Episode 2. Getting Real About Intuitive Eating

Transcript

[Music]
hey it's Carrie and Ashley we welcome you to the self-care Cafe we are both
health professionals and moms and nature lovers and food lovers and love helping
women get over dieting and just start living we think that talking about
bodies and perfect bodies and dieting is just oh boring
I'm gonna put you to sleep there Carrie yes so if you are ready to ditch dye anything and get to living and talk
about more important things than you are in the right place we don't put shame and guilt on the menu here we don't even
have to tip us nope come hang with us the advice is free we
want to have a bunch of girlfriends to just hang out with and get real with and
it's time to start living ladies
hi Carrie hey Ashley how are you I am
well how are you doing I'm great so what are we talking about this week
well I thought maybe we should dive into this whole concept of intuitive eating a
little bit that sounds like a great idea because I think that people will find we talk
about intuitive eating a lot so it might be a great idea to explain what it is so
we can talk about it and everyone knows what we're talking about yeah and I think a lot of people have a
misconception so if you're listening right now and you're like ooh intuitive eating I don't want anything to do with that please hang on because
um what we have found in our experience is that a lot of people have a lot of
misconceptions and misunderstandings about what it actually is so we're gonna get real today about intuitive eating
and what it what it really is um and in real life um because it
um Ashley and I use it and it has helped um us and
thousands maybe millions of other people um and uh yeah so
let's get to it and I think like Carrie said too it's has a lot of misinformation being spread
about it right now by people on social media that are as well versed in it as
maybe they need to be to be talking about it um so yeah hang on if you've tried it
before maybe listen and see if something resonates with you about oh well maybe I
didn't try this part of it and maybe that's what happened or sometimes it just takes a few different tries to kind
of you know get towards the quote-unquote end of it not that there really is an end of intuitive eating
because it's definitely more of a lifelong process and we'll talk about that
um but it's definitely tricky because what do we all know we all know
how to diet and we all know how to follow meal plans and we all know to try
a bunch of different things that are usually like short term
uh very extreme kind of uh plans or
just Lifestyle Changes quote unquote if you will an intuitively a lot different than that
yeah for sure and I think too that um well I want to say that both of us are
certified intuitive eating counselors um there are a lot of people out there that say that they they teach intuitive
eating or whatever but they haven't gone through the certification process
um maybe they have their own version of intuitive eating um but actually I want to give a little
bit of history of what like who who designed or came up with the intuitive eating yeah
definitely so intuitive eating is based on research and science so that's a really important piece right there so
there's a lot of research studies out there um that show and prove that or I guess
show right because research doesn't necessarily prove anything we'll talk about that another day but there's a lot
of research out there showing how beneficial intuitive eating is to our health our nutrition our well-being all
of that and it's was developed in the 90s by two dietitians Elise Resh and
Evelyn Tripoli or Tripoli I'm not really sure um and and
they've you know have a couple different um or they wrote books about it and they
keep up with the research so there's a bunch of different editions I think the latest one is the fourth edition so they
definitely keep it up to date and current with new research and new findings and
um that's the most latest book that we were certified with yep
and they realize as dietitians that
this whole dieting thing and focusing on weight loss just wasn't working for
people right and I'm sure a lot of people listening are like yeah that happened
for me because if we diet or we lose weight or focus on weight loss maybe
we'll have weight loss in the beginning but then after a while because the changes aren't sustainable we gain
weight back and that's just how it works it's not anybody's fault it's not your fault it's not your body's fault that
the weight came back it's just how our bodies are designed again maybe more on that
another time but they realized hey this whole model of how we're dealing with
health and wellness and nutrition just isn't working and there has to be a better way and I think that
we're all sort of born with this inner nutrition wisdom right so like babies and toddlers they
know what their body needs they know when they're hungry they know how much their body needs they know when they're
full they know what their body's sort of asking for and so we're all sort of born with this
knowledge and then over time it sort of gets eroded away so the intuitive eating
brings us back to that basic
um physiological nutrition wisdom that we have and we all have it and we have
had it at one point but again it sort of gets eroded away with different food rules or
um different practices that maybe you or family had when you were a kid or different beliefs or
