Intuitive Eating

In the past month that we’ve been in quarantine, I’ve woken up a handful of times to the smell of my husband baking bread. “It feels good to have fresh bread that I made myself,” he says. I’ve also found myself reaching for comforting favorite recipes, like my mom’s spaghetti and meatballs or blondies from my favorite cookbook. Also apparently I’m the type of person who ferments her own pickles? We’ll see how that experiment turns out.

In times of crisis and uncertainty, often food is the touchstone that grounds us in what we know is safe. We deliver a casserole when a friend suffers a loss, or bake cookies to say, “I’m sorry.” But what happens when we become disconnected and afraid in our relationship with food? We lose touch with our ability to enjoy eating and our natural understanding of how to nourish our bodies.

Intuitive eating (IE) is a wonderful framework that helps us honor our bodies and heal our relationship with food. IE teaches us to move away from external rules about right and wrong food, and instead reacquaint ourselves with our body’s internal wisdom about what to eat, how much, and when.

Of course, lots of clients (and friends, and colleagues, and people on the internet) respond to the idea of IE with, “But if I let myself eat whatever I want I’ll binge on Poptarts and never stop!” It’s a valid concern, rooted in the fear that if we stop controlling our bodies, they’ll betray us. We can’t be trusted around certain foods; it is the type of food and our lack of willpower that is the problem. In reality, it is only by letting go of control that we gain our intuitive power back. When we allow all foods, without rules, restrictions, or caveats, we gain freedom. Food stops having the power to ruin our day, or even big chunks of our lives that we spend obsessing over every bite.

I’ll leave you with this: Anyone who has met me knows that my personal motto is, “put some butter on it!” I encourage you to give yourself permission to eat something that makes you smile, warms your soul, or reminds you of a fun memory. All the better if that means extra butter!