Overcoming Barriers to Intuitive Eating: Common Obstacles to Food Freedom

Have you ever felt like intuitive eating is a concept that soars just out of your reach, no matter how hard you try to grasp it? Welcome to this episode where we, together with Jamie, a dietitian and body image specialist, seek to understand why this is so. We discuss how diet culture and conditioning are not just innocent bystanders but are actually the culprits making it harder for us to abandon restrictive eating habits and rigid food rules. We unravel how guilt and fear associated with eating, body image, and weight loss are the invisible chains holding us back from a trustful relationship with food and our bodies.

Navigating the world of intuitive eating is like walking through a thick fog, filled with the fear of weight gain, dependence on food rules set by others, and the emotional turmoil that accompanies this journey. Yet, as we dive into this episode’s discussion, we illuminate these obstacles and equip you with the needed patience and professional support to circumnavigate them. We believe that despite these barriers, intuitive eating is not a mythical creature but a reachable goal. So, join us as we pave a path towards a compassionate relationship with food and our bodies, ultimately leading to a life that exudes freedom and confidence.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Bites in Body Love. I'm Jamie, a dietitian and body image specialist. Join me to liberate yourself from diets and body shame, embracing true freedom and confidence with food and body. Take your place at the table on this transformative journey towards a life of freedom and confidence. Why can't I seem to get intuitive eating? Why do I keep failing intuitive eating despite my best efforts? Well, we're gonna talk about that today in this episode.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Intuitive eating is extremely hard on your own. After years of dieting, after years of disordered eating, intuitive eating is not all that intuitive when you get started. And first I want to just extend a lot of compassion because, of course, it's not gonna be easy. You have all these rules, all the shame around food, all of this confusing messaging, all of this distrust with your body. That's a big one Distrusting your body. If we distrust our body and we distrust the way we think about food, it's gonna be very hard to move into trusting food and trusting body. So why are we failing intuitive eating? Let's talk about it. Extend yourself a lot of compassion and let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 1:16

Intuitive eating is a philosophy that really encourages individuals to listen to their body's cues and listen to hunger, and listen to fullness and understand those things, what feels good for you, and to just really get in tune with what your body's trying to tell you, where we're listening internally, we're feeling, we're thinking about how we're feeling emotionally, mentally, physically and we're no longer listening to these external rules and these rules by diets and this in the shame right that keeps us shackled, relying on these external diets to know how to eat. I like to call intuitive eating also like normal eating, your compassionate way of eating, your happy, healthy way of eating, so you can replace it with whatever the ways in which I don't like the word. The philosophy intuitive eating is because sometimes people take intuitive eating and they can make it into this rulebook. I'm sure you can. You know on this podcast, on your app that you're using, you can Google intuitive eating and find some really bad podcasts about intuitive eating and how they make it and just into another diet right, another shaming, rule-based diet that you feel like you're feeling and that's not what it's meant to be used for and that's not going to get you the results that intuitive eating happy, healthy eating can give you, where it frees your relationship, frees you up and promotes a really positive, healthy and happy relationship with food in your body that truly sets you free. So let's talk about the seven reasons why individuals might be struggling with intuitive eating and why you have downloaded this episode today.

Speaker 1: 2:56

Number one diet culture, conditioning, as I kind of already alluded to this. But years of exposure to diet culture, disordered eating, feeling like you distrust your body, feeling like your body is a project, feeling like you need to control your body and food can make it extremely difficult to unlearn these restrictive eating habits, these rigid food rules, this pursuit of the quote-unquote ideal body, this pursuit of weight loss, this constant messaging around good and bad foods. It can lead to feelings of guilt and fear associated with eating. Guilt and fear around your body, around body image. So, diet culture and conditioning and all the messages that they have implanted in your brain and that you have reinforced with practicing different diets and shaming yourself for quote-unquote failing them. This makes intuitive eating really difficult.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Next one many people struggle with learning how to eat intuitively and become an intuitive eater because of the fear of weight gain, body image. Right, because in a society that equates thinness to health and beauty, the fear of gaining weight is a significant barrier. Oftentimes intuitive eating disguised as diet culture says, hey, if you eat intuitively, you will lose weight, right. And then of course they. It's not intuitive eating that they're promoting and teaching, but that's not what intuitive eating is about and it's not what it does. When people start eating intuitively, they can gain weight, lose weight, stay the same, really all the in-betweens. So we can't associate, we don't want to put those two things together. What's going to happen with our weight and intuitive eating? Because we don't know. Our body's going to let us know and is going to tell us what we need to do, but of course, the fear of weight gain and an unaddressed relationship with body, relationship with body that's not being assessed and taken care of. This is going to remain a barrier. So when you are working on intuitive eating, you have to work on body image and of course body image is complex and that's why we have a whole podcast about it that we can go on and on and on forever with new episodes about because it's complex. But we cannot not talk about body image when it comes to intuitive eating, because that fear around body image is huge and often is the barrier to being able to be successful with becoming an intuitive eater.

