Summer is a time of relaxation, adventure, and enjoying yourself. However, it can also bring up challenges related to body image and food relationships. This blog post will help you navigate these challenges through the principles of intuitive eating and body neutrality.
Intuitive Eating is an evidence-based approach that encourages you to listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues, make peace with food, and reject the diet mentality. Unlike traditional diets that impose external rules, intuitive eating empowers you to trust your body and its innate wisdom. Here are the key principles of intuitive eating:
Body neutrality is about accepting your body as it is, without necessarily loving or hating it. It’s about recognizing that your worth is not tied to your appearance. Here’s how to practice body neutrality:
Summer can be a particularly challenging time for maintaining a positive relationship with food and your body. Here are some tips to help you navigate the season:
At Tap Into Nutrition, we’re here to support you on your journey to a healthier relationship with food and your body. Our compassionate, evidence-based approach can help you embrace intuitive eating and body neutrality this summer and beyond. Ready to take the next step? Sign up for a free discovery call with one of our expert dietitians. Visit our booking page to schedule your call today and start your journey towards a positive and empowering relationship with food.
Tap Into Nutrition: Your trusted dietitian in Michigan for intuitive eating and body neutrality.
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The first step towards seeking help with your nutrition can be both exciting and nerve-wracking. Food is personal and finding a dietitian can feel vulnerable. If you’ve been poking around websites or checking out RDs on social media, we want to help you take the next step! So here’s what to expect…
Before diving into the nitty-gritty details, we want to get to know you and understand your unique needs and goals. That’s why we offer a complimentary 15-minute discovery call where we can chat about your concerns, answer any questions you may have, and determine if our approach aligns with what you’re looking for.
Once you’ve had your discovery call and decide to move forward, we’ll schedule your initial session. This session is all about getting to know each other, establishing trust, and gathering information about your health history, dietary habits, lifestyle, and goals. We want to create a safe and supportive space where you feel comfortable sharing your story.
After our initial session, we’ll have follow-up sessions that fit your needs, preferences, and goals. We’ll explore gentle nutrition, intuitive eating practices, and your relationship with food and your body to help you develop a peaceful and more sustainable approach to eating and living.
We understand that nutrition is just one piece of the puzzle, and that’s why we’ll also explore other aspects of your life, such as stress management, sleep habits, movement, and mental health, to ensure that you’re thriving in all areas of your life.
Schedule you’re free discovery call!
Can’t wait to meet you!
If you’re looking for more support or trying to build your care team, check out this post on how to find care providers here.
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Intuitive eating has been growing in popularity (yay!) and in conversations online. The strict black and white rules of what is or what is not intuitive eating are catchy for views and engagement…but they lack nuance, compassion, and understanding for individual needs. It can make intuitive eating feel a lot like a diet. Here’s a breakdown of the truth behind intuitive eating.
Intuitive eating is not as simple as just eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full. Hunger and fullness cues can be absent or difficult to interpret during recovery, illness, or if you’re not accustomed to sensing them. Even during these times of not being able to sense hunger and fullness as strongly, you still need to nourish your body.
What we see on the internet isn’t always the full story. It can seem like if you don’t look a certain way or eat a certain way, then it’s wrong. There is not a singular “right” way or an exact approach to healing your relationship with food and your body. Honor your individual experiences, allow for flexibility, and recognize that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to nourishing our bodies and minds.
Anti-diet is not about being anti-dieter. The truth about intuitive eating is it’s about creating a compassionate and inclusive space for everyone. We acknowledge that food is more than just nourishment. It’s intertwined with our emotions, experiences, cultural values, politics, and social stigmas. There are a lot of reasons why it’s so hard to let go of dieting and everyone’s journey looks different.
Nourish yourself beyond physical hunger. There are so many different reasons to eat, including practical hunger, gentle nutrition, and eating for pleasure. Practical hunger might look like eating lunch around 11:30 even if you’re not fully hungry yet if you have back to back meetings in the afternoon. Gentle nutrition might look like having a post-movement snack because you know that it’ll aid in your recovery. By broadening our perspective, we can cultivate a more balanced and fulfilling relationship with food.
