Intuitive Eating Before and After (What to Expect)
Unlike with dieting, you won’t find before and after images celebrating weight loss with Intuitive Eating. That’s because Intuitive Eating is not a diet, and success isn’t measured in pounds lost or the number on the scale.
I’m going to show you the different ways we track success and paint you a picture for what life is like before and after breaking up with diet culture and learning to eat intuitively in just a moment. But first, I want to say something that may be hard to hear but is so important to talk about.
The before and after images you see in weight loss advertisements aren’t really before and after pictures.
The research is phenomenally clear that dieting doesn’t produce long-term, sustainable weight loss. Some research puts the long-term failure rate of dieting as high as 95%; other studies suggest that as many as one-third to two-thirds of dieters will regain more weight than they lost within 5 years. (1) True to form, I just recently came across brand-new research compiling data from a whopping 122 individual studies on 14 name-brand diets showing that while some individuals saw modest weight loss at 6 months… those losses were largely reversed by month 12. (2)
We see this same weight regain with dieting play out again and again in the literature.
Given what we know about the very predictable cycle of dieting, what those weight loss before-and-after advertisements really show you, then, is before and DURING the dieting cycle.
Unfortunately, it’s not only diet culture marketing that doesn’t reveal the full story. Even clinical research for weight loss interventions tends to be short term in nature, with relatively few studies looking more than a year out and many looking at much shorter intervals (such as 12 weeks or 6 months). Without long-term follow-ups, the results that get reported are often incredibly misleading.
Before Intuitive Eating: Diet Rock Bottom
The problem isn’t only that dieting doesn’t work. The truth is that dieting can take a significant toll on physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, and that toll tends to deepen the longer you’ve been dieting.
Perhaps you have your own lived experience regarding the cycles of weight loss and regain that happen with dieting. If so, I want you to know very clearly that you’re not doing anything wrong. Our bodies have evolved to defend against prolonged caloric restriction, and they do that job well.
So, as you consider whether you’re ready to begin Intuitive Eating, it’s important to also reflect on the impact dieting and diet culture has had on your relationships with food, movement, and your body.
Below are common experiences people have when they’re at or near diet rock bottom, all of which may indicate that Intuitive Eating would be tremendously healing and helpful for you. As you read through the examples, consider how many apply to you:
You’re stuck in the cycle of dieting, regularly starting, and stopping new diets or eating plans
You’re in an all-or-nothing pattern with food or exercise—you either feel “so good” about what you’re eating and how you’re moving, or you feel “so bad”
There are certain foods you don’t trust yourself to keep in your home because you fear you’d devour them all in one sitting and then be full of regret and shame
You feel guilty when you eat certain things and food has taken on a moral value in your life—youmay think of some foods as “good” and others as “bad” or define your day or even yourself as good or bad depending on what or how you ate
You no longer trust your hunger and fullness cues and feel like you need calorie targets, portion specifications, and food journals to stay on target
Worrying about what you should or shouldn’t eat or trying to stick with the rules of your diet feels all-consuming; food is taking up a significant amount of your mental energy and focus each day
The number on the scale determines whether it’s going to be a good or bad day or has a significant impact on how you live your life or feel about yourself
Your mind shouts diet-driven “rules” about what or how to eat at you seemingly all day long
You put off activities, events, or outings because you want to lose weight first
You find yourself eating certain foods in secret because you’re embarrassed at what or how much you’re eating, or you binge on or feel out of control around certain foods
Holidays, social outings, and family gatherings aren’t as enjoyable because you’re stuck in your head, worrying about food and your diet—in other words, dieting is interfering in your relationships
If you identify with all or many of the things on this list, and you’re ready to end the battle with food and your body, Intuitive Eating is likely just the food solution you’ve been searching for!
So, what can you expect to GAIN with Intuitive Eating?
After Intuitive Eating: Finding Food and Body Peace
Intuitive eating is a self-care eating framework developed more than 25 years ago by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. It’s designed to help you heal or strengthen your relationship with food, nourish your mind and body, and practice gentle nutrition and health-promoting self-care outside the confines of diet culture.
It’s rooted in the fundamental beliefs that:
Eating and nourishing your body can and should be pleasurable
All foods can fit in a healthful diet, without guilt
You don’t need restrictive rules, food plans, and dieting tools to guide your eating; your body itself holds the supportive wisdom, cues, and guidance you need
Weight and health are not the same thing; you can promote your health by focusing on health-promoting behaviors that nurture your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing without making weight loss the primary focal point
I like to think of Intuitive Eating as your “forever approach” to food. When you break up with diet culture and learn to eat intuitively, you land on a way of eating that tastes good, feels good, and supports your overall health and wellbeing.
