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. All right, I am excited, for today we are going to be discussing the seven most common intuitive myths that I hear. These myths and misconceptions can really hold you back in your journey, and I hate that. I hate when there is a block, because there's just something you don't quite understand or something that's false that you are turning into a belief. So we want to get these barriers out of your way so that you can hold hope again for intuitive eating, to be able to have a free, happy, confident relationship that is stress-free with food and your body.
Speaker 1:Intuitive eating, normal eating, your happy, healthy eating, compassionate eating, whatever you want to call it, it's all the same thing. I might I probably will use intuitive eating, using your intuition and your own internal ability to understand how to eat rather than external rules. I may be calling them, I'll probably interchange them, but I mean the same thing. I'm referring to the same thing your normal way of eating. So pick your favorite and we'll go with that. Okay, so, without further ado, let's go ahead and dive in to the first intuitive eating myth that I hear far too too often, and that is going to be. Intuitive eating is walking the park, it's easy, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a piece of cake. And the reason I want to talk about this one it doesn't make me as angry as the other ones but the reason that this one's still very, very important is that it causes people to give up on intuitive eating when they find out that intuitive eating is not easy. It is not easy when you come from a place of chronic dieting, disordered eating, distrust with your body, and you have that way of doing things, those beliefs, just wired into your brain. It's very hard to get uncomfortable and do something different, like into a beating, like trusting your own body, like that's hard. I'm just going to trust my body when I've distrusted it for years, and just trust it's going to do what I need it to do. Trust myself to do what I need to do and not self-sabotage, not fall into these traps and know how to eat Like, yeah, right, no, it's not easy. It takes a lot of work, a lot of undoing and it takes time and support. The concept is simple, right, like eat intuitively, but simple doesn't mean easy.
Speaker 1:When we think about intuitive eating and what it actually entails, it's a much more complicated manner. It requires you to take a really hard look at yourself. It requires you to dig deep in order to really contemplate your relationship with food, which requires you to also, in turn, think and contemplate about other relationships, including your relationship with your body and exercise, and to really think about what these relationships are like in your life. And that can often be very uncomfortable and we could be avoiding thinking about those. And intuitive eating requires you to do that tough work.
Speaker 1:It's not the quick fix and when dieting and with with disordered eating, there are relationships. These relationships are often disregarded, avoided. We don't look at those. We cope through dieting and disordered eating and eating disorders. So when starting to eat intuitively, trust our body again, we enter a whole new ballgame. It really forces you to ask yourself what is my current relationship with food bringing to me in my life? What is it taking away from me? Is it provoking joy, is it provoking anxiety or fear? What kind of relationship do I want to have with food? What kind of relationship do I want to have with my body? What fears come up when I think about giving up my disordered eating tendencies or my eating disorder behaviors, my dieting? So many important, necessary questions, and I love going through this because you actually get to the root. When you are able to get that support and assess those things that you have been avoiding, it really truly opens up your world to so much more. The next thing is not only does it require to take a hard look at yourself, but it also requires you to be more mindful, and it's not an easy task. When we have to tune into our self and build trust within ourselves and ask ourselves and learn more about our bodies. It might be easier and more of a crutch and I put easier in quotes right, it's not easy to continue to diet, but in some ways, it might be easier and safer to just follow these external rules that are promising you falsely promising you these things that you don't want to give up on in your life. Right, that ideal body, that ideal life that diets promise you so intuitive eating really is the adoption of more mindfulness, more trust, being present, paying attention, learning about your body, getting uncomfortable, gaining that respect, gaining that respectful relationship back with your body. It requires you to notice your feelings, notice your experiences, reflect on your experiences and this is really hard when you have checked out and you're not used to checking in with yourself. And yeah, all in all, it just requires a lot of hard work. So the last thing that makes this not easy is that the fact that it's hard and it requires a lot of hard work of undoing diet mentalities, getting uncomfortable, rewiring your brain, ditching those old, deeply ingrained beliefs that are not helping you. It requires you to try things new, try new things and continue moving forward in a different direction, which is scary. So it requires challenging all of these beliefs that run so, so deep and that can also, that can really hang people up because they think, well, if this were the right way to go, it would be easier or I would be there by now. Nope, not the case. It's not the quick fix. So it's gonna be hard and it's gonna take some time and it's gonna take some port. It's gonna take some support, okay.
