Confused on how to eat intuitively when healing your gut?

The true definition of intuitive eating is to eat what you want. So how can you eat intuitively if what you want gives you a stomach ache, causes uncomfortable bloat, constipation or embarrassing gas?

To answer this question, we need to rewind it back a bit. Most people who are in pursuit of getting back to the basics of intuitive eating are those who are healing their relationship with food. And typically, this means that at one point in your life, probably for an extended period of time, there was restriction – removal of entire food groups, removal of types of food, food rules, portion control and/or intermittent fasting aka skipping meals.

The reason that this is important to note is that dieting and restriction cause harm to your digestive tract – your stomach, small intestine and large intestine – and the function of digesting your food. What this dysfunction can create is increased constipation, bloating, gas, delayed gastric emptying (gastritis), premature fullness, and disruption or flattening of the villi that line your small intestine which are responsible for this nutrient absorption and creation of digestive secretions to probably break down your food.

Understanding why your gut needs healing is one of the very first steps to actually healing your gut. I see it time and time again where doctors or naturopaths will prescribe a restrictive diet in order to remove the foods that are causing digestive symptoms without first diagnosing any disordered eating that may be present and may be the cause of your gut symptoms. Removing more foods, when there is a history of disordered eating, can instead exacerbate the problem and make it worse. Then what inevitably happens, is feeling like you can never eat “normally” again because of your gut symptoms.

Instead of eliminating more food, the first step is to heal your relationship with food and make peace with your body. You cannot heal your gut until you make peace with food. Disordered eating is way more common that food sensitivities and intolerances.

Intuitive eating is a journey. Knowing what your body wants and craves take time, and also the unwinding of possibly years of dieting, restriction or disordered eating. If you find it hard to eat intuitively because of digestive issues, it is likely because you still have work to do to heal your relationship with food. Also, any time you start adding food back into your diet that you haven’t had in a while, this is going to cause bloat and other digestive symptoms. This is because the food you eat on a daily basis creates the bacteria in your gut. Change the way you eat, and the bacteria changes. Any changes beyond the normal, will cause temporary digestive issues, such as food reintroductions.

 
How to eat intuitively while healing your gut? Work first on making peace with food. Before you do this, eating “what you want” may be guided by factors other than your intuition. Often times, if we have been restricting or adhering to food rules for so long, you crave the foods you don’t allow yourself to have and then when you do have them, they upset your gut which then leads to thinking you need to cut certain foods out. In order to tap into our true cravings, this means allowing all foods to fit and letting temporary gut discomfort that comes with introducing foods back in as we heal.

More things to help:

Download my Four Steps to Food Freedom to help you release food rules to get closer to food freedom.

Schedule a consultation if you are interested in working with me one-on-one. My coaching programs help you to set your own goals to heal your relationship with food. Here is what past clients have to say.

Curious about Intuitive Eating? Have your assumptions about it but not sure what it REALLY is?!

All good boo! I am breaking it all down for you, the myths and the truths behind what Intuitive Eating really is so that you can start to educate yourself if you are considering the Intuitive Eating path.

A good place to start is learning the steps to Mindful Eating on a day to day basis - slowing down to focus in on your hunger and fullness cues and to be present with your food. I call Mindful Eating a “lily pad” as you make your way from one side of the pond (Diet Culture) to the other (Intuitive Eating) .

And as you make your way across the food freedom pond, here are some myths about Intuitive Eating so you have a better understanding before you head down this path.

LET’S DIVE IN TO THE MYTHS!

1. Intuitive Eating is a diet for weight loss.
Yep, definitely a myth and the first one I remind my clients of, and also reply to in emails and DMs. Intuitive Eating is not a diet for weight loss. Instead it is learning how to eat OUTSIDE the diet mentality and creating a healthy relationship with food. I use Intuitive Eating in my practice with clients who are recovering from disordered eating to help them heal their relationship with food. To do so, the first step (or lily pad) is to ditch the diet mentality and to unlink food from any rules. Instead, Intuitive Eating looks at food through a lens of satisfaction and enjoyment. For example, on a diet you may look at a bowl of oatmeal topped with fruit and nuts and think “How many calories or grams of carbs are in it? If I eat it do I need to restrict carbs or calories later? With intuitive eating, you simply look at the bowl of oatmeal and ask: Do I want it? You may naturally consider other factors as well from old programming, but it all starts with this simple question.

2. Nutrition is thrown out the window.

This one is a classic. The belief that once you allow yourself to eat what you want, you won’t be able to control your cravings and it will be pizza and ice cream all day long. Won’t this lead to more bingeing and eating ALL OF THE THINGS?! The quick answer is no, but there may be a honeymoon period. One of my clients told me, “I knew I had figured out Intuitive Eating when I went out to lunch with coworkers and ordered a salad, NOT because it was the healthy item on the menu but because I truly wanted it". I think this sums up the Intuitive Eating nicely, but for some there is an in between phase.

The honeymoon period: when you first break out of the diet prison, you might get a little excited. This is because your brain is used to that in-between-diets phase, and it knows the routine: Stock up on the good stuff now, because it's only a matter of time before the pizza and ice cream is off of the table again. So whatever your forbidden fruit was, you might go through an initial phase where you're eating more of those things, and that's normal. It can be really scary, but trust me that this is normal. And, IT WILL PASS. Eventually, you realize pizza and ice cream aren't going anywhere, and so you don't have to hoard them. Your body gets the message: Oh, these are always available? OK cool, because I am getting sick of them and a salad or fish and veggies sounds pretty good right now.

