You may have heard the phrase “intuitive eating” thrown around a bit in the nutrition world. Essentially, intuitive eating is knowing what and how much to eat by listening to your body. To eat intuitively means to not have to track your calories and macros or have to follow a strict eating plan.
Sounds nice right? But is it actually possible? The answer is yes, but to understand why takes a little nuance.
You see we have signals in our bodies that are meant to tell us when we need to eat and when we are full. When these signals are working properly, then we are much more able to eat intuitively without the fear of overeating (or undereating for some). The problem is that in many of us, these signals are broken.
Research has demonstrated that when we are unhealthy, our hunger signals are out of wack. We get hungry when we don’t need food and the shut-off button for that hunger can hardly be quenched with any amount of food. This is what makes intuitive eating so difficult.
But this doesn’t mean that intuitive eating is impossible. It means that to get to a point where we can eat intuitively, we have to repair ourselves. Research has also found that through certain dieting techniques, especially low carb dieting, we can actually restore our hunger signals back to functioning more optimally making this concept of intuitive eating much more possible.
It’s not just impaired hunger signals and being “unhealthy” that limits our ability to listen to our body and eat what and how much we should. It’s also what we eat on a day-to-day basis that can sabotage us. If you are constantly eating high-carb foods that send your blood sugar on a roller coaster, you are going to be hungry. If you are eating sweet foods for snacks between meals, you can bet that you are going to have hunger stimulated shortly after consuming them. What we put in our body says a lot about our ability to listen to our body to give it exactly what it needs.
The point here is that if you are new to dieting or giving any sort of care to your nutrition, you are simply not going to be in a place where intuitive eating is possible. You may have to track your calories and macros. You may have to follow a strict meal plan. You may have to experience hunger at times and learn how to deal with it. You may have to have some discipline and say no to certain foods that you know are going to stimulate more hunger and cause you to overeat. All of which is difficult to do but so worth it.
So be patient with yourself. Intuitive eating is something that we have to work towards and it takes discipline. It will take us telling ourselves that we are not going to give in to every temptation I experience. And this will be a struggle. You will slip up from time to time. But this doesn’t make you a failure. This is simply part of the game and once you get good at playing the game, you will find that listening to your body and eating intuitively will become much easier. Eventually.
Thanks for reading,
Chris Irvin
P.S. There is actually a ton of research demonstrating that the keto diet has the ability to help restore our hunger hormones and make intuitive dieting easier. If you are interested in trying the keto diet, check out Keto Answers, a book that Dr. Anthony Gustin and I wrote that tells you everything you need to know about the keto diet and answers the most common question we have had asked to us over the years. The best part is, the book is now available as an audiobook!