Intuitive Eating: A Heartfelt Guide to Healing Your Relationship with Food

Battling an eating disorder was like being lost in a maze, but stumbling upon Evelyn Tribole's "Intuitive Eating" was like finding a compass in my pocket. I'm inviting you to join me on a raw and enlightening adventure into the heart of food freedom and self-care. In the depths of my struggle, I discovered ten transformative principles that shifted the narrative from self-punishment to self-love, leading to a profound change in how I viewed my plate and myself. My story isn't unique; it's a reflection of the war many wage against diet culture's unrealistic standards—and it's time we arm ourselves with knowledge and kindness to win the fight.

Our latest episode isn't just a discussion; it's a vibrant tapestry woven from personal anecdotes, cultural insights, and compassionate wisdom for anyone caught in the crossfire between enjoying food and respecting their body. I'm sharing intimate parts of my journey, the ebb and flow of progress, and the steadfast patience needed to heal. It's about peeling away the layers of societal pressures and blooming into a space where every bite is not counted, but rather savored. Whether you're seeking to mend your relationship with food or curious about a life untethered from the scales, this heart-to-heart is your invitation to a table where joy is served in abundance, and every meal is a celebration of living intuitively.

If you want to explore Intuitive Eating further…
Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole

Instagram: @jacendamarie

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hi loves, welcome to the Journey to the Soul podcast. I am your host, jacinda Villa, a spiritual life coach and holistic health coach. Every week, we will be diving deep into all things purpose, wellness, spirituality and creating the life that you dream of. This space is meant to be safe and transformative for you to dive into the deepest parts of yourself. I will share what I have learned from my journey along this path years of research and mentors along the way. Having spent many years living life out of alignment and afraid to go after my dreams, I know firsthand what it means to take the first step down, living a life authentic to you. We are on this road of self-discovery together. It is time for you to live the life you imagined. Welcome to another episode of Journey to the Soul.

Speaker 1: 1:01

I'm so excited to have you here with me this week as we dive into this week's topic, which I am super excited to talk to you about. It's something that I love discussing with other people and that really changed my life and my relationship with food, and that is intuitive eating. I know I mentioned intuitive eating in a couple of episodes before and I really wanted to dive into the concept with you today. For those of us that perhaps don't really know what intuitive eating is, or perhaps they've heard about the term before but aren't really familiar with everything regarding it. Intuitive eating really changed my life. It's something that I dived into in my eating disorder episode. If you didn't listen to that, you can definitely tune in and I share a little bit about intuitive eating there. But this way of being and having this kind of relationship with food absolutely transformed my life, and I came across a book at a very divine time when I was learning how to develop better food habits as I was working through my eating disorder. I had already been working on healing my eating disorder. I was already on that path. I was working with a therapist, I was doing the work myself and I was very committed to my healing, and at another moment in time I probably would not have been as open or receptive to intuitive eating and what this means. But when this book came into my life, I was so ready to try something new and really create a peaceful relationship with food. It helped me really let go of that all or nothing mentality that I had struggled with for so many years of dieting and struggling with anorexia and bulimia. So it was really divine when it came into my life. I was just open and receptive to anything that was just going to allow me a little bit more peace and intuitive eating. For those of you that have never heard about this, I got this definition out of the book and I will dive into it a little bit more after.

Speaker 1: 3:56

But from intuitive eating, the book by Evelyn Tribble. By Evelyn Tribble, it is a compassionate, self-care eating framework that treats bodies with dignity and respect. It is a dynamic interplay of thought, emotion and instinct, rooted in listening to your body's sensations through a process called introspective awareness. It's about developing a deep trust in your body. Through this, you will be able to tune into your hunger and satiety and know when to eat, when to stop and what to eat. And the end goal is for you to cultivate a healthy relationship with food, your body and your mind. And for anyone that has ever been on a diet or has struggled with, maybe, keeping a healthy weight, struggled with an eating disorder, these concepts can seem very far-fetched, because we live in a world, in a day and age, where every diet and way of eating exists and, essentially, what intuitive eating is teaching you, what the principles of intuitive eating show you is how to really tune in to your body, to your mind, to your spirit, so that you can have a healthy relationship with food and know how to really nurture your body, mind and your soul. Essentially, it's not a diet, it is simply principles for you to be able to live your life in a more peaceful way.

