What is Intuitive Eating? The Non-Diet Way to Stop ‘Food Noise’ and Lose Weight for Good

When it comes to healthy living, there are plenty of habits that can improve your overall well-being. Take walking after meals or high-protein snacks, just to name a couple. However, intuitive eating — a principle where you focus on listening to your body— is a simple alternative to traditional diets that can help you to eat healthier, tune out the “food noise” and change your relationship with food for good. Unsure if this is the right choice for you? We talked to nutrition experts to find out more about the intuitive eating approach and how it’s different than your run-of-the-mill diet. Here, more on the practice of intuitive eating and how you can benefit from better food choices.

What is intuitive eating?

“Intuitive Eating is a self-care approach to eating that combines instinct, emotion, and rational thought,” says Tracee Yablon Brenner, RD, CLT, HHC , a registered dietitian nutritionist at Holy Name Medical Center. There’s no counting calories, carbs, or points. Just listening to our bodies. No really, actually listening to it — not our emotions or a number on a scale.

The practice was created in 1995 by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch and their main takeaway? It’s not a diet.

Yablon Brenner adds that “Instead of relying on external cues like emotions, food availability, or social settings, intuitive eating encourages individuals to listen to their body's natural hunger and fullness signals.” It takes the focus off weight loss and it encourages people to build a “healthier, guilt-free relationship with food”—and often it can mean losing weight without feeling like you’re even trying.

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How has intuitive eating changed?

“Over time, the ‘emotional eating principle’ has evolved to be more about honoring emotions and processing emotions appropriately rather than assuming that any emotional eating is a bad thing,” explains Emily Van Eck, MS, RD , certified intuitive eating counselor at Emily Van Eck.

It’s all about being in tune with your body, and the authors have since revised certain parts of their book as more research evolves.

Intuitive eating as ‘internal portion control’

Does portion control play a role in intuitive eating? The answer is kind of—but not in the way you expect. Van Eck says that when it comes to intuitive eating, “we don’t really use the term portion control, but help guide folks to be able to listen to and honor hunger and fullness signals.”

Additionally, portion control involves external methods of eating for the short term while intuitive eating is focused solely on the body over the long term. “It’s used to gauge how much one ‘should’ eat or ‘needs’ to eat,” says Karen Louise Scheuner, MA, RDN nutrition therapist and intuitive eating and body image coach at Mindful Nutrition. “Intuitive eating is often considered ‘internal portion control’ because an intuitive eater listens to the body's cues of how much to eat and when to stop eating instead of relying on external methods of control, small plates, portions, serving sizes, weighing food, etc.”

What to know before trying intuitive eating

Intuitive eating is more structured than people expect. Yablon Brenner shares that it does have a flexible aspect though. “This flexibility offers guidance rather than strict rules, which demands a certain level of self-control to manage your eating habits, without being restrictive like a regular diet. It also emphasizes emotional and psychological health as well as physical health,” she says.

Experts agree that many people tend to think that intuitive eating is just eating whatever you want, anytime you want, which is not true. Read on for 10 ways to incorporate intuitive eating into your diet.

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The 10 principles of intuitive eating

When this practice was created Tribole and Resch came up with 10 principles that can help change your relationship with food via intuitive eating.

1. Reject the diet mentality. You don’t need to “go on a diet” to eat better.
2. Honor your hunger. It’s OK to be hungry; it’s part of being human. Acknowledge and accept it.
3. Make peace with food. Give yourself permission to eat. Food is nurturing and necessary.
4. Challenge the food police. Anyone who talks about “good” vs. “bad” foods, or tells you what you should or shouldn’t eat, can stuff it.
5. Respect your fullness. This is your body’s natural cue to signal you’re done eating. Try not to push yourself over the edge.
6. Discover the satisfaction factor. Relish the feeling of enjoying your food and feeling satiated.
7. Cope with your emotions with kindness. Acknowledge how you’re feeling and accept that you can’t change how you feel.
8. Respect your body. Meditate on how your body is giving you life. It’s a beautiful thing
9. Exercise to feel better the difference. Exercise is good for everything from high blood pressure to helping you sleep and focus better. Best of all, it can boost your mood.
10. Honor your health with gentle nutrition. Don’t force yourself to eat that salad you don’t like or incorporate every little newfangled, expensive supplement. This is all about balance.

While the idea has generally remained the same, nutrition experts note that it has shifted to keep up with current eating habits and lifestyle changes.

Most of all, the intuitive eating approach is a holistic lifestyle choice, as Yablon Brenner explains: “While intuitive eating does not label food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, it mainly focuses on working on making peace with food and your body and choosing foods that are good for your overall health, both physically and mentally.” And when you can eat to feel better in your body and brain, it’s a win-win.

For more ways to have a healthier relationship with food:

The Full-Body Fat Fix:’ Eat 30 Different Plants a Week to Make Weight Loss Easy

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Kefir Smoothies for Weight Loss: 3 Creamy and Nutritious Drink Recipes That Prep in 5 Minutes

This content is not a substitute for professional medical advice or diagnosis. Always consult your physician before pursuing any treatment plan.