in a nutshell

Intuitive eating is eating what your mind, body and soul desire…

… from a place of inner balance and a healed relationship with food.

  • Trust in your body

    At the heart of intuitive eating is listening to and honouring your body’s cues.

    This includes hunger, thirst and even rest.

    When you fully trust and respond to your body’s wants, you reject diet culture and strict eating rules, and intuitively eat in a way that is best for you.

  • Self-care

    Your intuition always knows what’s best for you.

    Intuitive eating is caring for ourselves by listening to our body and giving it what it needs in that moment.

    This serves you well in the short- and long-term, because intuition and true self-care balance the needs of both.

  • Empowerment

    When we reject the notion that outside voices know better than us, we take our power back.

    This means starting to believe that you know better than diet culture or an influencer.

    Through developing your intuition, you empower yourself to be the ultimate decision maker.

A way to live your life

Intuitive eating is less what you do and more how you do it.

It isn’t just a tick box on your ‘to do’ list (although at the start this is a great way to introduce it).

If you’re new to intuitive eating, it will require conscious effort to check in with your body’s and mind’s needs because you’re not in the habit of this yet.

Likely, your body is telling you exactly what it needs (less diet and more care), but modern society has taught us to listen to outside sources rather than our internal guide. So, it feels normal to bash our body with less food and/ or more exercise depending on the current diet craze.

Diet culture’s survival depends on this. The minute we realise we have all the power to make healthy food choices to feel and look our best, it will die.

Your body’s genuine needs are never sinister - they never want to ‘get’ you by making you eat more, or ‘not respond well’ to your new diet.

Once you start fully listening to them, you will not only look (because your body will normalise to its healthy and natural state) but feel better!

And don’t we all wish diet culture would leave us be, so we can live our life with ease, peace and freedom? And not stress about food, but have the energy and time for the things we love?!

Intuitive eating vs. diets.

The main difference between intuitive eating and diet culture is that one is based on inner guidance (i.e.) and the other on outside control (diet culture).

Diet culture wants:

  • Obedience to strict rules

  • Hate towards your body

  • Distrust in yourself

  • Constant failure - so that you need a new diet, new solutions and new false advice

Intuitive eating simply asks for:

  • Self-trust, self-love and self-care

  • Eating what your body needs

  • Eating what your mind needs

  • The best possible outcome - for present and future you

Dieting punish and brings guilt. We might try to regain the lost control by adding more rules (I’ve been there) or starting a new diet, but soon the new stuff become an obsession just like the previous one and we lose control again.

Intuitive eating treats us lovingly, and only asks that we treat ourselves the same way.

What about mindful eating?

Mindful eating can be a part of or a way to intuitive eating. But they’re not the same.

Whilst intuitive eating an overarching way to live your life (some may call it a ‘framework’), mindful eating is more a tool. Mindfulness is a great way to bring your attention to the present and truly be aware of what you’re eating, but it doesn’t go as far and broadly as intuitive eating does.

If you are interested in mindful eating and find it an approachable tool, this is a first great step to intuitive eating.

Is intuitive eating right for me?

Intuitive eating is right for everyone - it’s our most natural state of eating and being.

It’s right for you because it is you. It’s allowing your inner guide and wisdom to be the final decision-maker on your food decisions.

If you’ve spent many years not listening to this inner guidance (like I used to!), this probably sounds so abstract and made up. But you’re not so special that only you were left without an inner guide - the Universe did not forget to give you one.

On the off chance that the Universe did forget, then how amazing would it be if you created it from scratch? Starting to intuitively eat can feel exactly like that - like you’re making the inner guide out of nothing.

But, as you journey, you will see that it was there all along, waiting for you to pay attention. Then, you will feel at home, you will feel at peace, and you will feel free.

Nutrition should always support us and intuitive eating allows this to happen is the way most right for us. It also creates space for joy, fun and celebration through food, which is what life calls us to the most.