FAQs about Intuitive Eating

As I’ve recently become a certified life coach, I’m looking ahead to my next level of training. Within the next few months, I will begin to study to become a certified Intuitive Eating counselor. I can’t wait to be able to fully help people heal their relationships with food, and the Intuitive Eating movement/community is full of truly lovely people.

As I’ve talked about Intuitive Eating before on here and in interviews, I’ve gotten a few questions from folks about all parts of it. Here are some of the questions I get asked about Intuitive Eating. I’ll be sure to add to this post if others start to come up, too.

• Is Intuitive Eating a diet?
  To me, diets are associated with someone else telling you what to eat and drink. So no, Intuitive Eating is not a diet.

• Can Intuitive Eating help me lose weight?
  Intuitive Eating, at its core, is not something designed to help someone lose weight. Its overall mission is to help people ignore the harmful pushes of diet culture and to regain control of their life. There are 10 principles of Intuitive Eating, which you can read here. Intentional weight loss is not the point of the program; it is not encouraging people to diet and lose weight, but the exact opposite.

• What happens if I don’t stick to the Intuitive Eating principles?
  Unlike diets, there’s always another chance to try again with Intuitive Eating. If you don’t fully honor what your body is asking for at a given moment, chances are that another meal “time” is coming up in a few hours where you can try again. There’s no “wagon” to fall off of like there is with diets. You don’t have to start over; you get to try again.

• I’ve heard that being overweight can cause health problems, so why does it seem like Intuitive Eating supports gaining weight?
  Contrary to what you’ve been told, there are no underlying health risks for people who are fat. Weight is not an indicator of health. There is a separate movement called Health At Every Size, which you can read more about here. Essentially, Intuitive Eating is helping people get back to the place their bodies need them to be at. For some people, this will even out by adding a few pounds; for other, they may lose weight. At the end of the day, gaining weight is not something people should be afraid of.

• Who benefits from following Intuitive Eating?
  Everyone! More specifically, people who are far along in their eating disorder recovery process and people who are ready to forget all about diet culture. Intuitive Eating is not recommended for people who should seek immediate professional help and treatment for their eating disorder. It was created by dietitians who realized how harmful some of their recommendations to patients/clients had been, and they wanted to create a program that would truly help people in their food journeys.