so many different things and then we end up not trusting our bodies and feel like we need to follow a planner program when
we do have all this information in our body we just need to tap either back into it or into it again to relearn and
sort of unlearn a lot of the things that maybe we picked up along the way
yeah for sure and I have my very first and brand new uh grandbaby
um so I it's very um I've been thinking about it a lot you know she's at
as far as like the babies it's like she knows when she's hungry
um and and you know some some parents
um like I always fed my kids on demand um and I even did my you know my my dog
free fed um so that when he was hungry and he was a lab and people always gonna get fat and he's he's not like it's even
animals know um that when they're hungry they'll eat and when they're not they don't
um so it really is um uh just a natural thing but like Ashley
said we get stuck in all these food rules and it is not anyone's fault it's
just how you know everyone's just carrying on what they're taught unless they're taught something differently so
you know but you know some parents start off with their babies oh I'm gonna put them on a schedule right so instead of
feeding them when the babies showing that they're hungry that you know it's every three hours or whatever
um so the food rules for some people start right off from the beginning and that's all you ever have known
um and there's so much freedom in basically getting to know your body it
sounds kind of funny because it's like what do you mean I know my body right but so many of us do live in these
bodies and we haven't taken the time to really get to know it and
um figure out what it's telling us um tapping into that body wisdom that
each of us does have for some it's going to be harder because if the food rules are more ingrained it will be harder
um and you have to be willing to put the efforts into learning
your body um and learning the cues that it gives learning what works for it and what
doesn't learning to for instance stop punishing your body because you you ate which is your right
to eat and nourish your body but then we go and we punish it with you know
um really hard exercise or um
you know or not eating then we won't eat right there's like this different ways that we punish ourselves and our bodies
um and Ash and I were talking about this like once practicing intuitive eating
and learning how to do it um really it ripples out there's a
ripple effect so it affects because there's other parts of your life so there's a saying that says um the way
you do one thing is how you do everything and so when you start thinking about you know if you
tend let's say use like punishment if you tend to punish yourself in some way or eating something you feel like you
shouldn't have or whatever you probably punish yourself in other areas too um so that's just one example but
when you start practicing this and learning the principles and it's really about personal growth and that will they'll
have a ripple effect in other areas of your life yeah and body trust too that's a big one
yes not even just body trust but self-trust too which are similar but different and just to add a couple
things to what Carrie was saying the whole idea of food rules and beliefs
about food again it's not our fault it's our culture and how we're all raised to
think we have to follow a certain plan we can't trust our bodies um our bodies don't know what they're
doing especially if they're gaining weight we can't you know our body can't be trusted especially then and kind of
flipping the script a little bit and saying my body knows best because what works for my body might not work for
somebody else's body and we're all different shapes we're all different sizes we all have different genes and
genetics and different health conditions and different lots of things and that's
on purpose it's supposed to be like that right right sorry if I my cat is going
a little cuckoo back here she's exploring
so if you hear weird noises it's just my cat um
um yeah and and I think also a misconception a big one with intuitive eating is that
like what do you mean I could eat anything I want anytime I want well it's not actually true right Ashley right
yeah so that is a really big common one and it's not exactly true like so the
basis of intuitive eating is to be able to figure out what works best for you and your body and figuring out like what
are your particular nutrition or health goals like is it to have more energy okay well let's experiment and see what
types of foods give me more energy or what foods maybe zap my energy levels and then we can decide hey when I eat
like this I get more energy so let me keep doing that but we don't also want
to make it rigid like we don't have to say oh I have to eat these all the time because it gives me energy I can choose
still like that power of choice I can choose whether or not I want to eat this
way or this way today or maybe it's a combination of both ways there's a lot of different things to it because
nutrition is about patterns and what we eat over a week or a few days and it's
not about specific Foods or specific meals that are gonna you know make or break our health or nutrition and one
other thing is we all spend way too much time in our brains these days and not enough time
and our the rest of our bodies like Carrie was mentioning a little earlier listening to it