3. You will gain weight.

This isn’t really so much of a myth as it is an unknown. Because here is the truth, when you start to eat intuitively you will either lose weight, gain weight or your weight will stay the same. Intuitive Eating isn’t about the weight. If weight gain is a worry for you, ask yourself where this discomfort is coming from - Diet culture? A society that praises thinness? Internalized fat phobia?

Because weight has nothing to do with Intuitive Eating. This is because you cannot simultaneously create a better or more neutral relationship with food and focus on weight loss. As goals, they are like two magnets held together - they repel each other.

I mean yeah, weight change is a likely side effect of changing your eating habits. But, that change isn't going to look the same for everyone. If your body has excess weight to lose, you probably will lose it. But, if you have been restricting for years and your weight reflects this, you will probably gain weight as your metabolism has slowed while in starvation mode. This takes some time to catch up and for homeostasis (balance) to take place.

Another thing to remember is that normal eaters fluctuate, too. Not just disordered eating. Our bodies reflect our lives and we have to learn to recognize that without judgment and to give ourselves more grace while we check in with where the discomfort is coming from.

4. It’s easy!

I feel like this is the allure of diets, we perceive them as an easy way to lose weight. This makes sense as they promise so much - Lose 30 pounds in 30 days! Sure thing, it may be easy to watch the weight fall off on your first diet and then dieting becomes addicting as a quick fix. But we are missing the statistics that most diets (95% to be exact) don’t work, just take the long-term results of the show the Biggest Loser as an example of what happens to weight and metabolism overtime when you constantly diet.

Intuitive Eating is a big change if you are crossing the pond from the other side of diet culture. And change is hard. It takes time. Intuitive eating is about real, long-term change.

5. It works for everyone

Well, technically, this one may actually be true. Because in the end, intuitive eating really just means, well, eating! It's about eating based on your needs (your mind and your body’s needs), not a diet's rules — so if you put it like that, I guess Intuitive Eating is for everyone. But, if you've been burned by diets, lifestyle labels and strict meal plans in the past, then you may not want to align yourself with any kind of “program”. That's totally fair. But loop this back to myth 1, Intuitive Eating isn’t a diet or a program (wink, wink).

Not quite ready to take the leap and need a framework to bridge you from diet culture/disordered eating to Intuitive Eating? I created an Intuitive Eating Nutrition Plan with an easy to follow framework that includes mix n’ match meal grids (so you can eat what you want!) and worksheets to tap into your hunger and full cues.

Remember, it is important to meet yourself exactly where you are on your journey and grow from there. No judgements. :)

When it comes to intuitive eating, there is a lot of talk about hunger. Eating intuitively is not just about eating when you are hungry and stopping when you are full. It is about quieting the external messages we receive from Diet Culture which disconnects us from our body, telling us to follow certain food rules and to be insecure and anxious about our food choices. When we are disconnected from our bodies, it becomes difficult and sometimes impossible to pay attention to our hunger cues. We have made up so many rules in our minds that we no longer can hear our body.    

One thing I frequently discuss with clients who are working to break the binge/restrict cycle or to calm anxiety with food, are hunger cues. Specifically the types of hunger that we experience which can be tapped into.  This helps my clients to better understand what might be fueling their desire to eat in order to better respond to their body’s cues.

THE FIVE TYPES OF HUNGER IN INTUITIVE EATING

1.     Physical Hunger

2.     Emotional Hunger

3.     Taste Hunger

4.     Necessity Hunger

5.     Nutrient Hunger

When reading through and then recognizing the different types of hunger, it is important to note that all of these are NORMAL AND VALID.  We may have been taught to believe that any other type of hunger that is not physical must not be real, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

What is important is to know which type of hunger you are experiencing so that you have the tools to satisfy it without guilt or shame. To embrace all of them equally as a part of the human experience with food, emotions, taste and pleasure.

1.     Physical Hunger comes from our need for energy. This can manifest as that gnawing feeling in your stomach and also as fatigue, headaches, shakiness, irritability and moodiness. When we are physically hungry, we should eat!

2.     Emotional Hunger is when you have an unmet emotional need that increases your desire to eat. I personally hate that emotional eating has a negative connotation as I truly believe emotional eating is normal and healthy eating. A lot of people refer to binge eating as emotional eating, but these are actual separate. Binge eating is used to not feel emotion at all, and to instead shut it out. By bingeing, we are not meeting our emotional need and instead are suppressing it.

Emotional hunger can also be confused with physical hunger.  The difference is that emotional hunger comes on quickly and is usually coupled with an uncomfortable or intense emotion which can be sadness, anxiety, lonliness, and also extreme joy.  You feel it more in your head than in your stomach and can therefore come on an hour or two after eating.

3.     Taste Hunger is present when you are craving something specific.  Meaning a certain food just sounds dang good! An example of this is being at a wedding and wanting a slice of the cake because it sounds really good, even if you just ate a big dinner. It can be the same at a restaurant when you are satisfied with your meal and want a dessert.  This usually means you are eating when you are not hungry, and remember, you are allowed to eat when you are not hungry and that is totally normal!

4.     Necessity Hunger isn’t truly hunger but rather a need to eat in anticipation of hunger later when you won’t be able to eat. Let’s say you are at work and you have back to back meeting coming up, during which you will likely get hungry.  Although you are not hungry in the moment, you eat in order to stay ahead of the inevitable hunger. Remember that this “hunger” is valid and very important to pay attention to.

5.     Nutrient Hunger comes from our need for nourishment. Aka, you head to Vegas for a bachelorette party and you come back craving veggies and green juice. Or you are craving red meat after you finish your menstrual cycle and enter the follicular phase. Our bodies are smart, they know exactly what nutrients we need and when. Diets such as keto, paleo or being vegan can remove entire healthy food groups with essential nutrients that our bodies may need and be asking for when we are restricting.

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