Speaker 1:Next myth and misconception is intuitive eating means like losing control eating pizza and ice cream all day, every day, right, disregarding my health completely. So intuitive eating? A lot of times has this false. There's false messaging around or belief false beliefs around that intuitive eating is just like eating eating whatever you want in the way of like, which is equating to people believing it's just like eating pizza and ice cream and sticks of butter all day long, every day. Right, this is the number one, I believe, misunderstood idea that I hear about intuitive eating that if you are eating intuitively, you are going to just eat all the quote unquote bad foods or fun foods all the time, and that if people had a choice, they are going to want to eat brownies and fries all day long. They're never gonna want to look at another salad, another apple, another mixed veggie. None of that right. They're going to only want those foods that are off limits right now or that are considered bad, that are wired in their brain as bad and all charged up. So, first of all, yes, there may be a phase of this. However, it's a phase I don't know how you can't go through a phase of eating more of those foods that you have put off limits because your body has been restricted, it's been dieting, disordered eating and eating disorder behaviors for so long, so you're going to want to eat all of those foods all at once that you've restricted.
Speaker 1:You can think of it like letting a kid go wild in a candy store after not being allowed candy for months. It's like letting your pet run outside after you keep them cooped up in the house all day. It's just a very normal reaction. It's like coming up for your first breath You're going to if you're underwater for a long time, you're coming up for your first breath. You're going to want to take all the oxygen in that you can. It's what your body needs to do. It's the process it needs to take, not only your body that's been restricted, but your mind. It needs to build trust with those foods again. It needs to know that they're still going to be there. It needs to become uncharged. And this is really really scary.
Speaker 1:And we talk a lot about my clients and I talk a lot about whether we want to jump right into the pool of intuitive eating or we just want to dip our toes in and then we modify from there Like well, let's stop doing toe by toe is going to take forever. Let's, let's put your whole, let's put both both their legs in right, I'm here to catch you. If you, if you, if it's so cold that you fall into the water or you, whatever it might be, whatever metaphor you want to use. But yeah, this is, this is to be expected. And it holds people back because people think they're going to be in that phase forever and because they already have that belief I can't trust my body. And then they experience this reaction to the foods that they've restricted by and they feel out of control. They then confirm that belief and say, see, it's not meant for me, I can't trust my body. And the problem is then they stop and they don't keep going, which is a huge reason why you need support for intuitive eating. So you keep going or you're going to, you're going to stop at these different phases, believing that it's not meant for you, you're not right for you, you're not right for intuitive eating. You just can't have it. Nope, 100%, no, I will go to my grave with it. No.
Speaker 1:So again, when you first free yourself from the shackles of dieting, from the shackles of disordered eating, yes, you may overeat all the foods that were not okay before, or and you may only eat those things, and that's okay, and and everyone experiences it differently. That's the, that's very, very normal. So there is no failing in intuitive eating. This is part of the process, it's part of the experience. When you let go of dieting, you have to let go of that belief of stocking up on all the good stuff when you can get it all the, all those restricted food before you need to start your next diet and try to restrict again when dieting. You don't know when that that piece of cake is going to be gone and forbidden again. So that creates that restrictive mentality and this idea of forbidden food only makes it all that more crave worthy and all that more positively charged.
Speaker 1:So yes, you're going to go through that initial phase. There's a lot of psychology around this. I'll do another episode on the psychology. It's really interesting the different cycles people get into and that have been researched and backed and backed up. So anyways, yes, you're going to go through that initial phase and it's last. It lasts a different amount time for everyone. It's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to be scary, but it's normal, it's temporary. That doesn't mean you're failing.