some people have a really great idea of when I eat this food this happens to me and other people have no idea and that's
not to say we're not paying attention because over my 10 plus years of practice there's definitely people that
are way more sensitive in their body to different things and can pick up on it a lot better than other people
and again that's just the nature of being a human or having you know different genetics but we do tend to
spend a lot of time overthinking things um and again trying to find the
quote-unquote like next best thing for our nutrition or health when really we do have that information already in our
body um just tuning into a little bit more and listening to it a little bit more and
eating things that sound good to you is usually a cue that your body says oh hey
we might need the nutrition from this food or if that food doesn't sound good right now well maybe we don't need the
nutrition from that food right now or paying attention to different health concerns that you might have so yeah
maybe I want to eat chocolate cake every single meal for a week and thinking
about it how is that going to make me feel right the whole point of intuitive eating is bringing it back to if I do
this or when I do this based on past experiences how does that feel in my
body and do I want that feeling or not yeah and thinking about what kind of
Life do you want to live right and how can um
what what how does what I eat get me there
um and but I think also too that it's important to know intuitive eating isn't just about eating it's also really more
of a whole person um way of I want to call it a program because it's not really a program but
um way of living the principles um include
you know a lot of things in like and also um differentiating like when you get to
know your body and think like if you would normally go to food as a coping
method right um thinking that you'd learn how okay am I
really hungry right now or am I feeling something else and can I
nourish sort of my soul instead of my body with something else right maybe I
maybe I need to go out for a walk or maybe I need to take a nap or maybe I need to call a friend
um so it's it's not it is about eating because it's learning when you need to feed your body
um but also when you don't really and you need something that you're actually craving something else besides food
um I don't know if that makes sense yeah and you I feel like you hit on another good point too because for those
of you that maybe have tried it or have seen it and think like that's too far
out for me I could never get to that point a lot of times when we're relying on
diets or plans or programs or more strict kind of ways of eating there's usually a time frame attached like six
weeks or months or whatever and so we have this idea of point A to point B and then like it's done or
um we I all hear all the time like I'm on track or off track with my eating or on the wagon or off the wagon or I'm
eating healthy or I'm not eating healthy again all those kind of like All or Nothing ways of thinking and when we have those ideas there's usually
like we said at the beginning point in the end point and with intuitive eating that's not really the case we kind of
are on this lifelong process or journey of always taking in information and our
experience with food and our bodies and our feelings and then adjusting from there and that can be really tricky when
we're so used to That All or Nothing relying on outside sources and having
that like set time frame and not having that trust in ourselves to be able to
quote unquote go off track and be able to rely on ourselves for that
information right yeah and some of you are thinking
well that's fine but sometimes I'm hungry when I can't eat right so if I'm intuitive an intuitive eater what if I
get hungry in the middle you know my work day and I can't eat or I'm you know somewhere
um we have solutions for that too um we've come up with a hunger blueprint
um and that sort of helps you it's just a framework to help you decide
um you know to kind of think ahead too right because some of it's thinking ahead okay I know that I tend to get
hungry here especially if I haven't had enough breakfast or depending on what I've had for breakfast and it helps you
sort of look ahead to when am I going to get to eat next
um am I going to have that chance I typically typically get hungry here what can I have with me that I can have as a
snack you know it's it's um it just helps you sort of see the bigger picture because with when we get into
diet that diet mentality it's everything under a microscope um everything we're eating is under you
know it's like oh whether you're counting calories or macros or points or whatever it is everything's under a
microscope intuitive eating sort of frees you from that and it allows you to see things from a bigger picture like
maybe you eat something that used to make typically makes you feel guilty that you shouldn't have eaten and
intuitive eating take helps take that away it gives you freedom from that it's like so what like I okay I ate the cookie
it's not it's not that big a deal um that helps you to be a little bit kinder to yourself
um for me personally it is what I used to uh help to heal from an eating disorder
um and there is some research in my case it was anorexia but there's research right actually about uh binge eating
