Intuitive Eating - Why I Don’t
Anyone who spends even a tiny bit of time in the Fat Acceptance worlds has to have come across the idea of “Intuitive Eating.”
A simple breakdown of the idea is basically… “Eat what your body tells you to eat. Stop eating when you are full. Don’t eat when you are not hungry.”
It seems pretty simple, no? Not all that much to grasp. Not too hard to eat stuff when you are hungry and stop when you are full?
Then why does this whole idea scare me so much?
Let me count the ways…
1) I do not cook. When it comes to kitchen-y, house-y type work… I hate it. I do not enjoy chopping, peeling, mixing, stirring, sautéing, julienning, or any other cooking method you might come up with that does not involve microwaving, Foreman grilling, or, upon occasion, boiling water and adding.
So when someone says to me… “Eat what your body is craving,” well, that sounds a whole lot like “You are going to have to get in your kitchen and make a meatloaf.” Yeah, no, that is not for me. Thanks but no thanks… if my body decides it wants to crave something besides a textured vegetable protein patty that I can whip up on my little counter grill? Well, I am afraid that I am going to have to tell my body to go suck it… because I’m not making it. If the craving is still going strong by the weekend, well, we’ll see about going out to a restaurant or something and having someone else do the hard work.
2) “Stop eating when you are full.” See, now this is a real problem for me. And I understand that the whole “learning to eat intuitively” thing is a process and all, you know, recognizing when you are full, etc. etc. But I DO recognize when I am full… but if I am eating something I really like… let’s just say, something cheese-based… the only thing stopping me is my brain telling me I have had my allotment and that I have to stop. Or if I run out of cheese.
I do not care if I am full. I love to eat. Especially, say, cheese-based products. So to me the idea of just saying “stop when you are full” is not really very different than saying “you get this much and no more.” For me, it’s just making my brain give me a serving size that I have to stick to, or else that whole plate of cheese is going down.
3) “Do not eat if you are not hungry.” This one… well, I could probably manage. Unless there was cake. Cake makes me hungry. That’s the other thing about this intuitive stuff. I saw a study a while back, maybe a month or two? That says for certain people… seeing tasty food actually makes them feel hungry. So… what’s the difference between feeling hungry because your body actually requires fuel, feeling hungry because seeing the tasty cake made you feel hungry, and feeling the imaginary, emotional-type hungry that isn’t really hungry, but is just the brain trying to trick the body into having a snack so it will have something to focus on? I do not know… but I do know that I am one of those people for whom looking at tasty food conjures up the hungry, so the idea of don’t eat when you are not hungry isn’t going to work for me. If there’s tasty food, I AM hungry.
4) Honestly, I truly think that this whole bit about honoring health and intuitive eating and getting in touch with your feelings sounds like a wonderful thing. I am really really glad that it works for some people. But man, I have seen the blogs where they talk about the process that you have to go through… The self-exploration, the getting in touch with your innermost feelings, the deep thought, the serious mental work. And just thinking about that makes me tired. I think it would be easier to just keep eating according to a plan contrived by my brain and how much it tells me I am allowed to have. Emotionally more healthy? Probably not… but far, far easier.
So while I applaud the idea of intuitive eating, and I sincerely congratulate people who can do it, I think I am going to take a pass on it for now at least. Maybe one day when I have the time and energy and desire to put in that kind of effort, I will revisit this subject, but for now, I have some prepackaged, preportioned, preprocessed food to go heat up.
Intuitive eating, to me, sounds like shorthand for “eat what your body wants, and once it figures out that you’re going to feed it what it wants, when it wants, in whatever quantity it wants, then you’ll be thin, healthy, and happy”. I’m not sure that idea works for me. I think it only works if you’re okay with where you end up on the other side, ‘cuz some of us are still gonna be fat even if we do eat intuitively. On the other hand, finding a happy balance of eating what you really want without trying to constantly beat your body into submission (i.e. by restricting calories) is a lofty goal and one I’m hoping to reach at some point. I do cook, but life doesn’t allow me to cook whatever I want, whenever I want it. So for me (and only for me) I take from intuitively eating the hopes that any judgement of food being bad or good just goes away. Just figuring out how to feed my body without disordered thinking is a major accomplishment-I HATE that commercial for yoghurt where there’s a gal looking into the fridge at work, and there’s a luscious raspberry cheesecake staring back at her. So she starts all this bartering with herself, like if I eat a small piece running in place, or eat a big piece but eat celery for dinner, then it’ll be okay. Of course, the “answer” is to eat cheesecake flavored yoghurt, you idiot!!!! NOT!!! Eat a piece of cheesecake, dammit. Enjoy every mouthful. And then get on with the rest of the workday-no guilt involved. I mean, if you’d rather have the yoghurt, then knock yourself out. But I’m eating the real deal and there’s nothing wrong with that. And I might even eat some celery later, just ‘cuz I like celery!!
