#3 Be Patient With Yourself

When you embark on your intuitive eating journey, you will likely have a period of time where you eat more of the foods that you once restricted yourself from. During this time, fruits and vegetables may be put on the back burner. If this happens to you, it is totally okay and normal! This period is called the honeymoon phase and is important to experience when beginning intuitive eating. It is important to be patient with yourself during this time as you learn to let go of food rules and begin to live a life without them. The key is to trust that you won’t stay in the honeymoon phase forever… see tip #4…

#4 Your Body Will Begin to Crave Nutrient Dense Foods

Your body is smarter than you give it credit for. After going through a period of not eating fruits or vegetables, your body will begin to naturally crave them. Our bodies know what they need in order to thrive. It may come as a surprise to crave more nutrient-dense foods, but as you live a life without restriction or food rules, you will become more in tune with these feelings.You might even remember a time on a road trip eating or vacation where you were eating more “play” foods and then home craving something fresh when you got home. You really can trust your body to tell you what it needs.

#5 Try Switching the Language You Use

Diet culture  refers to certain foods and healthy and other foods as unhealthy. When you start practicing gentle nutrition, it can be helpful to use different terms in place of “healthy” and “unhealthy” to remove the element of morality associated with these words. Try using the term “nutrient-dense” to refer to foods you would traditionally deem “healthy.” The term nutrient-dense is objective without carrying morality– it is true that certain foods contain more micronutrients, but it ISNT true that these foods are morally superior to other foods.  For, more processed foods that diet culture deems “unhealthy” try using the term “play foods” or “fun foods.” Though there are certain foods that objectively contain fewer micronutrients, these foods still add pleasure or fun to the eating experience, which is an important aspect of intuitive eating. (If your food isn’t enjoyable and satisfying, you’ll find yourself still on the prowl for more after you finish which could lead to overeating or binge eating).

#6 Everyone Has Different Needs

What is considered “healthy” for one person may not necessarily be “healthy” for someone else as everyone’s nutritional needs are different. For example, diet culture says that everyone should be striving to eat more salad… but for a person with GI issues, the fibrous plant material in salad can cause digestive distress. Or, for an elderly person who struggles with chewing, salad can be a choking hazard. For an immunocompromised person, salad could pose greater risk of food-borne illness as it is not heat treated. Everyone has different needs based on many factors such as genetics, level of physical activity, age, allergies, and medical conditions. When it comes to nutrition, it’s important to focus on yourself and what makes you feel good rather than what diet culture says is “right.”

#7 Check in With Intention

With intuitive eating, the intention behind food choices is everything. Is the intention for choosing a more nutrient-dense food over a play food because it’s what feels good to you in the moment, or is it because certain diet culture messages are still lingering in your mind? It’s normal to still have those lingering diety feelings as you navigate your journey with intuitive eating, but it is also important to pay attention to your intention behind food choices in order to keep yourself away from the often snesky diet-mentality wrath. With gentle nutrition, the intention for making certain decisions will be different than those that come from diet culture. Checking the ingredients of a food can change from making sure all the ingredients are “clean” to genuine curiosity about what ingredients are involved. You can STILL chose the salad as an intuitive eater, but your intention might shift from attempting to “be good” to genuinely craving the fresh, hydrating experience of eating salad. 

#8 Not obsessing over health is “healthy”

Along with meals not always making sense, not every meal will also be “healthy” or nutrient dense. Having every meal be “perfect” or full of nutrient dense foods, and not eating any play foods still feeds into food rules and restrictions, which are unhealthy and lead to obsession and binging. Not every meal has to have fruits or vegetables. You don’t have to always add components to “optimize”. Having a mixed  diet full of a variety of foods that are both nutrient dense and play foods is more sustainable and leads to better mental AND physical health, as well as a more  satisfying life. This way of eating represents what gentle nutrition is all about, as all foods can fit into our eating patterns.

For a more in-depth conversation around gentle nutrition, check out  Leah’s Podcast Episode with Rachel Hartley, RD, the author of the book Gentle Nutrition.