A Yogic Approach to Dieting: Intuitive Eating

We are very aware that many people use yoga, especially hot yoga, as a means to burn tons of calories to help them in their efforts of losing weight. While we’re honored to be a part of your journey, no matter what that entails, it’s our hope that after you’ve visited our space in downtown Lafayette, Indiana a couple of times, you’ll realize that there is so much more to yoga than an incredible workout, and you’ll start to grow a new appreciation for your body. 

But it’s hard to get away from this obsession with shrinking our bodies–in today’s culture, we place a huge emphasis on appearance. It’s not a new phenomenon, but the availability of the internet and influencers exacerbating and fueling this obsession with aesthetics has led to an out-of-control issue for people young and old. It’s an obsession that’s very much alive and well in the yoga community. We can’t stop thinking about what we eat (or don’t eat) regarding the way we look.

As a society, our obsession with looking a certain way has led to an unhealthy obsession with dieting to achieve our desired body. We place too much emphasis on eating minimal calories to shrink the number on the scale and not enough on what food actually is. Food is a life-sustaining substance that contains everyday essential macro and micronutrients, such as:

• Calories

• Proteins

• Fats

• Carbohydrates

• Vitamins

• Minerals

In yoga philosophy, food is also a means of increasing prana, or our life force. 

Many factors can contribute to eating problems and eating disorders, including other mental health issues, extreme satiation of processed foods that make it more challenging to enjoy real food from nature, and physical addiction to food.

To be clear, you don’t have to be clinically diagnosed with an eating disorder to struggle with food. This document should not serve as a diagnostic tool. If you suspect you are battling with disordered eating, you should consult your primary care physician or a therapist that specializes in eating disorders.

Dieting is Not the Answer

To combat our addictions with food and the weight gain that often comes hand in hand with it, we’ve become utterly obsessed with dieting. The problem with that is dieting doesn’t work. No matter what diet you try, you’re highly likely to gain the weight back, and potentially even more.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with tracking things like your protein, carbs, and fats or even keeping a general log of your calories. The problem comes when we become so preoccupied with our eating habits that it takes away from our lives. Dieting mentality can be a slippery slope, and when you’re obsessed with tracking every morsel of food for the protein and calorie count, it becomes a dauntingly massive task.

On top of the time and effort that go into tracking everything from your protein down to your calories, dieting at its core makes you feel restricted, and restriction is not a sustainable place to exist.

When diets fail, several negative things happen to your mind and your body.

1. Self-blame and self-doubt

2. Frustration and desperation that leads to binge eating

3. The gut microbiome changes and contributes to rapidly regaining weight when the diet relapses

Your body grows accustomed to the foods you regularly consume. When you go on a diet and begin consuming higher amounts of whole foods, proteins, vitamins, and other nutrients, your body adjusts. Then, when you fall off the diet wagon and eat nothing but highly processed foods, your body will struggle each time you make these drastic changes.

For these reasons and many more, people engage in what’s called yo-yo dieting. A vicious, hard-to-break cycle of restrictive dieting, losing weight, diet failure, gaining weight, and continue… forever. No one actively tries to yo-yo diet, and each time we begin a diet, we tend to think of it as a change we will make for the rest of our lives–if only we can maintain our willpower! By the time we realize that restrictive dieting and counting every protein gram and calorie cannot create lasting change, we are twisted tighter into a messy relationship with food that’s tied to our mental health and needs some serious untangling to heal.

So, what is the answer to healing our diet culture and, in turn, our relationship with food? As with other complex issues with multiple influencing factors, the answer is not a simple one. We can’t just quit counting calories and expect everything to be as it should. What works for some people might not work for you. However, intuitive eating might be an excellent place to begin, and at the very least, a guilt-free way to enjoy food as a part of your life. After all, you’ll be eating food for the rest of your life. Do you really want to carry guilt surrounding that fact for the rest of your life, too? Where you feel guilt and shame, it is difficult to feel free. When you don’t feel free, it’s difficult to be genuinely happy. True health and well-being are about more than your weight. It’s about your happiness, too.

