them stay mentally and physically satisfied.
This can be tricky when you have a history of disordered eating, but certainly not impossible. I have helped many women with a history of eating disorders embrace that knowing what their food does for them (especially in relation to their goals), is a way to improve your confidence in yourself and in your choices--it's not a millstone around your neck if you truly embrace the Intuitive Eating principal of making peace with food, or are diligently trying to get there. There truly aren't good or bad foods (well, I can think of ONE! Comment down below if you wanna know what it is!).
In summary, what I want to express is I firmly believe in both approaches--Macros and Intuitive eating! What approach you apply, for how long, and why--are the factors that should dictate whether or not you try it for yourself. I think you can be a dang good intuitive eater and still track some macros. I think you can be great at counting macros and never need to be as mindful of your food as Intuitive Eating asks. It's all about where you are in your journey.
If you could use some guidance and accountability as you track macros, and are looking for a coach who will educate you, and try to understand where you are in your journey so I can help you eat in a way that supports your goals AND well-being--reach out! I would love to help you on your path to finding your personal harmony with food, and fitness.
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