disorder um and uh that intuitive eating is helping
there's some good research on that um because it just frees you it takes
that microscope away from you and you see things um through a clearer lens
um so yeah so intuitive eating is flexible yes and also practical
yes but not to the point of being like Kerry said under the microscope and having all of your meals and Portion
sizes planned out for you it's just sort of this listening to our bodies but also
taking in other information that's practical so you know if my lunch time is usually at noon but I have this big
huge work meeting from 11 to 3 and we can't eat which is crazy let's not even
go there but um maybe we can't eat during that time you better believe I'm gonna eat
something before the meeting starts even if I'm not feeling really hungry because I'll never make it to the end without
getting angry that's my go-to Hunger sign yep I mean mine too yeah so
balancing out that flexibility listening to your body but also using those
practical pieces of of nutrition or your schedule or
whatever piece we're talking about budget that's a really important one too or access to food right right yeah I
kind of see intuitive eating is like a a middle ground because you've got dieting
and you know restrictive eating on one end and then at the other end you've got this oh I can you mean you know I can
eat anything anytime anything you know and it's it's not quite that either and
um the way I describe it I don't know if I've ever described it like this to you Ashley but
you could say if you agree or disagree um I see dieting as sort of let's let's
take a horse okay and you got a horse and you have it on a short um
rope you know tied to a tree and that horse can only go so far right that's kind of
like dieting whereas the other end of the spectrum is like no fence around the pasture and the horse just goes you know
wherever it wants to go with No Boundaries versus if you have a nice
open pasture with the fence where the horse is allowed to you know kind of
graze with within that pasture and Rome and and romp and play Within the pasture
but still has some boundaries does that yeah I really like that and I also think I want to add to that a little bit and
say maybe the horse jumps the fence once in a while it does whatever it wants but
then it can come back and not feel bad about having quote unquote like escaped from the boundaries right had a little
Adventure you had a little Adventure it doesn't have to feel any which way about it
um just can go on to the next day and just keep being a horse right right I
love that yes yeah absolutely um so should we I kind of see like the
principles are kind of like the boundary right but um so do you want to mention that with
the um the principles or do you want me I've got the book here that's okay so I'll I'll go with it and if you want to
add something or you want to correct me let me know so there's 10 principles of intuitive eating and I think Carrie and
I kind of like to categorize them a little bit into like three phases almost so the first few talk about you know if
we're starting this new thing we also have to unlearn some of the things we've already been carrying with us so
in um the book I believe it's called rejecting the diet mentality as the very
first one and that is a really great place to start because we have to really
understand why we're doing this again if you've tried intuitive eating before and
are still really stuck in that diet mentality um It's tricky to break free from that
for sure and move on with the rest of the things about intuitive eating
um and so the first few principles are all about getting out of that diet mentality sort of unlearning some of the
things that you've been carrying around and then the next phase is kind of talking about like learning your body
cues again so hunger and fullness but also talking about emotions and feelings
and how you deal with those um like Carrie mentioned earlier if
typically we tend to turn to food maybe let's explore that a little a little bit more how is it serving you is it
benefiting you still um and then the last phase is kind of applying all the things you've learned
so far into what works for you and your lifestyle and your body
that makes sense Carrie yes absolutely yeah yeah it it you get to tailor you
get to tailor it to your lifestyle your preferences your
um how you want to live your life um you know versus diets and
um meal plans that everybody gets the same one with the same portions which is nuts like how boring I mean seriously
I don't know what foods I like for one I probably wouldn't like half the things
on there two I have I personally have super strong preferences of how certain
foods are cooked like I only like asparagus like grilled or like pan fried
I hate it steamed um and then also like how do they know
what time I'm hungry or what portion is going to fill me up at this time or maybe it's different the next day
um it's totally nuts to expect everyone to be able to follow the same plan and
not be completely miserable right right and when you start talking about it like
that and out loud like wow why why have I done this my whole life you know I've gotten to this
point which you have survived you're here right it's been a survival tactic for sure exactly and we're not knocking
people that are dieting because it's so normalized like we think that it's healthy and we think that it's normal
