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5 Steps to Start Your Intuitive Eating Journey
- Beth Conlon, PhD, RDN
- Aug 12, 2021
- 4 min read
What is Intuitive Eating?
You see it all over social media.
But you wonder, is Intuitive Eating right for me?
Welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. I wrote this blog post to help you learn more about Intuitive Eating.
“Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.” ― Evelyn Tribole, Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works
5 Steps to Start Your Intuitive Eating Journey
You don’t have to diet to achieve health. Hundreds of studies support the benefits of intuitive eating for disordered eating recovery, health, healing, and as an alternative way to relate to food without dieting.
It can be possible for you, too. Here are 5 steps to start your intuitive eating journey:
Step 1: Get to Know Intuitive Eating
What is intuitive eating? Intuitive eating is a self-care framework that promotes gentle nutrition without the need for restriction. Intuitive eating is not a diet. Intuitive eaters do not count calories, restrict specific food groups, or use other dieting tactics that aim to promote weight loss. Instead, they focus on listening to their body's internal hunger cues, fueling themselves with foods that meet their own unique health need. Intuitive eating challenge the unreasonable rules that diet culture has created, and guides you on a journey to healing your relationship with food and body.
Step 2. Is Intuitive Eating Right for Me? Take this Quiz to Find Out!
The 23-item Intuitive Eating Scale, developed by psychologist Tracy Tylka, PhD, measures whether you are an intuitive eater, or have areas where you might need some work.
Take my free & quick mini-version of this quiz to find out how Intuitive Eating can benefit you.
If you would like to take the full quiz + receive a customized interpretation of your results then schedule FREE and VIRTUAL 15-Minute Discovery Call with me.
Step 3: Explore the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating
“Here are the steps to begin your paradigm shift of rejecting the dieting mentality.”
There are 10 guiding principles of Intuitive Eating. These principles allow you to move away from weight-specific health goals and finally ditch guilt, stress, and endless cycles of restrictive dieting. Intuitive Eating ultimately brings you to a place of respect for food and your body.
In this FREE printable I outline the 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating. Download it now:
Let me know what you think about the 10 principles when you’re finished :-)
Step 4:
If you have read through the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating and think that this self-care framework for achieving health through food freedom is a good fit for you, then go ahead and get started!
The first principle is to "Reject the Diet Mentality." Her are some tips to begin rejecting the diet mentality:
1. Detox your social media from toxic diet culture. All of it on all of your accounts. How do you know who is part of diet culture? Start with ditching any accounts that promote specific diets, supplements, weight loss, or unrealistic body images.
2. Follow Intuitive Eating, HAES, and weight-neutral health advocates. Here are some Instagram handles that I follow regularly and recommend:
From Instagram, you can link out to their other social media accounts. Please note that this list is not comprehensive. If you have suggestions or would like to be added to this list send me a message!
3. Explore resources to help you get started with Intuitive Eating. These are books that I recommend and use with my clients:
Step 5: Build an Intuitive Eating Support Network that is Right for You
Food Freedom is possible for you, and you don't have to go on this journey alone! In fact, having a strong support network will increase your chances of success. Support can be 1:1, group, in-person, and/or online. There are many options available and there are a wide variety of Intuitive Eating professionals.
At From the Start Nutrition, I work 1:1 with individuals virtually or in-person (if living in central New Jersey). If you think that my philosophy and practice are the best fit for you, then schedule a FREE and VIRTUAL 15-Minute Discovery Call.
While Intuitive Eating is a weight-neutral approach to health, it is effectively used in Medical Nutrition Therapy to help manage a wide variety of diseases, conditions, and disordered eating/eating disorders. By working together, we will tailor a plan with practical steps to meet your individual goals and needs to achieve food freedom and great health.
You can schedule an appointment via my secure only booking system, email, or phone:
My secure, only booking system: www.fromthestartnutrition.com/bookings
Email: info@fromthestartnutrition.com *I will respond at my earliest convenience, M-F, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST
Phone: (908) 375-6885 *please leave your name, best contact method, and a brief message and I will return your call at my earliest convenience, M-F, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST
Hi! I’m Beth.
I’m a registered dietitian nutritionist and mom of three. I believe that everyone can feel more confident in feeding their families. My goal is to provide parents with practical solutions for feeding their families in an easy way while also reducing guilt and stress around mealtimes. No more worrying about what they are (or aren't) eating! Create a happier home environment where everyone feels at peace with food and their bodies. Get in touch! Contact | Welcome to FTSN! (fromthestartnutrition.com)
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Sources:
Tylka, Tracy L. (2006). Development and psychometric evaluation of a measure of intuitive eating. Journal of Counseling Psychology 53(2), Apr: 226-240
Tribole, E. & Resch, E. (2012). Intuitive Eating (4th Ed.) St. Martin’s Press, NY:NY
