Who else has tried dieting to lose weight and failed? Or lost weight on a diet, then gained it all back (and more) later?
Diets are about deprivation. What I cannot eat. Being hungry and miserable most of the time.
Instead, consider the abundance of all the healthy and beautiful food God has made for us to eat and enjoy. In addition, honor and nourish your body as God’s creation. Not to be a certain size or shape, but to be healthy and well.
Erin Todd’s blog, new podcast and YouTube channel speak encouragement and truth to women who are stuck in a diet rut and are unhappy with their bodies. She declares “Follow Jesus, not diets.” Erin graciously agreed to write a guest blog post to share her amazing story and journey to discover intuitive eating.
What if there was a way that you could ditch diets forever and actually become healthier?
You might think that sounds too good to be true, but I am here to tell you that it’s not.
Hi, my name is Erin and I am an Intuitive Eater.
I wish I could say that I invented Intuitive Eating because it is so mind-blowingly brilliant that it makes me want to stop strangers on the street and tell them about it. But, alas, I did not invent it.
Intuitive Eating was developed by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch who first published their book “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works” in 1995, beckoning readers to “Make Peace with Food, Free Yourself from Chronic Dieting Forever, Rediscover the Pleasures of Eating”.
The two authors are prominent dietitians and they developed Intuitive Eating in response to a common problem so many of their clients had: feeling stuck in a cycle of yo-yo dieting.
I was stuck in this cycle myself for nearly two decades. I tried every diet, wore every pants size and never got it right. But in the early summer of 2017, God dropped Intuitive Eating onto my path, so I began listening to podcasts about it and I read the book for myself. I was fascinated with the idea of Intuitive Eating which resonated deeply with me. In early August, I had a literal “Come to Jesus” moment where the Lord showed me dieting was an idol in my life and I needed to lay it down. I said “yes, Lord!” and then understood why I’d been learning about Intuitive Eating for the last several weeks. My journey of following Jesus, not diets, began that day.
Here I am over two years later singing its praises and blogging about Intuitive Eating so that other women can find the freedom and peace with food that has changed my life.
What is Intuitive Eating?
Besides the book itself, Intuitive Eating is an ANTI diet approach to food and health. Intuitive Eating fundamentally rejects diets, rules about food and attempts to lose weight.
Rather than looking to external factors to tell us when, what, and how much to eat, Intuitive Eating looks to the internal wisdom of our own bodies and teaches us to reconnect to and honor that intuition.
But it’s not only about food. Intuitive Eating is bigger and broader than simply what you’re eating.
Intuitive Eating is made up of 10 principles that address your mindset, your food, and your body. When all 10 principles are applied, you can experience fuller and richer health mentally, physically, emotionally and, most importantly, spiritually.
The 10 principles of Intuitive Eating
Intuitive Eating has 10 core principles that help its followers unlearn dieting and begin to heal their relationship with food and their bodies.
Here is an overview of the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating so you can get a sense of the depth in this anti-diet framework:
1. Reject the Diet Mentality–Diets can’t and don’t live up to their promises. If you keep buying the lie that thin equals happy, you will never break free of diets. Let go of the false hope of weight loss.
2. Honor Your Hunger–Listen to your body’s hunger cues (not diet rules or even what your own judgment says) and eat when you’re hungry.
3. Make Peace With Food—Food is not your enemy. Peace comes when you give yourself unconditional permission to eat.
4. Challenge The Food Police–Learn to question and silence the critical, bossy, self-righteous food police messages you’re bombarded with daily.
5. Feel Your Fullness–Learn to eat mindfully and listen to your body’s fullness cues.
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor–Food is meant to be enjoyed. You are allowed to take pleasure in eating.
7. Cope with your emotions without using food–Food can’t fix your problems. Find other ways to nurture yourself that don’t involve eating.
8. Respect Your Body–Accept your genetics and your body, just as it is right now. You don’t have to love it, but you do have to respect it.
9. Exercise–Feel the Difference–Exercise is not meant to be punishment. Find something you actually enjoy and embrace how it makes your body feel.
10. Honor Your Health–Gentle Nutrition–Gentle nutrition is about finding what works for your taste buds and makes you feel good. Don’t worry about eating perfectly.
Is Intuitive Eating right for you?
If you are sick of dieting, tired of hating the way you look and longing for peace with food and your body, then do yourself a favor and learn some more about Intuitive Eating.
Here are a few of my favorite resources about Intuitive Eating to help you learn more.
- Food Psych Podcast: https://christyharrison.com/foodpsych
- Intuitive Eating website: https://www.intuitiveeating.org/
- Intuitive Eating Book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Intuitive-Eating-Revolutionary-Program-Works/dp/1250004047/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=intuitive+eating&qid=1561927940&s=books&sr=1-3
- My blog: https://erinltodd.com/
- My free guide: Intuitive Eating Starter Kit for Christian Women: https://erinltodd.com/freebie/
Whether you’re an emotional eater who feels out of control around food and uses food as a coping mechanism, or you’re a food restrictor (like I was!) counting calories, containers and macros and doing anything to try to stay in control, or whether you’re a member of the “clean eating” club where you turn your nose up to anything that’s not organic and non-GMO, you have something to learn about yourself and about food from Intuitive Eating.
If you value your health and have ever followed a single diet in your life, you really need to hear the other side of the argument, the anti-diet approach, and then you can judge for yourself whether you think it’s right for you.
Benefits of Intuitive Eating
The benefits of Intuitive Eating are extensive and invaluable. The benefits will be different for everybody, depending on your history with food and body image.
Here are my Top 5 things I love about Intuitive Eating nearly 2 years into my journey:
- My mind is able to rest now that I’m not thinking about food 24-7.
- I don’t have to stress about how much or when to eat anymore, my body will tell me.
- I have all this free time now that was previously occupied with meal prepping, meal planning, or working out. It’s made space in my life for me to begin following God’s call on my life to write.
- Intuitive Eating has helped me to embrace the imperfections of my body and just make peace with it. My body is not the center of my world anymore. (Can you say idol de-throned?! Hallelujah!) I’m finally able to feel some real gratitude for the body I’ve got right now.
- The awareness I’ve cultivated around my own thoughts, behaviors, and patterns with food has helped me to become a more mindful person in other areas of my life, too. For me, mindfulness helps so much with stress management, it makes me calmer, and it helps me to stay in the moment… ya know, where life is happening!
If you’d like to find out more about Intuitive Eating or my story of ditching diets and embracing food freedom, come check out my blog and grab my free guide Intuitive Eating Starter Kit for Christian Women.
What’s holding you back from ditching diets and trying Intuitive Eating? What questions do you have?
Email me erin@erinltodd.com–let’s chat!
Guest Post by Erin L. Todd
Erin L. Todd is a wife, dog mom, attorney-by-day and writer-by-night living on the water in St. Petersburg, Florida.
As a redhead who battled insecurity and body image issues for 37 years, she now claims the concept of being both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.