Intuitive eating also happens to be a great way to bring your yoga practice off the mat and apply it in a way that can benefit your wellness even further. We talk often about listening to your body at Society Yoga. Mostly, referring to your physical practice on the mat, however, listening to your body and what it needs from you can grow to be a vital part of your self-care and your commitment to wellness. Obviously, we need to eat. So how can we do that in the most loving and compassionate way?

What is Intuitive Eating and How is it “Yogic?”

Intuitive eating is an approach to food and nutrition developed by two registered dieticians in 1995. Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch created a framework for non-dieting as a means to optimal health and wellness.

The idea is that from birth, humans are intuitive eaters. Young children are great examples of savoring food yet stopping when they feel full, but something happens as we age. Influences from the adults in our lives and society weigh on us, teaching us to use restrictive measures and food rules.

“Clean your plate” teaches us to eat the food that’s in front of us instead of what our body tells us we need.

“No dessert if you misbehave” teaches us that food is a reward and gets taken away if we don’t act a certain way.

Certain foods are “good” or “bad” for us leads to internalized feelings of regret and shame or pride surrounding food.

All these factors can lead to sticky relationships with food that make us struggle to maintain a healthy body weight and optimal overall health. Intuitive eating is about getting back to that natural state of truly hearing your body when it tells you you’re hungry, and when you need more calories or more protein, for example. On the flip side, intuitive eating is also about truly hearing your body when it tells you it’s had enough.

Suppose we can get back to listening to what our bodies are telling us. In that case, we don’t have to worry about counting macros to ensure we hit our protein goals or taking vitamins and minerals to combat the damage from processed foods.

Intuitive eating focuses on re-learning our body’s internal cues for our hunger, fullness, and satisfaction. Our bodies are smarter than we give them credit for, and if we can genuinely tune in, our bodies will tell us through our cravings when we require more protein, more vitamins, or even more antioxidants. How very yogic is that!?

While the science of food cravings is a complex one, there is evidence that certain vitamin deficiencies link to food cravings, and people report being able to instinctively know if they need more protein or other macro or micronutrients. Even if you’re not in tune with your cravings, you might suddenly find yourself craving fruits or a beverage rich in antioxidants and other vitamins and minerals.

Benefits of Intuitive Eating: The Science

Intuitive eating might sound like living in woo-woo yoga land. How can one eat whatever he or she wants and still be healthy? How can you be sure you’re getting adequate protein, carbs, and calories if you don’t keep track of what you’re consuming? The proof is in the pudding, and there are over 100 scientific research studies that prove intuitive eating is associated with:

• Improved self-esteem

• Improved body image

• Increased overall happiness and satisfaction

• More optimism

• Better coping mechanisms

• Lower BMIs (body mass index)

• Better cholesterol levels

• Less emotional eating

• Less disordered eating habits

It may sound scary. Giving your cravings free reign and allowing yourself to have all those “forbidden” foods. What will happen to your body? Well, you will likely find that when you stop restricting and allow yourself to fully enjoy any food you want, the food will gradually lose its power over you. Soon, you’ll find you’re able to bake brownies without crushing the whole pan in two days all because the food magically no longer has a hold over you. 

If you commit to the principles of intuitive eating, you will not be eating ultra-processed “junk” food all day every day. It just naturally tapers off, and what a beautiful concept. We can enjoy these sweet treats (one of life’s simple pleasures) on occasion without bingeing, and without becoming completely overcome with guilt afterward. So, how can you get started with a more yogic way of eating?

Ten Principles of Intuitive Eating

There are ten guiding factors for intuitive eating, and they’re rather straightforward.

Reject Dieting Mentality

Rule number one: No more dieting. Dieting culture and the dieting industry are not permanent solutions, but of course, they don’t present that way. Diet culture presents short-term solutions in a way that makes you believe when you fail, it is your fault. These feelings of failure surrounding food only further entangle into a tangly relationship with food and take us farther from our natural state of intuitively listening to our body.

