Let's break down the basics first, shall we?

What is Intuitive Eating?

IE is a non diet, weight inclusive, and researched backed self care eating framework that revolves around 10 principles. The principles work by either cultivating or removing obstacles to body awareness. It recognizes that a person's relationship to food is just as important- if not more- than what a person actually eats.

Intuitive Eating honors your health by teaching you how to learn and respond to your own body’s cues- instead of the outside noise from the diet and wellness industry.

Where did IE even come from?

The year was 1995 (although the idea of eating intuitively as a concept started around 1970)...

Dieticians Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CEDERD-S and Elyse Resch, MS, RDS, CEDS-S were both working as nutritionists, helping clients to lose weight.  After several years in the business, they began noticing how all the weight loss methods they were using weren’t working.  And that the...

For many years, I bought all the green powders, drank pre-workout, used all the collagen peptides, tried all the adaptogenic teas- and spent a ridiculous amount of money every month on ‘optimizing my health’…

While also spending lots of mental energy on refining my food intake to ‘healthy’ foods only.

And in all that time, I did not feel more energized, or avoided illnesses, or lifted my max weight.

I just felt consumed by my pursuit of ‘enhancing’ my life.

When I let go of trying to regulate my body through food and movement, I also let go of trying to regulate my health with supplementation from an unregulated industry.

And in turn, I dialed into these things- and not only felt better and stronger, but got more of my time and energy back from all that I put into making myself ‘better’.

Take whatever supplements you want and need, but I humbly suggest trying these four things first; it might save you some energy- and a ton of...

To find out how we got here, we've got to go into the past...

Larger bodies were deemed 'uncivilized' long before the medical and scientific communities began to label them as a health risk.

The correlation of weight and health started with the growth of the slave trade, European philosophers began cataloging physical traits they saw in different societies.  In an attempt to create some sort of 'evolutionary hierarchy', they labeled fatness as a marker for 'savagery' because it appeared more often in people of color, while thinness appeared more often in white people, men, and aristocrats.  Thus began the racist, classist, and sexist roots of weight stigma. 

Doctors, up until early 19th century, had seen weight gain as a natural process of aging.  But feeling increasing pressure from their patients who decided they needed to lose weight, and an emerging insurance business that started the use of the BMI scale (created by an ASTRONOMER almost 200 years ago) to...

In the early days of my training career, I sold body dreams. 

I truly believed that I was helping people live a healthier life, that losing weight was the answer.

Because that’s what I was taught as a new trainer- a new trainer who had long recovered from both anorexia and bulimia, but was in the throes of living a ‘clean’ lifestyle.

Because surely that’s what it means to be healthy, right?

Fast forward many years later- and tons of psychological therapy, experiences coaching hundreds of human bodies, and an un-education in fitness- and I now know how to support humans in their health.

Through all this, I can admit what other trainers won’t, because they are either in a disordered relationship with their own food and fitness, they’re happy making money off your 'failures', or they haven't educated themselves on the methods they sell; diets don’t work, weight loss isn’t health, and there’s a LOT of misinformation when it...

Let's say someone in your family is working really hard to develop healthy habits.  They've started exercising, they've been adding more vegetables to their diet, they've created more boundaries in their lives to support their mental health.

And they've lost weight.

Whether that weight loss was intentional- or a product of less stress, moving more, less calorie intake- here's what we've known about weight loss.

Here's one weight loss study of MANY  that show that the long term success rate of weight loss is low.  2 years later many will regain, 5 years most will regain all if not more than what they weighed in the beginning.

Even if you've never gone through a 'weight loss transformation' yourself, I bet you can imagine how awful it would feel to get praise and validation on your health journey in terms of how your body looks, only to regain that weight back down the line.

In addition, you never really know how someone lost that weight- no matter what they decide...

I've worked with thousands of clients over the years, and I can safely say that most of them aren't eating enough.

So what does that look like?  Ask yourself this...

What's missing?

Is it a certain MACRONUTRIENT?

Carbs, Protein, Fats?

Those are the big ones that are often left out of diet plans.

Is it QUANTITY?

Are you stopping yourself from eating to fullness?

Are you following serving guidelines on a package, or according to a calorie limit?

Is it SATISFACTION?

Are you eating 'healthified' versions of your favorite food- sometimes in excess of fullness- and still not feeling satisfied?

Are you choking down dry toast and avoiding pasta made from flour at all costs?

If you think following 'healthy' food rules is working, consider how much time you spend thinking about food OUTSIDE of your actual meal times.

And that maybe you're focusing on the wrong things.

Because when you eat according to what your body needs, your brain gets to think about other...

Let's talk about some of the 'health hacks' you do or have heard about from your trusted fitness professionals (although not this one ;)

 You may know by now that I spent a good decade deep in Eating Disorders...

And because I spent years throwing up or severely restricting- I thought that was THE definition of disordered eating.

 Maybe you do too.

 Or, maybe you already know what took me a long while to recognize: that distorted eating habits can be extremely destructive, and they don't have to involve binging, purging, and starvation.

 Some examples pulled straight from my past experiences- and maybe your current ones…

•  Filling yourself up with drinks to subdue hunger- like bubbly waters, coffee, tea, wine (the last one being recommended by a popular fit pro) 
•  Putting off breakfast as long as possible
•  Labeling a ‘healthy’ food as a free for all.  Like eating all the baby carrots you want (while also tuning out...

There’s so much noise when it comes to what we should eat, how to move, what it means to be ‘healthy’.

Most of it just blocks your body’s internal signals, its’ innate awareness of what makes you feel good and what doesn’t.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…

No one feels good eating pizza all the damn time.

But the diet industry makes you think that if you allow yourself to eat how you want, you’ll do is eat pizza all the damn time.

Nope.

Yes, there’s a process to undoing what diet culture has taught us for our entire lives. 

And it might take a long curvy road to get there.

But getting to the other side means a healthier and more enjoyable life than letting the scale determine your next meal.

(This post does not reflect the needs of those humans who follow a diet for diagnosed medical conditions)

I recently came across this pic from December 11 years ago, and it made me sad.

Sad because it’s probably 1 of maybe 3 pictures of me pregnant- and I don’t think I have a single one from my first pregnancy with my daughter.

Sad because I focused so much more on what I DIDN’T like about my body back then, instead of what it was amazingly and incredibly creating.

Sad because although I didn’t enjoy being pregnant (like AT ALL), it was a really special time for my husband and I. Especially that first pregnancy that was a struggle to create, when it was just us and we had no idea how our lives would change.

Sad because the woman behind the camera is gone now, and although I have so many pics of her and her grandbabies, I have so few of her and I during these times.  Of the memories of how much she loved both me and these kids, from the very moment they were created.

All that to say...

Take the pic.

Body image messes with you, makes you believe...

Your weight can fluctuate from 5-8 pounds EVERY DAY for just some of these reasons:

Your body retains water after a workout to help repair muscle damage

For every one gram of carbs you eat for energy, a lower risk of cardiac diseases and production of healthy gut bacteria (among other things), you retain 3 grams of water

The medicine you take that makes your life infinitely better may cause you to either retain water OR change how your body absorbs and stores glucose

When you drink an excessive amount of alcohol, you weigh less- since alcohol is a diuretic- until your body starts retaining water from the foods and drinks you consumed in your drunken state

For many of of us, stepping on the scale works to reinforce the idea that we can and SHOULD have control over that number.

And so often that number determines not only how our day goes, but how we feel about ourselves, our value.

Whatever your relationship is with your scale, it’s always worth asking yourself if using it to...