Instinctively knowing that polishing off this jumbo spicy burrito for dinner at 8 p.m. is setting you up for an eventful night – and not in a good way.

There is a lot of different information out there on what exactly intuitive eating means. We’d like to offer some insight and explain how we incorporate it into our Food Abundance Approach to make your lifestyle change easier.

Lets refresh on regular eating practices first

Unfortunately what we might consider as the “normal” way of eating is heavily influenced by diet culture. Most people (especially women) spend most of their adult lives following some sort of diet trends, limitations, systems, rules etc. Rarely do we find intuitive eating still present in adults, since food has taken on the influence of traditions, culture, emotional connotations, lifestyle habits, convenience, prices and of course diet culture.

Potential problems

Toxic diet culture

When diet plans encourage extreme weight loss, require restricting yourself, advise on cutting calories and advocate an all or nothing approach. Furthermore idealising a certain body shape and size (skinny), and demonising carrying fat on your body and equating it to health and wellbeing, all this and more is toxic diet culture.

Not to mention advertising pills, teas or shakes, any “lose weight quick” schemes, that focus on you paying more, while not caring about your long term health or longevity.

Losing touch with your body

Ignoring hunger cues from your body can have detrimental effects on your mental health as well as overall wellbeing. When we don’t eat when we are hungry over a longer period of time, this effects our gut health and digestion, moreover it can result in numerous illnesses of the digestive system. Effects span over other organ systems, potentially effect our brain health and endocrine system.

Ok so what is intuitive eating and why do we like it

Intuitive eating is simply put listening to your body. It is a anti-dieting approach to changing your eating habits. It is about trusting your body to make food choices that feel good for you, without judging yourself. Listening to the cues it gives you, especially hunger and satiety cues.

Intuitive eating concepts:

• rejecting toxic diet culture
• honor your hunger
• make peace with food
• respect your body
• stand up to the food police
• aknowledge when you feel full
• move your body
• practice kindness towards your own emotions
• honor your health
• enjoy every bite
  

  Our take on it

  We fully support the concepts of intuitive eating, however there is a possible problem to keep in mind – due to the evolutionary adaptations of our brain we are bound to seek out the most dopamine inducing, highest calorie per bite foods. This neurochemically induced behaviour is also called the “pleasure trap” and is the reason that a lot of people – given the choice, would only eat very calorie dense foods, like junk food or sweets. We have been wired to look for the reddest apple and the biggest nut. So food science has concocted hyper-palatable foods to achieve the “bliss point”, meaning the perfect salt, sugar and fat ratio to get our brains hooked. Furthermore these types of foods though being extremely high in calories and sodium, are usually extremely poor in nutrients and fiber. All of this meaning they are anything but health promoting. In cases of severe addiction, making peace with food, breaking old patterns, letting our brain “forget” the taste, and new habit implementation is strongly advised.

  What we are trying to say is – listening to your body can be problematic when dealing with a “pleasure trap” situation. Fun foods are fine to enjoy every now and then, however if striving for optimal health, one most aim to include mostly plant-based whole foods as the represented majority of the meal, or day. And if we fully follow all the concepts of intuitive eating, this is what respecting your body and honoring your health are all about.

Examples:

Regular dieting would be saying : “I am hungry now but won’t eat because my lunch time is in 2 hours.”

Intuitive eating sounds like: “Since I’m hungry now, I will eat a nutritious balanced meal until I feel full.”

Our goal is to show you how to respect your body and it’s needs with the use of our tailored Food Abundance approach. We teach you how to eat intuitively and customize a flexible whole foods plant-based plan with the aim of facilitating a sustainable lifestyle change for good.

And that my friends – feels amazing for the mind, body and soul.