People are often confused by the Intuitive Eating world. You mean to tell me that you don’t follow food rules?!? I hear you. When I first heard of Intuitive Eating, I had similar thoughts. Becoming an Intuitive Eater and breaking free from the confines of diet culture does not happen overnight. It takes a lot of hard work and self-reflection. To help share our stories, Jamie, a Colorado-based dietitian, from Your Happy Healthy Nutrition and I teamed up for this blog post. (You can find a similar version over on Jamie’s blog.) Be sure to connect with this wonderful woman on Instagram (which is where we met). Jamie also recently released an eBook called Beginner Tips to Ditch the Diet and Move Toward Eating Intuitively.
Here is Jamie’s story:
At a young age of 12, I set out on the search to find out what it meant to be healthy. This journey was full of many mistakes and much confusion. If I chose to explain my whole story leading up to IE, we would be here for quite a while, so I will try and give you the super quick version.
Diet, diet failed, new diet, diet failed, decreased confidence, self compassion, and brain space, new diet. Continue cycle.
That pretty much sums up pre-IE life. And through it all, I never found the right diet. Through it all, I never found health. Finally, about ten years later, I discovered the answer, and it was nothing like what I thought it was going to be. While I was always looking to someone else to provide me this answer, the answer had always been there, silently waiting for me to listen and drown out the outside noise of diet culture that was telling me how to feel about myself and the way to be.
When I think back to what sparked this intuitive eating journey, I always think back to a blog post about one woman’s experience after giving up exercise for a month. This idea of giving up exercise and still “being okay” made me think. Although I didn’t listen at first, four months after reading this blog post, I hit a point where something clicked and I thought- you know what…I don’t want to do this anymore. For the first time I thought- this way of life can not be healthy. So I decided to give up exercise after ten years of a consistent exercise routine. I quit planned exercise for about two years and began healing my relationship with exercise. A healed relationship with food and my body followed. Not only was I “okay” after giving up exercise, but I was feeling the healthiest I have ever felt. For the first time I thought to myself- wow, I feel good…like really good. From that point on, there was no turning back.
This did not all of a sudden heal me. It doesn’t happen that way. However it did get me started in the right direction. Slowly, I starting filling my world with all things intuitive eating and health at every size (HAES). I started listening to podcasts and reading books by non-diet RDs and other health professionals. I started challenging my beliefs and biases. I started looking inward. I leaned that for so long, I was ignoring so many important facts to what makes up health. I was ignoring the importance of my own intuition, individuality, freedom in health, and so much more. When I discovered IE and HAES, I turned a corner and there was absolutely no turning back. Not only did I feel better but I knew that these practices would give me the answer I needed to help my clients find ultimate health and happiness, allowing them to leave me with a toolbox of knowledge, confidence, self-awareness, freedom, and above all else- happiness.”
My Story (the condensed version):
When I reflect on my journey around food, I’d love to say it has been an easy one. Wouldn’t it be magical if one day I had just stumbled upon Intuitive Eating and it all just clicked? However, like most people I know and work with, this wasn’t the case. Throughout high school and college, I struggled tremendously with body image. After years of restrictive eating and excessive exercise, I was finally introduced to Intuitive Eating (IE) in graduate school. One of my classmates presented on IE. I remember thinking “yeah, that sounds nice, but I could never do that.
Eventually I developed a friendship with the classmate who presented on the topic and she encouraged me to consider IE after talking about my eating struggles. Though I wasn’t ready to embrace IE at the time, I was reintroduced to the approach after stumbling across Robyn Nohling’s blog my first year as a dietitian. I finally picked up the book and so much of my struggles started to make sense. After learning of the 95% failure rate of diets and the binge/restrict cycle, I couldn’t imagine approaching nutrition any other way.
As dietitians, we often talk about how eating healthy is a lifestyle not a diet—but this was finally a way of living and eating that didn’t have rules attached. Intuitive Eating has brought me the freedom I was always looking for in life. While IE began as a way to normalize my eating, it turned into a more fulfilling life. Changing my eating led to a cascade of learning to live a more intuitive and meaningful life. Clients often come to me looking for diet rules to follow, but my hope is that they leave their time with me with a more meaningful life.
Want to dive in to Intuitive Eating? Pick up my Beginner’s Guide to Intuitive Eating before you leave! Want to work with me, head over here.