It’s is not about perfection. Appetite, stress levels, activity, and life will all affect how your food choices look. You might think that being “too” full or having an imperfect relationship with food means you’re not good at intuitive eating. The truth about intuitive eating is that eating past comfortable fullness is not a failure. The journey is going to look different day to day. Offer yourself self-compassion and understanding because these moments hold no moral value and are very normal.
The way I view intuitive eating has changed a lot from when I first learned about it and the way I practice now. It will probably continue to change as I continue to learn, grow, and experience life. And that’s exactly the point. Embrace the complexities, honor individual experiences, and cultivate self-compassion to develop a healthier and more authentic relationship with food. Join our community, where you can tap into the joy of nourishing your body and embracing the wisdom it holds.
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Why diets don’t work, let’s get into it. Dieting is a 61-billion-dollar industry that has over one-third of Americans on a specific diet at any given time.
Whether it’s Noom, Weight Watchers, or the keto diet, diets come in all shapes and sizes and usually revolve around quick fixes and weight loss to fuel results.
So with this many people engaging in them and the huge amount of money poured into dieting, you’d assume they would work… right?
Actually, wrong! Research has estimated that over 95% of diets fail. That means it doesn’t matter which one you pick and decide to do, 9.5/10 times that diet is going to fail you.
If a medication only worked 5% of the time, would you try it? Probably not.
But yet as consumers in a body-obsessed world, we constantly reach back and get caught in this dieting cycle. We know they don’t work, yet we assume we will be the one it works for.
In today’s article, I will be giving you my perspective on dieting as a non-diet and food-freedom dietitian.
Keep reading to learn more about the dangers of dieting and what you can do instead, that does work!
Let’s get into why diets don’t work. Have you been here before, trying a new fad diet and being frustrated that you aren’t seeing the results you hoped for or were promised?
If I want anything to hit home it is this- it is not you that failed, it is the diet.
Dieting made you more preoccupied with food. Dieting slowed your metabolism. Dieting made you want to be a smaller size. Dieting makes you feel guilty when you aren’t eating “diet foods”.
Since the premise of most diets involves restricting foods and calories, it is basically a form of short-term starvation.
What happens when you starve yourself and then finally get access to food- you get desperate. You overeat, overindulge, and eat until you are past uncomfortable.
Then you feel guilty about it, and the restriction cycle repeats. But this goes against everything we know about our bodies’ biology.
Out-of-control eating is a normal reaction to starvation and dieting. It doesn’t mean you lack “willpower”, your body just doesn’t work that way. It needs fuel and will do what it has to to get it.
When you are underfed, you will obsess over food. This is the reason dieting and food restrictions don’t work. And never will- because you can’t fight biology.
Your cells don’t know that you are starving yourself voluntarily, right? They just notice the lack of food, calories, and energy.
Not only does dieting not work, but it can be dangerous for your health. It can be the root of many health problems, both mentally and physically.
Here are a few dangers of dieting that can happen:
After reading this far, you now know some of the dangers of dieting and why diets don’t work. So your next thought may be, well, what does work?
The good news for you is there is a style of eating that you can introduce into your life that will support you and your body. It is called Intuitive Eating!
Intuitive Eating is a revolutionary approach that focuses on tuning into your body and developing a healthy relationship with food.
It is a program that is guided by 10 key principles which involve rejecting the dieting mentality, honoring your hunger cues, and respecting your body the way it is.
If you want to learn more about my favorite resources for learning more about intuitive eating, check out this blog post!
Remember: you did not fail the diet, the diet failed you.
Dieting has shown us time and time again that it doesn’t work and does more harm to your body than good. You have the opportunity to break the cycle! You do not have to be a victim of dieting any longer.
If this feels really far out of reach for you right now, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Breaking the chains of dieting and any pre-conceived notions and food rules will not be an overnight process.
If you want a helping hand to guide you throughout the process, that is where a non-diet dietitian like myself comes in! Here at Tap Into Nutrition, we work with clients to break free from chronic dieting, make peace with their bodies, and learn how to use food in a supportive way.
Head over to my services page to learn more about my 1:1 nutrition counseling and Intuitive Eating support group!