Speaker 1: 5:38

The next one external food rules. Many people are really used to following external food rules, whether from like diet programs or meal plans or external quote unquote authorities, and they're really told that you buy it by these experts, by these diet plans, that the diet plan and that external authority is the expert of your own body. That's not true. You're the expert of your own body. But having these external food rules for so long and then switching to internal cues and letting go of the rules and just throwing out the rule book the rule book that has created this false sense of safety that can be extremely challenging, extremely unfamiliar and extremely discomfort and extremely uncomfortable. And what happens? When something is uncomfortable or unfamiliar, it feels wrong and so oftentimes people say no, this must be wrong. This new way of doing things must be wrong, because this is different, which is creating discomfort, and people don't sit in the discomfort long enough to experience full, true, intuitive eating and that food freedom.

Speaker 1: 6:47

The next barrier is the emotions that come along with this process. Again, they're really uncomfortable and it brings up a lot. It brings up a lot of stress, a lot of fear, a lot of feelings of shame, a lot of feelings of I'm not doing this right and also, potentially, when you are working through intuitive eating, you're also you also have male adaptive coping mechanisms and so those interplay together and create this like. It makes it a lot more confusing and a lot more complicated. So we really have to work on emotional health when it comes to intuitive eating as well. We can't skip that.

Speaker 1: 7:28

The next one is this disconnect and loss of cues, of the internal cues. You have to gain those back in order to be able to use them to eat intuitively. You have to be able to get those back and there's a practice of consistent eating to get those back. And you also have to raise awareness around. What are my hunger cues? What are my subtle hunger cues? How do I know when to eat? How do I know how to trust that cue? Reconnecting with those cues takes time and practice. It's extremely difficult and it can oftentimes become a barrier.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Next one this perceived lack of control. Some individuals can really perceive intuitive eating as a loss of control, because they do feel out of control when they start to break their rules, when they start to do things differently, and then they can tell themselves oh my goodness, I need rules to control myself because I have this, I'm out of control. However, this fear can really make you hesitant and push you away from exactly what you need to do, which is start to trust your instincts, trust your appetite, try new things, build a healthy relationship with food, bring all foods in. And it's just that it's a perceived lack of control. Your body doesn't need to be controlled. Your food doesn't need to be controlled. Think about how you grew up. This relationship with food was developed because of unhealthy things like dieting and listening to external factors and weight bias and bad body image. You didn't start with that. This is a perceived lack of control. It is a big one that keeps people stuck.

Speaker 1: 9:19

And the last one is this desire for quick results. Intuitive eating doesn't promise quick fixes. It doesn't promise rapid weight loss. In a culture that values instant results, the patients required for intuitive eating can be very challenging for some to continue to maintain it. You have to undo years of dieting, years of disordered eating. So to think intuitive eating is going to take just a minute, is it gonna be short, gonna be rapid? No, you can definitely feel instant results in different ways and continue to build on those results that help you to continue to build confidence. But many times that desire for quick results and that feeling of oh no, I don't have quick results, it must mean I'm doing things wrong stops people.

Speaker 1: 10:16

So really, it's important to note that all these challenges does not mean that intuitive eating is unattainable. But you do need patience, you do need a willingness to address the barriers, so you do need to be ready and you do need support or oftentimes people need support 99% of the time, from what I've seen Because you need someone to help you from an external perspective. Not going through all that you're going to go through, all of the things that you're going to do, is the roller coaster that you're going to experience of lows and highs with intuitive eating. So it's really helpful to have someone there, that expert, to support you, to have that finish line in mind, to be riding alongside you in the passenger seat while you're driving, to help to make sure to keep you on that road and to say no, no, no, this is normal, it's okay that you're experiencing that or hey, maybe you didn't address this, we still haven't looked at this Just to help to keep you on the right path and someone who's an expert in guiding people in that way, and you need to find someone who specializes in this approach, where it's not going to be a diet disguised but it's going to be someone who trusts your body, who knows you are the expert of your own body and that you can absolutely get there, and who's not afraid. And someone who's not afraid for you, someone who is excited and helps you cope through the fear but doesn't fear your ability to get there.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Intuitive eating is what you're meant to do and it is there for you. You just have to be very, very careful of all of these different barriers that can keep you from pursuing this wonderful relationship with food. You have to get past these barriers. You have to address these things. You have to be okay with getting uncomfortable because on the other side, it's this wonderful relationship with food that's compassionate, intuitive and freeing, and you deserve it. Thank you for tuning in to Bites in Body Love, ready for true food and body freedom. Apply to join my program True Body Image Freedom for Everybody, where we will guide you every step of the way. See you on me at jamierd underscore on Instagram or Facebook for a no pressure conversation so we can learn more about you and your fit for the program. Remember every step toward loving your body is a victory. Subscribe and leave a review to support our message of body liberation. Stay awesome and see you next time You've got this.