Tag Archive for: intuitive eating

We Were All Born As Intuitive Eaters

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Did you know the “non-dieting” approach has been around since 1995? Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD and Elyse Resch MS, RD, CEDRD, FADA were the first to develop and publish this concept in their book, Intuitive Eating: The Revolutionary Program that Works. Intuitive eating is not a diet, but an approach to improve your relationship with food, exercise, and body image. Through this, studies have shown this method can additionally help improve blood pressure, cholesterol, decrease depression, enhance self-esteem and often result in weight loss for chronic dieters. Information below is a highlight of each principle and directly from the Intuitive Eating book:

PRINCIPLE 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 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 the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.

 

PRINCIPLE 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 with yourself and food.

 

PRINCIPLE 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.

 

PRINCIPLE 4:
CHALLENGE THE FOOD POLICE

Scream a loud “no” to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating under a thousand calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created. The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the food police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.

 

PRINCIPLE 5:
FEEL YOUR FULLNESS

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 a meal or snack and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what your current fullness level is.

 

PRINCIPLE 6:
DISCOVER THE SATISFACTION FACTOR

The Japanese have the wisdom to keep pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living. In our fury to be thin and healthy, 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 much less food to decide you’ve had “enough.”

 

PRINCIPLE 7:
COPE WITH YOUR EMOTIONS WITHOUT USING FOOD

Find ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your emotional issues without using food. 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 provide comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won’t solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You’ll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.

 

PRINCIPLE 8:
RESPECT YOUR BODY

Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect realistically to squeeze into a size six, it is equally futile (and uncomfortable) to have a similar expectation about body size. 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 shape.

 

PRINCIPLE 9:
EXERCISE – 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, like being energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the booze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it’s usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.

 

PRINCIPLE 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 a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency, or gain weight 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.

This book is a great read! If you are wanting to implement these principles in your life, and would like guidance/one-on-one counseling, the “BN” Dietitians are in your corner. We understand the role diet culture has played on one’s mind and body. Get back to the basics and learn to listen to YOU! LN

Best Holiday Gift Ideas from Banister’s Intern

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This is NOT a sponsored post. 

My best friend’s grandmother, Pauline, was a dietitian. She was one of my biggest supporters and inspiration for me pursuing my career in nutrition and dietetics. Before she passed away in May 2018, she gifted me with a necklace that said, “Follow Your Dreams.” Pauline was the best hostess and planner. I believe most dietitians are. She also had the best variety of essential kitchenware and gadgets. This day and age, many kitchen gadgets seem useful for a time or two before making its way to a dark corner of our cabinets, is anyone still using a George Foreman grill?

I want to share the perfect holiday, timeless gifts for anyone’s kitchen this holiday:

 

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole

If you’re tired of dieting and ready to change your relationship with food, this book is for you. More importantly, this book is for anyone who eats. Around this time of year, we’re inundated with diets and detoxes which leave most of us feeling deprived and desperate and worst off than from where we began. Intuitive Eating will be the beginning to the end of chasing diets that just don’t work. BN dietitians reference IE frequently with our patients.

As you make reading goals for 2020 add Intuitive Eating to the list, and while you’re at it, schedule an appointment at Banister Nutrition and one of our dietitians can discuss with you how to apply these concepts to your life.

Chef’s Knife

A chef’s knife is the most universal knife you will ever own (and they make you look like a pro). I use my chef’s knife every day, from cutting fruits and vegetables to cutting meats and tofu. The worst thing is you can do in the kitchen is an attempt to cut ANYTHING with a dull knife. It’s much more dangerous to cut with a dull knife than a sharp one. You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg on the most expensive chef’s knife, however, if you do, they will last FOREVER. Remember, always handwash and sharpen occasionally.

If using a chef’s knife intimidates you, check out videos on YouTube on how to use them correctly, or take a local class.

Cast Iron Skillet

Did you know cooking in a cast iron skillet can add iron to your food? Cast iron cookware is durable and practically indestructible and unlike other cookware, cast irons get better with time. Old cast iron skillets are a common find at thrift stores, antique shops, and flea markets for a reasonable price. Or if you’re lucky, maybe a family member has a few they are willing to part with.

Toddy Cold Brew System

Cold brew coffee is all the rage and it is not slowing down. Cold brew coffee is unique because the cold water brewing and filtering system cut the acidity of coffee by almost 70%. As a student, caffeine gets me through the day (and night). I’ve lost track of how many projects I’ve done on caffeine (and wine). I make a batch of this every week for my husband and me, and it definitely saves on our Starbucks bill. I’ve found cold brew made with a single-origin coffee tastes much better.

KD

Intuitive Eating

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Are you tired of dieting and being confused by all the latest diet trends? Do you feel like you don’t know how to get on track and establish a consistent eating pattern? Are you unsure of how food connects with your mental and physical health? If you answered yes to any this, the concept and practice of intuitive eating will be great to apply to your lifestyle.

Intuitive eating in a nutshell is a mindset or philosophy that honors internal body cues that we are innately born with such as eating when we are hungry and stopping when we are satisfied, and it rejects the diet mentality that is heavily marketed. There is more that is involved in becoming an intuitive eater but here are the 10 principles that were first developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in their book titled intuitive eating.

  1. Reject the Diet Mentality – Avoid fad diets and all the rules surrounded about eating
  2. Honor your Hunger – Listen to the cues your body gives you to tell you to fuel up. Keep yourself fed.
  3. Make Peace with Food – Give yourself permission to eat and enjoy all foods. Restriction leads to overeating which creates a poor relationship with food
  4. Challenge the Food Police – Stop the thoughts in your head that make you believe your “good” for eating low calories or “bad” for having some ice cream.
  5. Respect your Fullness – Listen for the signals your body gives you to tell you that you are no longer hungry. A hunger scale can be great to use for this.
  6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor- Enjoy the food and meal experiences you encounter. Remember that food is to be both nourishing and satisfying.
  7. Honor Your Feelings without using Food – Find ways to cope with emotions you may struggle with. Practice guided mediation, talk with a friend, or dive into a great book.
  8. Respect your Body – Accept your genetic blueprint and be proud of the skin you’re in! Your worth is not determined by your size.
  9. Exercise, Feel the Difference – Get active in an activity you enjoy. It doesn’t have to be at the gym to be considered exercise. Go on a walk or get some yard work done. It all counts. Shift your focus from solely burning calories to how energized you may feel. It’s a great stress reliever too!
  10. Honor your Health – Avoiding diets doesn’t equate to not being aware of or caring about what you eat. Choose nutrient dense foods the majority of the time also knowing that’s its totally fine to have some indulgences

Remember that intuitive eating doesn’t happen overnight and it takes consistent practice and time. You can work with any of the dietitians at BN to help apply these principles into your way of life long-term.

UC