Intuitive Eating

Reading Time: 6 minutes

“When you’re focused on food (or not eating food), you can’t focus on living your life.When you focus on living your life, food becomes much less important.”
-Michelle May, MD

Although we think of ourselves as super-intelligent, we do quite a lot of what we do instinctively. We walk upright, we are alert to danger, we communicate with words and gestures, and we get sleepy when it gets dark.

But when it comes to eating, our instincts are sometimes frustrated by someone else’s advice or our own failure to do what comes naturally. If we observe healthy animals in nature, they do everything they do by instinct—what we might call intuitive living: eating, resting, drinking, birthing, fleeing from danger, fighting to preserve their species. But notice that when they live near a touristy spot, their eating habits change, and their fear of humans disappears—they are conditioned to alter their instincts for some benefit. Every car door that opens signals a chipmunk to dart into view for a cracker or peanut; in captivity, animals move closer to the fence when they smell visitors’ food; the household pet races to its dish when anyone walks near the feeding area.

Along with Mother’s advice to eat this, not that, we’ve all listened to enough news and advertising to know that eating is important to our health. Trouble is, information and environment complicate what was once an intuitive activity to save us from starving to death. Today, our options for food are almost unlimited—no longer driven by location, seasonal availability, cooking techniques, and preserving methods.

When we live with chronic illness, the things we do intuitively may change—perhaps more sitting or lying down, discontinuing a sport or favorite activities, fearing certain movements. Instinctual functions are impacted by our emotions, other people’s activity, complex schedules, and the myriad of options we live with. Media constantly
barrages us with suggestions that we should try this food, drink this beverage, take this medication, fear this condition, go on this diet, compare ourselves to this model—until living moves completely away from a natural (intuitive) function, and enters the realms of competition, imitation, avoidance, and self-medicating. It’s almost like
changing the question, “What do I want to eat?” to:

What do I want to avoid?
What should I eat to feel better?
Who do I want to imitate?
How can I eat less (or more) than she does?

In the ‘60s, Twiggy changed our view of “sexy” to mean “skinny.” And changes in family structures, community sizes, working hours, and food manufacturing turned eating three meals a day at home as a family into fast-food drive-thru meals, TV snacking, supplement shakes, and dieting.

Yes, environment and emotions have a lot to do with how we eat.

The Diet Trap
It’s so easy to buy into instant results in our on-demand culture. Diets are one of those temptations. A movie star lost 20 pounds in one week so she could fit into her Oscars dress…therefore, so can I. He says his secret to building muscle is eating protein, not carbs, so I’m going to stop eating carbs altogether.

Registered dieticians and numerous scientific studies warn us that dieting doesn’t provide long-term health or weight loss. Instead dieting:

makes the body think it’s being starved, so it starts hoarding fat reserves by slowing the metabolism;
causes us to experience increased cravings;
may play a role in binge eating and eating disorders;
increases weight loss resistance with every dieting episode;
shifts the body into a survival mode that matches weight loss with weight gain;
contributes to low self-esteem—either from “failing” or from the belief that I am defective.

So what is the alternative when we want to be a healthy weight?

Being in Control vs. Being in Charge
Dieting may provide the worst gambling payout, ever. Yet we let the ads, books, and magazines convince us we can control our appetite and impulses. Let’s think about how controlling ourselves feels (whether we succeed or not): tense, guilty, fearful of failing. Not exactly the best way to relax or care for ourselves, is it?

If we are going to live successfully with chronic pain or illness, it’s essential to switch tactics. Trying to be in control of something that isn’t fully understandable (body, mind, universe, spouse, or kids) can make us feel a little crazy. Being in charge of elements within our capacity to direct and choose helps us to:

acknowledge personal responsibility and values, and
work with universal laws and widely-accepted principles.

Respecting what we can’t change—the law of gravity, for instance—demonstrates intelligence. Acknowledging our limitations—to multitask or lift 50-pound boxes—is what we do once we choose not to argue with reality.