when really it's totally wrecking our relationship with food and our bodies and so that's what we're trying to offer
through our podcast and our work that we do is that there's another way and it's
much more fun and like Carrie said earlier freeing yes well and it doesn't
just wreck your relationship with food in your body it can wreck your relationship with other people true
because if you are so stuck on following your diet that now no no I can't go out
to dinner with my friends and I can't go to that family gathering you know
um yeah yeah um it's there's so many things and I've
I've I've had friends in the past um who are so you know they won't miss
their workout they won't they you know they had were so strict with their eating that they just kind of isolated
themselves honestly um and they weren't very fun at that
time um but then at some point they break loose and they go all the way to the
other end of the spectrum right because it's the All or Nothing right mindset and that's what happens when you have
that mindset and that's actually another great that the way you do one thing is the way you do everything is that all or
nothing mindset you don't you're not just doing it with dieting uh you're doing it in other areas of your life too
um and so and I know because I I tend to have that all or nothing it's
something I continue to work on um is not having yeah a lot of us do
most yeah really do like it has to be right or wrong yup right yeah and that's always that's
probably how we survive right like we do these things and we don't do these things and we'll be okay and that's like
our caveman brain but yeah and also if we just just tell me what to do right we
want just tell me what to do so I want to think for myself um which is fine if that's how you you
know some people survive their whole life like that and if that's what you want that we like as
you said we're not knocking that at all but if you want a different way um and you're ready to break free from
some of these um the rules and the um the short rope
that a lot of them put you on um then we are the girls for you so and
I really just want to throw one other thing in there because we've talked a lot about like being on a diet or what
is a diet and a lot of people might be like well I'm not on a diet and I don't struggle with that
and I think that there's a lot of diet mindset or I think we mentioned earlier
the diet mentality and really anything that talks about what you should eat
how much you should eat when you should eat anything that tells you basically what
to do around food nutrition meals is pretty much a diet and there's a lot of things out there that are talking
about oh we're not a diet right now especially because they've learned that people are over diets for the most part
um anything like that is still really a diet or you know if we're still counting
calories or using a scale um to measure our bodies or food or anything like that that quote unquote
word accountability um that's kind of a red flag for me that
people really still have that diet mentality and it's really hard to get out of like we were talking about
because we don't know another way that's mostly what we've all been taught
about food and nutrition um and so like Carrie said if you're kind of looking for something else and
it's scary that's definitely true um we're here to support you through it and give you tools and resources and
have some fun along the way I hope we're fun
um yeah and that's a great Point too that a lot of the programs now are not
marketing themselves because you know they're they've got they're great advertisers and marketers right because
they they draw Us in it looks sexy like you know the lives that they show on
their commercials who doesn't want that exactly and so it's very sexy advertising and marketing
um and it's marketed more as a lifestyle program or a wellness program
and which are really is just covering up the true the diet you know know behind
it um so like I said they're successful they're
they're the reason they're these some of these programs and companies are still going is because we keep giving them our
money to them right so many people because we want that that is what we want we want the quick fix
yes we want the Quick Fix and we want it now and we want what they're selling
um which isn't just a thinner body but the whole life that goes with it right
and then people get to that thinner body and they're hangry
and they're sick of following all these strict food rules and they realize that not really any
happier because it I haven't dealt with some of the deeper issues behind
the same brain right right right so that's what I love about intuitive
eating it's not just about the food it goes deeper than that
and um and it's not a diet it's not like these they're the principles and some
people try to turn it around into a diet like you'll see some online
um oh lose weight with intuitive eating and that is not the the weight loss part
is not really a part of this you might lose weight but depending on your body and
where you're at right now you might actually gain a little weight too just being honest about that
um but what we find is that your body will find where it likes to be I mean
we've all you probably you know back in what high school biology the set point the body set point it's got a little
range where it likes to be um and when you are