Speaker 1:So soon as you continue to keep going, you start to realize that all these foods aren't going anywhere. You start to build trust with them. You start to understand you can have them whenever there's no more hoarding, no more binging. Your body starts to eventually understand hey, so you aren't going to keep these foods for me anymore. I can have them another time, okay, good, because they're starting to make me feel sick. Or can I please have a salad already? I really could use a piece of broccoli. So it starts to normalize, where you have all different types of foods and you're able to listen to yourself because you're not stuck in that diet restriction mindset where everything's charged up and it's very hard to be in that intuitive place. You have to go through that process. So your body just wants to make sure you won't restrict those foods again. It needs to go through that process. Remember, our bodies crave to get in all types of foods, to get that it needs, the, the nutrients that it needs. It craves to have that to feel good. So your body's on your side and and rooting for you and and leading you there and you and you can trust it and you can trust yourself. Just don't trust those bits, okay.
Speaker 1:The next myth is that intuitive eating is a diet, and I would say this is more like a false advertisement. There's a lot of, there's a lot of diets disguised as intuitive eating, disguised as a lifestyle. No, intuitive eating is not a diet. It's not a quick fix. It doesn't do the same things as diets do like it leads you to a lot of negative places with a lot of baggage. Although the diet industry is trying to jump on the bandwagon and steal it away and turn it into another diet, to make money off your insecurities and your shame through all these lies, the truth is intuitive eating is not a diet.
Speaker 1:Okay, a diet is a special course of food to which one restricts oneself to lose weight. Intuitive eating is neither restriction based or designed for the purpose of weight loss. You never know what's going to happen to your body as you are moving into intuitive eating. But weight loss is not the goal and it's not something that should be promised, okay. So intuitive eating really brings your body to where your body wants to be, at its healthy state. It's it's. Weight loss is not the focus. So if you see intuitive eating and weight loss in the same sentence, in the same program run, you think intuitive eating cannot promise that your body is going to do what it's going to be best. That might be losing, that might be staying the same and that might be gaining whatever your body needs to do. Your body will will take you to where it needs to go.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it's not a diet. It's a way to learn to eat outside of the diet mentality. It's used to create a healthy relationship with food forever. That's sustainable. It's used to help you to become your own best nutritionist. It is used to free yourself from the chains of diet culture and body ideals to live a more free, lovely life according to your own values and what you want, how you want to spend your energy. This is to help you to learn to disconnect from that all or nothing thinking or those charged up foods, to help you to start looking at foods in terms of satisfaction, self-care, compassion, enjoyment.
Speaker 1:On a diet, you might look at a bowl of cereal and ask yourself well, how many carbs or calories are in this? Should I eat this now or would it be better to eat later? Well, eating this mean I'm being good today or bad today? Is this bad for me? I might as well eat two bowls of cereal and top it off with some ice cream. Now, that's not. With intuitive eating. It becomes simple. You're not stuck in that questioning, that anxiety. You simply look at the bowl of cereal. Now you have to go, do the work to get here, but you can simply look at the bowl of cereal and ask yourself do I want it? This is a simple question it's not hyper focused on and that's what it starts with. And then, naturally, you're going to learn to consider factors of what feels good right now, what you consider, all these different factors that are intuitive. So, all in all, with intuitive eating, a bowl of cereal is just that, a bowl of cereal, and in dieting, it can be a million and one things, from a bad food to an off limits food, to an eat sparingly food, to a high carb food and so much more, depending on what diet you choose to plague yourself with. To no fault of your own, to no fault of your own, I get it. So, no, it's not a diet, it is everything that a diet is not.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's go into the fourth myth and we might have to make a part two. I think we can go until seven, okay. So myth four Nutrition doesn't matter. Health is going to be lost with intuitive eating. I hate this. Health is gained with intuitive eating. Nutrition is absolutely a part of intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is a compassionate way of eating. It would not be compassionate not to consider health for ourselves. But the health is complex. Health is not weight loss. Health is a privilege. There's so much to health. Health is holistic. So when we're talking about health and nutrition, intuitive eating is where it's at.
