The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

Intuitive Eating is based around the principle that eating is an intuitive process derived from a healthy relationship with food and your body. Intuitive Eating has nothing to do with dieting, meal planning, weight management or willpower. There are no good or bad foods in an Intuitive Eating approach. Rather, you develop a peaceful relationship with food that is free of rigid thinking and beliefs. 

Oftentimes, people believe Intuitive Eating is the same as Mindful Eating. Though there are components of Intuitive Eating that are built on a mindful practice. The term eating mindfully can actually subscribe to a belief system in line with diet culture. Diet culture has creatively changed its language to promote healthy eating, all in the same pursuit of losing weight or manipulating your body to be something that it naturally is not. As a result it is common to hear the words mindful eating wrapped up in diet culture, for example, “to eat mindfully is to only eat plant based and organic,” such a statement can have an underlying intention of, “if I eat mindfully I will lose weight.” To have goals derived towards losing weight, is no different than subscribing to diet culture. 

By approaching eating from an Intuitive Eating perspective is to make peace with all foods. Which in turn takes certain foods off of a pedestal and adopts a more intuitive relationship with what foods you want, need, and most importantly enjoyed. After all, eating is meant to be a pleasurable activity. 

Here are the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating created by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, the founders of Intuitive Eating:

1. Reject the Diet Mentality

2. Honor Your Hunger

3. Make Peace with Food

4. Challenge the Food Police

5. Discover the Satisfaction Factor

6. Feel Your Fullness

7. Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

8. Respect Your Body

9. Movement—Feel the Difference

10. Honor Your Health—Gentle Nutrition

Working Through the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

Part of recovery from diet culture is adopting these 10 principles. This process does not happen overnight and it is important to work through them with the help of a professional. Because diet culture is a message that is promoted everywhere, it can be challenging to break through these preconditioned ideas. 

I don’t know if I am ready to take the next step with Intuitive Eating, it feels drastic.

That is totally normal. Many people don’t feel ready and your recovery is your recovery, after all you are in the driver’s seat. With that being said, it can be hard to navigate on your own while being fed messages 99.99% of the time telling you that diet culture and the thin ideal are all things to strive towards. Seek support through your recovery! A great first step is to lower that 99.99% in any ways that you can. This can be done through filtering your social media to include body diversity and diversity in general, surrounding yourself with people that support health at every size, listening to podcasts, reading books, or finding other resources that generate hope in the pursuit of peace with food and peace with your body. Please reach out if you are looking for resources to do so. I would love to provide you with some! For starters, the Food Psych Podcast is an incredible program that speaks to body positivity, fat phobia, diet culture, thin privilege, as well as the social and political implications of these. 

Interested in taking the next step? Reach out for support with intuitive eating, body image, or disordered eating.

If you are interested in seeking support I would love to work with you towards reaching your goals and redefining the relationship that you have with your body. If you are interested in learning more about how I work with intuitive eating, body image dissatisfaction, and disordered eating with eating disorder treatment, I encourage you to read more. 

If you are interested in setting up a free 20 minute consultation please reach out!

-Ellie