Speaker 1: 6:01

And Evelyn Tribble is a dieticetician and she is the one that created this term intuitive eating. She did a lot of research on it and she's the one that coined it, and all of the things I will be discussing today are things that are backed from her research as a dietitian for many years, and so much of her work has been working alongside people who have struggled with an eating disorder, and this is how she was able to find the principles of intuitive eating, and I'm really excited to share these principles with you today. That way, you can open yourself up to other ways of having relationships with food, and her principles absolutely changed my life. When I was coming across this book and I was reading it for the first time and really taking in all the concepts and her point of view on so many of these things, it was initially really hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that this is, in fact, again not a diet, but rather principles and ways that we can have a healthy relationship with food and never be on a diet again and eat what we want to eat and really have a peaceful relationship with food and with foods that we love, and not having to worry or overthink about any of those things, and most people today struggle with that to some degree. So let's dive into the 10 main principles of intuitive eating. It will help you have a better understanding of what it's really trying to connect you to and what it stands for.

Speaker 1: 8:07

The first principle is to reject the diet mentality, throwing out any perception or ideas that you have about diets, and this is very hard when the US is filled with so much diet culture and so many things are constantly confirming our need to look a certain way, weigh a certain amount, to conform to certain principles of beauty. Here. It can be so hard to break away from this because it's all around us in social media, articles, conversations with friends, I mean. Everything constantly is either confirming or rejecting the diet mentality that you may have, and for some of us that may just be all that we know, some people may never have stepped away from that. The next principle is honoring your hunger. The next principle is honoring your hunger, and this means keeping your body fed with enough energy, carbs, micronutrients for you to be able to function at your best. If we don't do this, it can lead to things like overeating or not giving your body enough nutrients, and it's really about regaining this trust in yourself, to trust yourself to give your body what it needs.

Speaker 1: 10:02

The next principle is making peace with food, and this means giving yourself full permission to eat whatever you want. There is no good or bad food. There is nothing off the table, and the reason we have cravings is because we often restrict ourselves so much as, psychologically, we want more of what we can't have, and by allowing all foods into your life, you will automatically release so much of the pressure that we create when it comes to food. Four challenge the food police. So this is you saying no to diet culture, essentially and these are people who could be criticizing the way that you eat, how you're eating, or declaring that there is good or bad food, or focusing on calories as a way of eating so saying no to those ways of thinking and the people in your life that may bring that into your life. Again, it goes back to just rejecting the diet mentality completely. You need to find your inner voice. So rejecting the food police and saying no to them or challenging them is really going to help you tune into what is right for you and your body.

Speaker 1: 11:43

The next principle is discovering the satisfaction factor, and this is you simply finding pleasure in what you eat, in all foods. Many of us don't even really experience eating fully. We may multitask while we're eating. We may be on our phone while we're eating, eating at our desk and working, and some people also just view eating as only fuel. But eating is also an experience. To welcome pleasure into our life and intuitive eating focuses on that is let me really enjoy what is in front of me. If I'm gonna have this cookie, let me fully be with that experience. If I'm gonna have this bowl of pasta, let me be in that experience, whatever it is. But for you to get lost in the sensations of that Number six, feel your fullness, and this again comes back to you learning how to trust your body. And this can be hard for many people who have restricted for so long to really be able to observe the signs that your body sends you of knowing when you are satisfied and when you are not. This principle in particular allows us to just create a little bit of space when we are eating so that we can really focus on not overeating. If we also struggle with that Any kind of binge eating, binge eating disorder, emotional eating or if you just struggle, eating enough is what is comfortable fullness for my body.

Speaker 1: 13:47

The next principle is coping with your emotions with kindness, and I really love this one because if you are working through creating a better relationship with food, then it's probably because you have struggled with the contrary for a very long time and that takes a toll on your physical, mental and emotional well-being. And so much of the times it's because of stories we have in our head of what we feel is right or wrong. And we are learning with these principles essentially how to create a new relationship around eating, around food, around finding pleasure, and with that can come a lot of emotions that we have when it comes to eating. That can be loss of control, that can be anxiety, boredom, anger All of these things can pop up for any of us, depending on what stories we may have tied when it comes to eating. So this is really showing us to nurture that emotional aspect that is showing up, because it's just as necessary as the physical, as the mental.

Speaker 1: 15:12

Number eight respect your body. And this is simply what it sounds like is to love your body for what it is. Do not set unreasonable expectations for yourself when it comes to your body. We are all made so divinely different and our needs are going to be so different as well, and this is really where it comes down to respecting your body and its needs, which are going to be so different than any other person's way of eating diet foods that they may eat, the way that their body looks. Everyone's body is so different, and it starts with us just letting go of unrealistic expectations about our bodies. They are exactly what they need to be for ourselves.