Speaker 1:As a dietitian, I am about helping people with their health, their holistic health, and so I wouldn't adopt intuitive eating if I didn't think it was the best for people's health. Okay, so anyways, I want to start off by saying a few things as we go into this myth. Number one as I mentioned a little bit earlier with my own personal experience and beliefs, intuitive eating was created by dietitians, registered dietitian nutritionists, was created by dietitians who care about your health and well-being and who make that their career and who have that as a passion. Okay, number two intuitive eating is adopted by and coached by, dietitians everywhere. If you are familiar with what a dietitian is, I'm going to tell you a little bit about them. They are very they care about your health. They care about it so much that they went into the practice of helping people with their health. The bottom line is that intuitive eating was and is created with nutrition and health and well-being as very important components to the practice, however, with the goal with.
Speaker 1:However, the goal with nutrition and intuitive eating is to learn to stop thinking about nutrition as this restrictive, dogmatic, anxiety-ridden, restrictive, fad-based, and all be all simple as food and what the types of food you have or determines your health, right Pass, aimed to sickness. Get rid of all of those things, because all of those really poorly impact your health. Diet takes the concept of nutrition and it makes it into this. It not only enjoyable, but also unnatural and harmful. Nutrition becomes this Responsibility, this pressure, this thing that you cannot do on your own. You need these external rules. You can't trust your body and all of just nutrition becomes punishment. It becomes something we feel like. We can't trust it just in all of the, all of the baggage that comes along with it.
Speaker 1:I Want you to think about this. Okay, our body Knows what it's doing. It was created With the knowledge to know what it's doing and communicate the needs to you, so you and your body can work together. And your body has biological needs. It craves nutrients, right, so it's communicating what it needs when it needs. And your mind is, and your emotional health all of these things are communicating.
Speaker 1:Intuitive eating helps you to pay attention to the signals of your body saying hey, give me some of those nutrients. Or hey, I could really use a candy bar and shooting. Helps us to listen to all that it's saying rather than disconnecting from it, distrusting it and and and just listening to the diet, which causes a ton of distrust with our body when the diet inevitably fails, because over 95% of diets fail. They Cause you to wait cycle, they cause you to your numbers to go astray, they cause you to have negative relationship with food and body binge, have bad mental health. All of that right, but with intuitive eating, it's not about eat this, not that. Follow these rules. This is a good food, this is a bad food. Instead, you are thinking about what makes your body, your mind, feel good.
Speaker 1:Intuitive eating allows you to honor your hunger, honor your taste, your cravings, and it also helps you to honor the fact that your body needs certain things right. It needs a balanced plate to to feel fueled, full, satisfied. It takes our feelings into mind. It takes our relationship with food and body into mind, which impacts our mental, mental health. Okay, so super, super important. I can talk about this all day long.
Speaker 1:But for sake of time, I'm gonna go into the next myth, myth 5, the myth that Always listen to your body, no matter what. The only thing to consider is listening to your hunger, your desires, no matter what. We're just listening to our body. This is this is one that might confuse you when I say it always listen to your body, no matter what. Okay, let's, let's get into it. So the intuitive and intuitive eating is indicating intuition, and the definition of intuitive eating and intuition Is to be attuned, and to be attuned means to be made aware. Okay, you're welcome for these English lessons now. Awareness means awareness of all parts of your body and Awareness of your day and your experiences and what's ahead. So one of these very important parts of your body is your brain, and intuitive eating means making mindful considerations when, when, eating.