There’s loads of research showing the benefits of Intuitive Eating (everything from improvements in specific lab markers to less disordered eating to higher overall life satisfaction and psychological wellbeing), and I could sing its praises all day long. But honestly, I think some of my clients describe what life is like before and after Intuitive Eating the best.
“I Like Me A Lot More Than I Used To”
This is what my private coaching client, who we’ll call Jenna, told me as we wrapped up our work together. When I first met Jenna, she had, in her words, stopped engaging in her life because she was embarrassed by her body. All she could hear in her head were the judgements she made up of what other people must be thinking about her or her body. She would make plans and nearly always cancel them at the last minute.
She was completely overwhelmed by the thought of how to get healthy—and that overwhelm, along with her past experiences with dieting—kept her in a state of frustrated and anxious inaction.
Here are the 3 biggest transformations Jenna says she experienced after Intuitive eating coaching with me:
✔️ She now confidently and consistently builds balanced plates and chooses foods that make her feel good. She no longer stresses about one meal or one day of eating, and instead focuses on the bigger picture and eating mindfully. She finally feels free from the guilt and stress surrounding nutrition and food.
✔️ She moves her body often in ways that she likes and even includes her kids in many of those activities. She feels tremendous pride when she looks at the healthful habits she’s built with exercise and the consistency she’s found with it for the first time in her life (plus, she’s having fun!)
✔️ She no longer has the fall-off-the-wagon freefalls that she historically experienced with dieting. Although she sometimes has days when she snacks more, eats more than she needs to, or doesn’t move enough (as we all do); she no longer gets stuck in those downward spirals. She notices what’s happening, goes back to her Intuitive Eating toolbox, and does what she needs to do to pick up where she left off.
As if all of that weren’t meaningful enough, her lab markers are better, she has more energy, and her overall outlook on life is much more positive too! As she says, “I like me a lot more than I used to! My body is strong, my heart is kind, my spirit is generous. I can appreciate that more now that I am not stuck in constant fear, inaction, and worry about my weight.”
“You’ve given me part of my life back”
After years of dieting and restricting, another client whom we’ll call Kerry says she now feels free of the constant, intrusive thoughts about trying to restrict calories, monitor her food choices, or eat X grams of protein.
She’s no longer experiencing wild swings between restricting and binging on sweets or “unhealthy” food on weekends or social occasions. She’s celebrating the fact that she can make dinner plans without stressing for days ahead of time about what she should eat or making bargains with herself to stick to her diet during meals out with friends. In the past, if a friend would suggest an appetizer that wasn’t on her plan, she’d immediately feel as though the whole day was blown, would give up on the entire meal, and end up eating ‘all the things’—which would make her feel sick or guilty.
Not anymore. Now Kerry eats anything she wants guilt-free. She listens to her body’s cues and she feels so much more in control of her food choices.
She sums things up by saying, “it’s been truly liberating. I’m so excited to enjoy ALL the nutrients and explore new and creative ways of eating them. You’ve given me part of my life back.”
In other words, her mind is no longer consumed with thoughts of food and dieting rules.
Her time is no longer spent tracking, counting, and measuring what she eats.
Her relationships and social outings are no longer dictated by what is or isn’t on her current food plan.
And best of all, her confidence is no longer tied to how her body looks. She’s free of diet culture’s toxic influence. Instead, she’s celebrating gentle, flexible nutrition and health habits that support her physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing.
Ultimately, THIS is what Intuitive Eating is all about.
Finding food and body peace and nurturing and promoting your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing, or what I like to think of as your whole health.
(1) Dulloo AG, Montani JP. Pathways from dieting to weight regain, to obesity and to the metabolic syndrome: an overview. Obes Rev. 2015 Feb;16 Suppl 1:1-6. doi: 10.1111/obr.12250. PMID: 25614198.
(2)Ge, L., Sadeghirad, B., Ball, G. D., da Costa, B. R., Hitchcock, C. L., Svendrovski, A., ... & Johnston, B. C. (2020). Comparison of dietary macronutrient patterns of 14 popular named dietary programmes for weight and cardiovascular risk factor reduction in adults: systematic review and network meta-analysis of randomised trials. bmj, 369.