Speaker 1: 16:13

Number nine movement. This is simply about getting active and feeling that difference. It's not exercise necessarily and I know I mentioned before I do not like the word exercise. I feel like a lot of people have a negative connotation about that. Exercise does not need to look a certain way. I like calling it movement. It sounds more wholesome, more holistic, because movement can be whatever you want it to be. It does not need to look a particular way. This is going on a walk if that feels good for you. This might be doing a Pilates class or yoga, or doing jumping jacks for 10 minutes or doing jumping jacks for 10 minutes, and by focusing on movement, it's also going to help us focus on how we feel, rather than simply how an exercise might be affecting us as a way of working out, to check off the box, so that you burn some calories, or because you feel like you need to work out four or five times a week. This is really just focusing on how we feel.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Number 10, honor your health with gentle nutrition, and this is about not focusing on being healthy 100% of the time. This is about the overall concept of eating consistently well over time. It's not about perfection, and some days you're going to crave other things that might be quote unquote not as healthy, and certain days you might crave more wholesome food. The point is is that they all fit your life. They should all have a space in your life, and it's our overall relationship with food over time that really helps us allow all these foods to have a space in our life Because, again, nothing is off limits.

Speaker 1: 18:38

You can see how these principles can be very drastic to so much of what we are taught. When it comes to food, to diets, to principles about food. I mean, there's so many things that are constantly in front of us and we are constantly analyzing them, seeing if maybe this is what I am meant to do. Next, maybe I should be gluten-free or paleo or intermittent fast, and these things may work for some people, but they are not meant to work for everyone, and just because someone else is doing something or just because there is something else that is trending in the world doesn't mean we all need to follow suit. In the 90s, fat-free was bad, and now fats are great. Sugar alcohols were the thing, and now people are trying to find better ways to curb their sweet tooth. There's been so many diet trends that have passed over the years and that will never change.

Speaker 1: 19:59

Where I really saw these things in motion, though, and that even further expanded my perspective of these principles outside of me just practicing them in my life and seeing how that really healed and transformed my relationship with food, was seeing these principles put into practice in other countries. When I started traveling more and seeing how certain countries eat, their relationship with food, their philosophy with food, the foods that they actually eat. It really transformed this even more to countries where gastronomy is such an important part of their culture, like Italy, france and Spain. We all know that these countries can have diets that they eat regularly, that are high in fat and carbs and sugar and all sorts of things. They enjoy these very delicious and rich foods and they love it.

Speaker 1: 21:14

Gastronomy in these countries is so prevalent the art of food and they pride themselves in that. That is why it's such a pivotal part of these cultures, why it's such a pivotal part of these cultures. But they have absolute freedom with food and pleasure when eating is so pivotal to them. And when I started looking at this more as well, you realize that these countries are even healthier and happier than most Americans. Now, why is that? How can they have all this freedom and pleasure and still have higher rates of longevity, lower rates of obesity and diabetes than Americans and eat all this extremely delicious and almost sinful food? And there's so many reasons for that. There is cultural things, the country that they live in, so many things that play a role in this philosophy, but what I want to just touch on today is the fact that these are some of the countries that have the healthiest or happiest people and their relationship with food is one of complete pleasure and freedom and peace. And I want to shift to the US and looking at our country and how all these things influence us. These things influence us and the US has a $200 billion a year weight loss industry. Think about that for a second. That is a lot of money.

Speaker 1: 23:22

The paradox in this is that 95% of diets that people start, they fail. They don't follow through with them. But again, we live in a culture where certain ideals and principles are pushed to us from a very young age. I mean the statistics today of children who are struggling with eating disorders or disordered eating or wanting to be on a diet is very, very disturbing, but we're constantly being pushed with what our body should look like, what we should and shouldn't be eating, what is healthy, what is unhealthy. When it is all around us, it can be easy for us to stop listening to our intuitive body and we second guess ourselves. We second guess our body and the messages that it sends us, and then we inevitably begin to lose trust in our ability to tell what our body needs at the expense of looking a certain way, eating a certain way, and this is really what intuitive eating is showing us. Really, what intuitive eating is showing us. It is opening the store to having an incredible conversation with your body and what it needs. It's opening the store to you knowing exactly how to nurture yourself, because you can feel that your body is hungry. You can feel that this is what you're craving right now and regardless of what you feel like you should be eating, if someone told you you shouldn't eat carbs and right now you're really craving some rice, then you're going to give your body the rice. Or if you really want some chocolate, you're going to give your body the chocolate, because you know that if that's what your body is craving, that is what it needs in this moment in time.

