7 Signs You’re Ready to Begin Intuitive Eating

Whether you’ve watched a friend begin Intuitive Eating or you’ve simply heard about the Intuitive Eating approach, it’s possible that you have more questions than answers. 

• How can YOU know if this approach to food, health, and well-being is a good fit for you? 

• When’s the right time to get started on an Intuitive Eating journey? 

• When and if you are ready to begin Intuitive Eating, how do you start? 

• Why is Intuitive Eating important and how can it help you reach your health goals?

These are all valid questions and I’m going to help answer some of them today.

Diet Culture Can Affect All of Us

One thing I wish more people understood is that you don’t have to be a “dieter” to have been negatively impacted by diet culture or to have a relationship with food and body that could benefit from some healing.

One reason for this is that diet culture is everywhere. We’re all swimming in its toxic waters—exposed to its impossibly thin body ideals, hyper-focus on weight, and extreme versions of so-called healthy eating—virtually every single day.

Obviously, I talk a lot about the life-changing impact of opting out of diet culture and making peace with food and your body. I’ve helped so many people begin Intuitive Eating and have seen firsthand how it transforms their lives and health for the better in so many ways. Let’s take a closer look to see how you can tell if you’re ready to begin Intuitive Eating and if you are, what it can do for you and your body.

You Could Be Ready to Begin Intuitive Eating If:

1. You’ve tried every diet out there but haven’t seen sustainable results. 

No matter which plan you choose, you keep coming back to the same maddening place over and over again. You’re unhappy with your eating habits, you haven’t reached your weight loss goals, and you’re wishing you could find a better approach to food.

2. You’re so confused by all the different diets and healthy eating recommendations out there. 

It’s hard to tell facts from fiction and you’re constantly wondering what’s true and what isn’t. What’s the right thing to do or eat?

3. You’ve got voices in your head shouting eating rules at you all day long. 

“Do eat this … don’t eat that … avoid this at this time of day … if you eat that, you’ll gain weight … that’s too many calories … that’s not good for you.” On and on the voices go. They leave you feeling anxious, frustrated, or guilty about what you do or don’t eat and you're tired of chasing your tail, forever trying to follow all the rigid and unenjoyable eating “rules.”

4. Choosing and measuring food, counting calories, and tracking macros takes a lot of time and energy out of your day. 

Your mind feels full to the brim with dieting or diet culture, and you constantly wish you could just stop thinking so much about food.

5. You eat hastily, binge secretly, or feel guilty about eating certain foods.

You find yourself rushing through meals just to get them over with. Or, you regularly gobble up certain foods in secret or without even really tasting them because you feel guilty or ashamed that you’re having them when you know you “shouldn’t.”

6. You’re tired of hating your body and trying to change it. 

You want to enjoy all the aspects of your life without letting your body image hold you back. You’d like to make peace with yourself and your body—you just have absolutely no idea how to do that.

7. You haven’t found a long-term solution for enhancing your health. 

You can do the ‘solutions’ you’ve been given for a while but you fall off track as soon as life gets busy, stressful, or overwhelming. Sometimes, you even know at the outset you're choosing a temporary approach, but you're not sure what else you should do instead.

How Can an Intuitive Eating Approach Help?

If you identify with some or most of these things, an Intuitive Eating Approach to food, health, and body is likely just the solution you’ve been searching for! 

Intuitive Eating can help you:

✔️ Reclaim your time, energy, and brain space taken up by chronic dieting.

✔️ Make peace with food once and for all. You’ll be able to trust yourself to keep any food you want in your pantry and eat it in amounts that feel good, without obsessing over it.

✔️ Learn to respect your hunger and fullness cues so you can eat all foods without having to count, track, or measure what you eat ever again.

✔️ Heal your body image and improve your quality of life.

✔️ Cut through the diet culture noise with a simple, flexible, gentle approach to nutrition that enhances your physical, mental, and emotional health and wellbeing. 💕

I've just opened my calendar to take on a very limited number of private clients between now and the end of the year. If you’re ready for a more peaceful, authentically healthful approach to food, health, and body … I’d love to help you begin an Intuitive Eating journey!

Sign up for an Intro to Intuitive Eating call here and let’s chat! 

If you're still not sure if an intuitive eating approach is right for you, go ahead and send me an email at livehealthy@elizabethharrisnutrition.com. I’m happy to answer your questions.