What are the benefits of intuitive eating?
Intuitive Eating has scientifically been proven to be associated with both physical and emotional benefits including:
•lower body mass index (BMI)
•lower triglycerides
•higher HDLs, (the “good” cholesterol)
•higher self esteem, well being, optimism, body appreciation and acceptance, proactive coping skills, psychological hardiness, unconditional self-regard, pleasure from eating, and variety of foods eaten
•lower internalized thin ideal, eating disorders, emotional eating, and self silencing
Who would you recommend it for?
Intuitive Eating is recommended for people of all ages and genders.
Do you find that lots of women try it only to eat too much – is it too testing for most women’s self control?
I think that this question needs to be looked at in a different way. First of all, Intuitive Eating is not about will power or self control. Instead, it’s about trusting the body to give accurate information about the what, when, and how much to eat. This trust can only come from going through a process of making peace with all foods, so no food is forbidden. Forbidding or restricting certain foods creates a sense of deprivation and a subsequent period of overeating as a backlash to the deprivation. In the beginning of finding their way back to their internal wisdom about food, many people go through a period of eating more of the foods that have previously been forbidden, and eating them more often than they will as time goes on. When they finally truly belief that they have unconditional permission to eat any food, without judgment, and without fear of future deprivation, more balance in eating organically evolves. The people who tend to eat “too much” for “too long” are holding onto some inner belief that “if this doesn’t work, I can go on to some new diet”. Even the mere perception of future deprivation will lead people to feel out control and eat in an out of control manner.