In reality, the dieting world is a billion-dollar industry that thrives off of your failure. It’s time to tune that noise out.

Honor Your Hunger

Your body uses food to fuel your brain, your body processes, your movements, your healing, and your activity. Feeling hungry should be as emotionless as your car needing gas. Ignoring hunger cues triggers a primal survival instinct to overeat to pack on extra weight for a pending famine. Literally. Your brain, cells, and organs cannot understand you’re just trying to lose weight. Their only goal is survival, and they have the means to ensure that survival when they feel threatened.

When you ignore hunger cues and wait until you’re excessively hungry to give in, there is no more moderation and no more mindful eating. Instinct takes over, and you overeat. Once you’ve overeaten, you feel shame and frustration with yourself for not following your diet plan or for not having enough “willpower,” when really, your mission is doomed from conception. Thus, the cycle deepens.

By beginning to learn and honor your body’s first hunger cues, you resolve to make peace with your body and the food that sustains it. Yoga is a great tool to check in with your body and begin to re-learn all the cues it sends you.

Make Peace with Your Food

Resolve to begin thinking about food as food. Food is not “good” nor “bad” for you. Food is just food, and you are not good, nor bad, for eating certain foods.

Telling yourself that certain foods are bad, and that you shouldn’t eat them often leads to feeling deprived. Deprivation then builds to an irresistible craving, and when you finally submit, you binge and then suffer from extreme guilt–because what you did is “bad.”

When you give yourself permission to eat and enjoy all food, you are offering yourself a freedom you might never have experienced before. Let go of the shame and guilt that surrounds food.

Challenge and Ignore the Food Police

The “food police” are the voices that live within your mind telling you you’re good for eating one thing and bad for eating another. Actively correcting the thoughts that pop into your mind about what you should or shouldn’t be eating is the best way to chase away the food police and get back to your freedom surrounding food. This step will take time and practice to master. 

Additionally, when you walk this path you may encounter food police in the form of well-intentioned friends and loved ones. They may comment on their own food and bodies, or yours. Setting appropriate boundaries with others may be the most challenging piece here, and again, it will take time and practice to master. 

Rediscover Food Satisfaction

Diet culture has transferred so much food shame that even when we do “give in” and binge on the foods we’ve been restricting, we can’t even fully enjoy the moment. We’re too consumed by guilt in the back of our minds. Too often, we don’t truly taste and enjoy our foods, but that is a part of the experience! Instead of shoveling food down, set aside all distractions and mindfully eat and enjoy your food. Tasting and enjoying the foods you enjoy come hand in hand with noticing when you’re full, satisfied, and content.

Try a yogic exercise in mindful eating: Choose anything, usually, you will see something like a grape or another piece of fruit mentioned for this exercise. Eliminate distractions by putting your phone away and turning off the TV. Then for the entire experience–placing the food to your lips, slowly chewing and tasting, to swallowing, you stay completely present. Eventually, you’ll do this with all your food! What a beautifully yogic way to savor foods, especially those favorite treats.

Feel and Honor Your Fullness

Feeling your fullness and respecting it comes with rebuilding your trust in your body and yourself. Your body needs your trust that you will give it the foods it desires. Listen and observe the signs that you are reaching a comfortable level of fullness. Mindfully eating allows for pausing and considering how each bite is tasting and your current level of fullness. If it helps, remind yourself that you can always have more tomorrow!

Give Yourself Grace and Kindness without Relying on Food

Unfortunately, anxieties, loneliness, anger, and boredom are all a part of life. Whether you have an anxiety disorder or not, everyone can benefit from learning coping mechanisms to handle complex emotions without pacifying themselves with food.

Food does not fix our anxieties and emotions; it merely offers a very temporary band-aid and often adds guilt and shame to whatever you were experiencing beforehand. Allow yourself to feel your emotions but not be controlled by them. You owe it to yourself to heal the sources of your emotional pains, and with healing, you will experience more freedom around food. Yet another place where yoga can offer time and space for you to explore, feel, heal, and release.

