Does Intuitive Eating Mean Eating Donuts All Day?

A common misconception about Intuitive Eating centers around the principle of making peace with food.  You may see people on social media posting pictures of cake, pizza, and donuts and think Intuitive Eating means eating these foods all the time, or even that you “have” to eat these foods.

What if you have a health condition?  What if these foods don’t react well in your body?  These are valid concerns and I wanted to clear up some of these misconceptions.

Making peace with food is all about letting go of outside rigid “rules” that may be imposed on you through the media, from others, or even from other social media accounts.  These rules are often followed out of fear and without regard to how your own body responds to these foods.

When you see people post these kind of food photos in the name of Intuitive Eating, it likely means they previously avoided these foods out of fear and now they understand that one food or meal doesn’t affect your health—it’s what you do over time that matters.  It’s more of a rebellion against diet culture than promoting these specific foods over others.

So, making peace with food is more about removing the fear around foods and seeing them in a more neutral light.

What if you have a health condition?  Does Intuitive Eating apply to you?  Yes!  There is no right or wrong way to do Intuitive Eating! That is kind of the point.

Just because you have made peace with food does not mean you have to eat all foods. Let me explain..

There is a difference in not eating something that does not react well in your body, and not eating something because someone or the media made you scared to eat it.  It’s all about intention.

One is motivated by self care (eating this does not make me feel well), and the other is motivated by fear (eating this food will kill me).  One is intuitive (this does not react well in my body), and one is motivated by outside rules (so and so said this was horrible for me to eat).

I will be speaking more on this subject in later posts, but if you want to learn more about the Intuitive Eating process and how it can fit into your own life, feel free to reach out to me.