Speaker 1:If you're not catching my drift, let me give you some examples now. Example one Yesterday I went to the Chipotle, and when I went to Chipotle and I was ordering, I was using my brain and not just my body. When ordering my brain. I Used my brain to reason that I will Not add beans to my burrito because I know that's gonna cause me to have a stomach ache, even though I craved the burrito. Then, while eating my fabulous burrito, although my tummy was full, my brain said, jamie, that's because you haven't eaten in a while, so you need to do a little bit of catching up, and you're also not going to be able to sit down to eat for another couple hours. So you should eat more of this, because that's going to give you the fuel you need. And if you're listening to just being full, you have to take into consideration that you haven't eaten for a few hours and that's why you're getting full faster.
Speaker 1:Your hunger cues and your fullness cues are now a bit off and you can't trust them. So I'm using my reasoning, I'm using my experiences. We can't just use listening to our body, because sometimes it's wrong, right Sometimes. For example, I mean when you like the example I gave, when you are not hungry but you haven't eaten in a while. That's not good for you. We can't listen to our body in that situation because sometimes our body is off, depending on the experience we have had, and we want to take that into consideration as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, so another example. I'm just gonna keep going with this one because I don't want you to get the wrong impression of this myth. But when you wake up in the morning and you are not hungry, you wake up and you're not hungry and you're gonna go into work you still need to have breakfast. We might not be hungry, but our body needs food. That's the best thing it can do. That's the best thing you can do for it. So, yeah, I think you're getting the drift.
Speaker 1:So, with intuitive eating, there are no rules, so you could do whatever you want, but you, and that's totally okay, there's no failing. But when making food decisions, it still is a decision, a decision that you want to take all things into consideration, right, and it's not super complicated where you have to go through all the 10 considerations, but you do want to be mindful of different considerations of when's the next time I'm gonna eat. Are my hunger cues off? What's gonna be best for me? Right? How did I feel last time? What are my experiences telling me about this? Okay, another example, just for kicks, is when you're putting your meal together and you're getting it ready for tomorrow and you make yourself a plate of pasta, but then you look at your and that's what your body's telling you. Like. That sounds great, but your body's also giving you the experience that, hey, let's add some good fats and some veggies with this is gonna keep you satisfied longer, it's gonna give you those nutrients you need and you're gonna be happy, okay. So, yeah, there's that one. I hope that one made sense. I know it was a little bit all over the place because it's a little harder. I don't know why I find that one a little harder to explain, all right.
Speaker 1:So myth six intuitive eating means no structure. It's a free for all. Intuitive eating is a free for all. Now, when you're comparing it to rigid dieting, yeah, I guess you can say that intuitive eating looks like there's no structure at all. That would make sense, and your distrust with your body would also tell you that this is a free for all, with all the rules, the guidelines, the meal plans and the responsibilities that come with dieting. When we're told that we can have food freedom, intuitive eating looks like it's every person for themselves, free for all. Good luck, sad but true because of the diet culture that we live in.
Speaker 1:But unlike dieting that tells you exactly what you're allowed to eat, what foods are forbidden intuitive eating we have to make our own food choices. Unlike dieting, we do not get these black and white rules and, unlike dieting, we are forced to think for ourselves, while considering our own unique individual needs and desires and wants. So, yeah, intuitive eating has you do this very scary, rebellious, taboo thing in the nutrition world, which is to Do you want to know what it is, get ready for it. It makes you think for yourself, trust yourself, listen to yourself. Hey, get that. A way of eating that doesn't make you feel like you have no qualification to make your own choices about your own body in relationship with food. It's a way of eating that doesn't tell you that you have no idea what you're doing.