Respect and Accept Your Body

Accept and respect your body as it is. Rejecting diet culture means realizing and understanding that you are worthy of love and respect, especially from yourself, regardless of your body’s size or shape. Society’s standards of beauty and what your body should look like are irrelevant. Just as you must accept your hunger and your fullness, you must accept your body. It is the only one you’ve got.

This is challenging work, but practicing positive self-talk daily can slowly build up your respect and love for yourself, and if you haven’t noticed, at Society Yoga, we’re really good at hyping you up… so much so that you might begin to start hyping yourself up!

Feel the Benefits of Your Movement

Begin to shift your focus from “having” to exercise to burn calories to exercising for the positive physical and mental effects. Moving your body makes you feel energized and releases feel-good endorphins.

Like forcing yourself to eat with rigid guidelines leads to feeling restricted, so does forcing yourself to exercise to change your body. Move because it feels good, it’s good for you, and you enjoy it. Experiment with different activities and find something you enjoy doing that keeps you active. You’re likely here because you love the physical practice of yoga, and that’s great! Don’t be afraid to supplement that movement with more–walks, runs, tennis, and strength training are all excellent ways to honor your body with movement.

Honor Your Health and Wellbeing Through Your Food Choices

Lastly, honor your health and your body by making food choices that are nutrient-dense and that you genuinely enjoy. Let go of the idea that having an “unhealthy” meal or snack is somehow detrimental to your plans. Consistency is what matters, and it’s easier to maintain when you’re not restricting yourself. Use mindfulness to begin to connect how your body feels with the food choices you’ve made that day or the day before. When you become in tune with intuitive eating, naturally you’re going to rely more heavily on the more nutrient-dense options and turn to those less nutrient-dense foods only when you want (and will savor) a little treat! 

Is Intuitive Eating the Same as Mindful Eating?

Mindful eating is often a term that people use interchangeably with intuitive eating. Mindful eating is also about paying attention to your body’s cues, honoring your hunger, and savoring your food. It is, essentially, the mindful eating exercise mentioned above.

Through mindful eating, you will eventually be able to pick up on your body’s cues and indications you require more calories, protein, micronutrients, water, and more.

Eating mindfully is very much a part of intuitive eating, however, the term intuitive eating embodies more than just eating. The active rejection of diet culture, and warm acceptance of your body as it is, is the main distinction between simply mindful eating and intuitive eating.

A Note About Supplements and Intuitive Eating

One of the main goals of intuitive eating is to trust your body and stop thinking about foods as “good” or “bad.” However, it’s important to point out that there are differences in nutritional profiles of real, whole foods, and processed food. Focusing on nutrient-dense foods with the macro and micronutrients like proteins, carbs, vitamins, and antioxidants necessary to life is important.

Supplements are not a one-size-fits-all fix to nutrition and eating habits. Supplements are helpful tools to reach nutritional goals that people sometimes struggle with. For example, for people who don’t enjoy eating protein from meat, protein supplements are a helpful replacement. There are many protein supplements to choose from, from various sources like whey protein to vegan alternative protein supplements.

Even an intuitive eating master may struggle to eat seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day and therefore, lack certain vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Vitamin supplements and antioxidant supplements can bridge those gaps. Multi-vitamins are a great place to begin when looking to buy some insurance on your vitamin and mineral consumption. 

 How to Get Started with Intuitive Eating

There are many free online resources that will help you get started on your intuitive eating journey, along with many books available at your local library or for purchase. It can also be beneficial to learn some basics about nutrition to learn which foods are rich in protein, carbs, vitamins, antioxidants, etcetera. You might also be interested in learning in general how much protein you require, the daily recommended amounts of vitamins, and what antioxidants do for your body.

Through intuitive eating, you will take your yoga practice off your mat and use it in a way that will benefit you for the rest of your life. You will be able to find peace and freedom in food, and you will likely naturally reach a happy and healthy body weight and composition. On top of that, you will give your body the nutrients like proteins, carbs, calories, vitamins, minerals, and more that it desperately needs and craves. More than that, you will feel much happier and have a better overall feeling of well-being.