Speaker 1: 25:34

Some things to keep in mind as we process this even more is that about 10% of people in the US struggle with an eating disorder, and this only includes people who actually share that. They have an eating disorder, so this number is suspected to be higher. They have an eating disorder, so this number is suspected to be higher. A fifth of children worldwide struggle with disordered eating. Children focusing on wanting to lose weight, wanting to look a certain way, wanting to eat a certain way to try to conform to the world around them. That's really heartbreaking.

Speaker 1: 26:22

40% of women are concerned about their weight during the pregnancy period. When you're pregnant, as a woman, all you should be concerned about is the health of you and your baby. Is the health of you and your baby. If your weight is causing you harm, a potential risk for your pregnancy, that's a different thing. But the last thing that women should be worried about is losing the baby weight or gaining weight to begin with.

Speaker 1: 26:53

In the US, 69% of women experience body dissatisfaction and they desire to have a lower weight than their current size. That means 2 in 3 women aren't happy with their bodies and the way that they look. 62% of teenagers and 28% of teenage boys report trying to lose weight. These numbers were taken from the National Eating Disorder Association, and the amount of people that struggle with their relationship with food with themselves is astronomical. More people than we know struggle with this. Some people don't even know that they struggle with disordered eating.

Speaker 1: 27:46

It is so common in our day and age because we're constantly being pushed with different states of mind when it comes to food For so many people, especially here in the US. It is our norm because we have the US has one of the biggest diet industries in the world. So from a very young age, we are taught and pushed different things when it comes to food, to health, to diet, wellness, what those things really mean to us. We lose how to think for ourselves and what those things really mean for us in our body. If these principles opened you up to something new and you're curious and trying intuitive eating, I would encourage you to do so. It is such a nurturing and wholesome way to have a relationship with food, because dieting or eating a certain way, or being sugar-free or carb-free for the rest of your life is not a way of life. It truly isn't, and this is what these principles teach you.

Speaker 1: 29:04

And I just want to touch on to end this episode where I am right now with intuitive eating, because embarking on something like this after struggling with any kind of diet mentality, eating disorder, disordered eating, any of these things and then trying to walk this path is not going to be linear, and for me, it's very much been this way, and I realized this year that I have to reconnect with this even more deeply again, because I can still notice moments where I am not fully free when it comes to food and the thoughts that I may have around it. But to put things in perspective, so many of us struggle with these ways of thinking, these ways of being, for years and teaching yourself a new way of being and thinking, and this relationship with yourself is not going to happen overnight. I struggled with an eating disorder for over 10 years. I can't expect myself, my psyche, my mentality, all of these things to completely change from one day to the other, and I have made leaps and bounds when it comes to my relationship with food in the last three years, with food in the last three years, my goodness, I never thought I would experience as much peace and pleasure and freedom as I do now with food. Never did I think I would be able to eat all the things that I do. Yet there are still moments where I get a little bit anxious or I still have to challenge certain thoughts that come into my head regarding certain things, or even tuning into my fullness and hunger.

Speaker 1: 31:06

These are things that you practice and it takes trial and error. It doesn't happen right away. It's this relationship with your body, and it's so much more than we're taught to develop. It's deep, it's honest, it's intuitive, but it takes trial and error to come back to this part of ourselves, to really hone in on what is true and right for us. So if you decide to put these principles into use in your life, just know that you might need to come back to them a handful of times, and that's okay. It might take you a while to grasp a certain one, and others you might grasp more quickly. The key with this is to be patient and have love and compassion for yourself as you walk this path. I hope that this episode opens you up a little bit more to other possibilities when it comes to your relationship with food, with your body, with your health, your vitality, because it doesn't look one way for any of us, and all of these things are meant to be pleasurable. They're not supposed to be things that we hate doing or that we despise. We're meant to enjoy the pleasure of eating, enjoy the pleasure of moving our body, enjoy the pleasure of having a body that is healthy and vibrant and is right for us.

Speaker 1: 33:00

Let me know what your biggest takeaway was from this episode and if you will be putting any of these 10 principles into practice in your life. I would love to know. You can send me a message on Instagram and I would love to connect with you there. I will talk to you all in my next episode. Love and light to you all. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode and share this message with any friends and family. I'd love to hear your takeaways, so share them with me by leaving a comment below or heading over to my instagram at jacindamarie. I am sending you all so much love.