Speaker 1:Now, with all that steering the wheel for the first time, things get intimidating and you can get really nervous about the lack of structure. However, although diets may seem like they have a lot more structure, the fact is intuitive eating has a lot of structure as well that is stable and sustainable while diets. We know what happens with diets in a structure. We have a rigid structure. Until we have no structure at all, we can't list and we go crazy on the foods that we're restricted when we feel awful Right. The difference between diets and intuitive eating is that dieting is structured with rules, whereas intuitive eating doesn't have any rules, but the structure of intuitive eating is just more flexible and individualized and we create a structure that helps us to feel good individually. That can be changed and don't have these rigid rules we need to follow, but it can be. It can change each day, okay, and the principles and practices of intuitive eating help to provide a framework right. Getting the support helps you to get the framework to help you, to guide you in a way that allows you to be free of any kind of rules or moral dilemmas attached to food choices as you come into understanding your relationship with food in your body.
Speaker 1:So this myth is an understandable one, since so many people believe that if there are no rules, there can't be structure, and then there's not going to be success and it's going to. You're going to be crazy. However, this is not that simple. It is just not true and I want you to ask yourself those questions. I want you to ask yourself a few questions for your own experiences To like. Don't listen to me, listen to your own experiences.
Speaker 1:Do we crave some structure in our lives? Yes, of course. Structure gives us the framework and guidance to pursue and believe the lives we desire. Right, it helps us. Now, do you want rules placed upon your life? No, rules take away the freedom. Structure helps create more freedom and flexibility, but the rules of dieting takes away the freedom. Rules tells me what I can and cannot do, keeping me from growing and adapting. Rules keep me stuck in a box. They keep me from listening to my mind and body. So, yeah, I would like the structure without the rules, and intuitive eating gets down to that and that's what's at its core. So ask yourself, what do you value in your life? Do you want a life of freedom with a bit of structure to help guide you, or do you want to live by a set of rules keeping you in line? I think the answer is pretty clear. All right.
Speaker 1:And lastly, the seventh myth Intuitive eating means letting yourself go. This one's, this one's a sad one to me. This one's a sad one to me, and I want to ask you what if it's just letting yourself be? What if it's not letting yourself go, but it's letting yourself be, exist, trust, open your life up to more? I believe that it says a lot about our world and culture and the pressures we put on ourselves, this need to control these areas of our life, this belief that we can't trust ourselves, this need is really unhealthy and it's keeping us stuck and it's unnecessary.
Speaker 1:Intuitive eating doesn't mean letting yourself go. It's that you're letting yourself go. You're letting go of controlling and analyzing and stress and the chains of diet culture and the chains of body shaming. Intuitive eating allows you to let go of these tireless rituals of following a diet book and counting your calories. Giving up this control allows you to be able to learn to trust your body, which is what you were always meant to do.
Speaker 1:Giving up control as you become an intuitive eater and a normal eater, healthy, happy eater, a whatever, compassionate eater, your, your your own eater, whatever you want to call it. It doesn't mean that you just stop caring about nutrition, health, well-being. It's the opposite. It is caring for your whole body, health, the health of your mind, your body and soul. No shame involved. It's letting go of the shame, letting go of that control, to be able to start creating a healthier, happier relationship with food and body.
Speaker 1:And when you ditch the diet and learn to eat intuitively, you become your own best nutritionist, which you are you. You are your own best nutritionist. You're far you might need help from a dietitian, as you're. You definitely I would say absolutely you should get help with intuitive eating as you move through it from a dietitian, from a trusted dietitian. But that help is to be able to let go of that dietitian's help and go back to the place where you can trust your body again and you don't need help from a dietitian again in regards to trusting your body.
Speaker 1:Okay, so when we let go of this one thing, I want to invite yourself to ask yourself what do you gain because we gain so much more? I truly believe that there is a, that there's no greater way to lose control than to try and not control everything or try and control the wrong things. Letting go can be scary, it can be foreign, but when you let go, you open up so many doors that before, otherwise, would have been unable to open, would have remained closed. So I will leave you with that. I trust in your ability to be able to be an intuitive eater. Support is out there for you. Life is waiting on the other side. You do not deserve a life full of stress around you. You do not deserve a life full of stress around food in your body, where you and your body are not friends. Absolutely not With that.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being here and I will see you next time. 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 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.