you know getting because it's also about getting enough quality sleep
moving your body managing your stress it's about all of that it's not just
about the food and when you are um partaking in all of those it's like that
whole person right that holistic kind of lifestyle and because they all affect
our bodies and our health all those areas that's what I love about intuitive
eating is that it's not like you know a diet is just how many calories can you get in a day
um you know at its at its most basic whether you're counting calories or macros or whatever or still boils down
to Counting something and how boring
really I just addictive and we'll talk about that like the Restriction mindset
is a whole thing um and what diets do to your body and mental health and all that we'll again
talk about that on another day probably but yeah intuitive eating is so much more freeing and it does take the work
like Kerry mentioned before um but it can be fun work supposed to be
fun food's supposed to be fun yeah yeah and it could be scary at times too right like you mentioned that before
um and it can be because sometimes you have to face things that you've sort of been avoiding and
um Ben avoiding with food or restricting from
you know food uh and so it gets I that's why I love it because it frees you from
a lot of things did you want to Ashley because we mentioned mindset and stuff did you want
to just briefly talk uh like what diet culture is because you see that a lot on
social media these days and you might be thinking well what is that yeah and we mention it a lot too so that's a good
point um so you'll see the word diet culture or hear us talk about it a lot and it's
basically this whole idea that our Western World basically is a diet
culture it's the culture of pursuing dieting and weight loss as a means for
Health it puts certain foods above other Foods you know those quote-unquote good versus
bad or healthy versus unhealthy Foods it oppresses people in larger bodies and
it's just the idea that um being thinner is healthier and better in a really short kind of description
yeah and we'll we'll be doing an episode on
um how skinny doesn't equate to healthier you know the skinny there's a lot we can
say on that um but yeah diet culture just makes you and and diet culture sneaks into the
medical field it's the extent of the fitness how you are supposed to you know
if you're truly fit you have to have flat abs and look a certain way um
and I will never forget this one guy and we were out eating and they were talking
behind us and we happened so we started chatting with them and the guy asked
what I did for work and I told him he goes oh you don't look like you do that because they tend to be really skinny
and gee I held my tongue but I wanted to say yeah and when I was
that I was anorexic so thanks bud you know and uh so it's even and he was a
larger guy you know so it wasn't it was interesting um these sort of
ideas that we get um and Carrie and I are immune from them either like the
thoughts are there just because that's our culture that's the whole point like they're always going to be there they
pop up from time to time and just once you're more on this other side of the
fence I like to think about there's this fence there's diet culture on one side and like this intuitive eating land on
the other side and maybe some people are definitely in the diet culture land some
people are definitely an intuitive eating land and some are really fence straddlers for a long time and maybe
even you're like leaning over one side or the other depending on the day um and sometimes you might be on the
fence for a really long time and that's okay too I like to think of it as you know even though Carrie and I are
definitely more on the intuitive eating land side of things these thoughts still come to us right just because of all the
influences that are out there especially with social media and just how how our culture is it's just that now we have
the tools to be able to quiet them down a lot sooner
um then maybe other people do oh yeah there are days where I'm standing at the gate
back into the diet culturally I don't like hmm what if I just uh dab dabbled a
little bit in it again you know so yes absolutely and we have days where like cool you know where we have those
thoughts but like Ashley said because we have practiced it you can much more quickly you've got the tools to use and
can much more quickly pull ourselves out of that mindset so
it's it's not like there always will be those Temptations and especially in the fields that we're in the Temptation is
great um and feeling like uh will you know that you're not less
than because you don't have the chiseled body or whatever
um and recognizing too realistically like with age um and just certain medical you know
like I can't teach classes at the level that I used to
um and that's okay like I'm okay with that you know I can do other things so
so come on over to the other side with us
the grass is greener
and we'll chat more next week yes for sure this is awesome so let us know your
comments um shoot us a message if you have any questions um we are here for you or things you
want to talk about yes yeah we want to know what topics you'd like us to ramble
on about [Laughter] definitely do that we definitely
like oh thank you so much for listening yes thank you see you next time love you latte
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