111. Back to Basics - The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

Welcome to my Intuitive Eating Back to Basics series, inspired by a podcast listener. 

I heard that you need some easy to digest explanations of the 10 principles of intuitive eating. A way to understand them, without having to read the whole intuitive eating book, or wade through the internet to find what you need. 

And so, the intuitive eating back to basics series was born!

Each day for 10 days I'll release a new episode, guiding you through one of the intuitive eating principles. I’ll explain what it means, why it is important, and how it applies in real life.

I'm really excited to see what this next 10 days or so brings you, and how differently you feel about the intuitive eating principles come the end of it. Do keep in touch and let me know your thoughts.

So let’s get into it, starting with an understanding of what the principles of intuitive eating are. 

Intuitive eating says there should be no rules, so it can be confusing to see that there are 10 principles of intuitive eating. If they aren’t rules, then what are they?

Let me explain…

Transcript

 A quick heads up before you start reading..... My transcriptions are automatically generated. I do not type them manually. For this reason there may be errors, incorrect words, bad spelling, bad grammar, and other things that just seem a little 'off'. You'll still be able to understand what is being said though, so please just ignore that and enjoy the episode.

[00:00:00] 

Hello, I'm Terri. I'm a coach and I specialize in intuitive eating and body confidence. I'm a certified intuitive eating counsellor and I absolutely love seeing women's lives completely transformed through intuitive eating. Letting go of the stress, letting go of the worry around food. Letting go of the lack of control that you sometimes feel around food, being able to have food in the house that they never thought that they could because they thought they'd just binge on it and eat it all in one go.

And I love seeing women who are confident in their own skin, knowing their worth in the world, knowing that they don't have to lose weight to be valued or to be lovable. I really have the best job, [00:01:00] the best job in the world. So this is my Intuitive Eating Back to Basics series and it was inspired by a podcast listener.

So if you've followed for a while, you will know that I love listener suggestions. I love hearing from you. I love feedback. I love ideas. I love knowing what you want to hear and see in these episodes. And then I can help you with it. And what I heard from somebody was that you need some easy to digest explanations of the 10 principles of intuitive eating.

A way to understand them, without having to read the book, wade through social media to find posts that explain it or, you know, without wading through websites to try and find explanations. Somebody to say it in everyday language. And so, the Back to Basics series was born. So, I'm absolutely celebrating you [00:02:00] right now for wanting to do things in a different way.

It means that you've got more respect for yourself, more compassion for yourself, and that you want to make some changes to improve your life with food and how you feel about your body. And if this series supports that, then that's absolutely awesome. So, I'm really excited to see what the next 10 days or so brings you, how differently you can feel about yourself, and how differently or better you understand the intuitive eating principles that come through listening to or watching this series.

So, come the end of it, I'd be really interested to know how you feel about it, whether it's clearer for you now, whether you understand it better. So, do keep in touch, let me know your thoughts. Every day I'm going to release a new episode of the series. It'll guide you through some of the principles, well all of the principles.

These might be shorter episodes than you're used [00:03:00] to. So my episodes are usually between half an hour and an hour long. These might be shorter episodes because they don't need the amount of waffle that you usually get from me in a podcast episode. but that remains to be seen, right? Because I do like to get stuck into a topic and talk about it.

So let's get going. I won't make you wait until tomorrow for principle one though. That'll be available at the same time as this one. They will both go live at the same time. So, we'll go through each principle. I'll explain what it means. I'll explain how it applies to you in real life. And at the end If it's appropriate, I might give you some thinking points.

I might ask you some questions to go away and think about. And you can do one of a few things with those. You can journal on them. You can talk about them with other people. my Facebook group is a great place to do that. So you [00:04:00] can join there, get stuck in, talk to people about intuitive eating, talk to people about the principles of intuitive eating.

If you want to, the link for the group is in the show notes. or you can just simply think about it yourself. No pressure. Whatever, use them however you want to. So let's get into it. Let's start with an understanding of what the principles of intuitive eating are to start with. Intuitive eating says no rules, right?

Diets have rules. Intuitive eating does not. So it can be really confusing to see that there are 10 principles of intuitive eating because these are rules, no? No, the principles of intuitive eating are not rules because they are totally flexible. They don't have to be followed in any order. They don't have to be followed at all if you choose not to.

It is a completely [00:05:00] individualized approach to eating.

They're there to help you find a nicer way to eat, a nicer way to move, a nicer way to respect your body. Nothing prescriptive. No, you must do this, you must do that. No guilt if you don't apply them. No wagon to fall off. And here's why principles are principles, just guidelines and not rules. Intuitive eating recognises that individuals have very unique tastes, preferences, nutritional needs, abilities, bodies and so what works for you might not work for somebody else. So instead of rigid rules, intuitive eating encourages you to listen to your own body and respond to its specific individual signals. [00:06:00] Life circumstances, environments, financial situations, personal perspectives, personal situations can change.

The intuitive eating principles are totally adaptable. So if you need different approaches at different times, then it allows for that. And intuitive eating is non prescriptive. It doesn't prescribe specific diet plans, meal plans, calorie counts. It doesn't say you have to do X amount of steps in a day to eat X amount of food.

Instead, it just encourages you to pay attention to your hunger and your fullness cues. To listen to your cravings, to honour them. To remove restriction rather than putting restriction in place. And to make food choices that align with your own overall wellbeing. And intuitive [00:07:00] eating rejects the concept of food as good or bad.

And what this does is it creates a much more positive relationship with food and with exercise. Intuitive eating promotes body respect, body acceptance. It encourages you to appreciate your body, to respect your body, and it doesn't matter what size or shape you are. It wants you to have this positive self image and not the idea that you have to reduce your body somehow. To be thinner, to be better before you can be valued. 

One of the principles of intuitive eating is to eat for satisfaction. And it's all about finding pleasure in meals. There are no strict guidelines on what to eat. So you get to choose what food satisfies you physically and emotionally.

And [00:08:00] for your information, intuitive eating says that emotional eating is just fine. You'll see, we'll come on to that. 

Intuitive eating incorporates mindfulness and that's being present and aware when you're eating. And this mindfulness approach is super flexible, really personal and is not something that you really are afforded the luxury of when you're on a plan that has rules like diet plans.

They don't allow you to be mindful. They tell you what to eat and when to eat. They don't allow you to be mindful about your body and how you feel and what you're eating and the time it's taking and that sort of thing. So diet plans have rules. This mindfulness takes away those rules. 

So consider the principles of intuitive eating as more of a set of guidance notes, right?

A system that you can go all in on, but without having to actually follow a [00:09:00] plan. And it sounds very counterintuitive, but I promise you it works. And this is about helping you to create a mindful and intuitive connection with your body and your eating habits. 

So, shall we get started? The next episode's ready for you.

Go and watch it.