Working with our body and mind (a team) is a lot more productive than engaging in warfare, the driving principle of dieting. Our bodies are incredible machines, built to seek and maintain homeostasis (metabolic equilibrium and biological balance). This doesn’t mean that everybody is built to look like some lithe supermodel or to pole vault 20 feet. It means that—aside from physical limitations—my body will seek homeostasis if I give it the tools it needs.

Physical Hunger vs. Emotional Hunger
Hunger is a natural, instinctive body signal to satisfy hunger and feed the body’s nutritional needs. Instead, we tend to plan our social lives around food and drink. Then, when emotions and stress get in the mix, eating takes on a lot of behaviors: overeating, non-nutritional eating, calorie-heavy snacking, bingeing, or starvation dieting. Can you identify your feelings around any of these actions? Is food filling an emotional deficit, healing a wound, taking the place of friends, dulling pain, or has it become the enemy?

What is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating “relies on your internal cues and signals,” explains Michelle May, MD.* Because it can be hard to tell the difference between wanting to eat and needing to eat, a system for checking in with body, mind, and heart will bring eating into an intuitive realm, she explains. Focusing on what our true needs are—not a weight goal, not our fears around certain foods, not an attempt to fill a void or settle our nerves—in terms of satiety (feeling satisfied) and nutrition, makes eating an intuitive activity.

“The more consistently you use hunger and satiety to guide your eating, the easier it will become to reach and maintain your natural weight without dieting.”**

If we ignore our emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual needs and eat to“fix” or mute them, we’ll end up feeling out of control. Dr. May reminds us that eating for reasons other than hunger distracts and satisfies us only temporarily; to continue the benefit, we have to eat more to feel better—a cycle of feeling better physically and worse emotionally.

Dr. May suggests checking in with our body, mind, and heart before and during every meal or social event that involves food or drink. This creates a pattern of awareness and thoughtfulness so we eat only when we’re hungry in an amount that matches our need for food.

Focus your attention on your need for food (hunger).
Move away from the sight and smell of food (it’s not easy to tell the difference between wanting to eat and needing to eat when your eyes and nose are barraged with tantalizing sights and smells) and away from watching other people eat.
Close your eyes for a few moments, take a few deep breaths, and calm yourself.
- Now focus on your physical sensations. Do you feel hunger pangs, gnawing sensations, hear growling or rumbling? Does your stomach feel empty, full, stuffed, or have no feeling at all? Be aware of other physical sensations. Are you feeling shaky, irritable, awkward, edgy, tired, nervous, thirsty, tense, in pain?
- Focus on your thoughts. Your thoughts can provide clues about whether or not you’re hungry. Are you rationalizing or justifying?
- Focus on your feelings. What emotions can you identify right now? Give yourself permission to let go of negative feelings about eating. Self-care includes eating.
- Picture your stomach (when it’s empty, about the size of your fist), and the food you want to fill it, rather than stretch it to its limits.
- Ask yourself, “Am I truly hungry?”
If it’s important to be a gracious guest, decide ahead of time the amount of each item you will put on your plate (remind yourself that you’re not on a remote island where food is scarce…that you will be able to eat again when you get hungry).

What Keeps Us From Eating Intuitively?
Think for a moment about the times you grab that tub of ice cream or binge on chips or cookies and see if you recognize the triggers:

When I’m hungry and discover there’s nothing healthy within reach.
When I get home from a mega-stressful day at work.
Immediately after swearing, I will lose weight or start an exercise program.
Following an argument or strong emotion.
When I sit down to watch football, my favorite reality show, or soap.
If I want to buy something and realize I don’t have the money for it.
When I get to thinking about my chronic illness or something that irritates me.

A Love-Hate Relationship with Food
One of the laws of the universe is that humans must eat to survive. In the interest of staying alive, let’s just agree to stop hating food. It’s not in our best interest. What is in our best interest is to give the body what it needs to reach and maintain homeostasis.

* Michelle May, MD. Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat: How to Break Your Eat-Repent-Repeat Cycle. Am I Hungry? Publishing. 2014
** Ibid.