Kate Harding, The Fat Nutritionist, and other Fat-o-sphere types advocate intuitive eating as a way of becoming “happy and healthy,” without the “thin.”
It’s true that intuitive eating does help some folks lose weight, because it can be a way to recover from destructive eating patterns. But it is definitely not a recipe for thinness-and anyone who tell you that it is has seriously misunderstood the concept.
Sadly, the authors of the original book, Intuitive Eating, do just that: tell you to do it to “Get to the Natural Weight That Fits You.” (From the cover.)
And Geneen Roth implies the same, talking about it resulted in her losing weight.
Glad to read people speaking up IE as not being for everyone. I’m tired of those who promote it as if it The Answer to Weight or to Disordered Eating or to HAES or to Being Healthy, etc.
For me, that “substitution” thing won’t work. But I am trying to work on and learn about “Have a piece” rather than “Well I might as well eat the whole thing now that I’ve had one bite.
I am doing much much better with that. In the past, a bite of the cheesecake would have lead to “one more bite” until I had eaten way more than I even wanted.
Now… I think “well, what’s a reasonable amount of this thing I want that will satisfy me but not be more than I need / want” and I take that. That way, I get what feels like a real serving, and I find that sometimes, really, all I wanted was 2 or 3 bites… and if it’s “allowed” then I don’t feel the need to go overboard. (mind you, sometimes what I really want is a big honkin piece, and I’ll do that too… but I try not to do it constantly…
The thing that always bothered me about intuitive eating is that my cravings come with my hunger, so by the time I’m able to recognize what my body is craving, it’s either already dinnertime (in which case, food is probably prepared) or I may not have what I’m craving in the house. And if the key to eating healthy (as many people claim) is meal-planning, then that leaves little time for adjustments for craving.
I’ve taken bits and pieces of what I’ve read about intuitive eating and applied it to my life. For instance, instead of splitting whatever we prepare in half, I now think about how hungry I am and dish up accordingly. If I’m not satisfied, I’ll go back for more. I think this has limited how much I normally eat.
I think you raise some great points, like what is hunger if hunger can be triggered emotionally or with environmental clues. Let me see what I can do.
Peace,
Shannon
Sometimes my brain will accept a deferred craving if I promise to get whatever it is on the weekend…
I think it takes something of a strong person to do intuitive eating. To do it for the purpose of being thin isn’t the right way to about it because like CollieMomo1 said, some people will still be fat even afterwards so those people will be setting themselves up for disappointment.
Do it if you want, and don’t do it if you don’t. I’m not going to judge. But I think if people are going to do it, they should do it because they want to, not because they feel like they have to.
I totally feel you on the not cooking. I don’t cook either. I have always hated it, and I hate it even more now after my grandma spent years spewing out garbage about how I won’t ever find a man who wants to marry me if I don’t cook for him. Yeah, seriously. So as someone who will avoid it at all costs, you just have to take what you can get with a microwave or your nearest restaurant.
I think when we see tasty food, it induces us to feel hunger, yes, but it’s really our minds just tricking us. If we wouldn’t feel hungry without seeing it, then we weren’t truly hungry. I think this is where people get confused about listening to your body. When you see a yummy commercial or something and think, “Wow that looks so good! Omg I want that now!” That is not your body telling you that you are hungry! That is the commercial telling you that. I think people need to be more educated on what is really what.
I went through this for about an hour last night, trying to decide if I was actually hungry, or if I was just seeing commercials. Finally I decided it was real hunger and had a few bites of leftover Lo Mein… problem solved.
I wish I could get to the point of not having to agonize for an hour before I get the snack…
Thanks for your post. I found it by Googling, “I hate intuitive eating,” lol, and your post popped up.
Intuitive eating feels restrictive to me. And extremely complicated.
First, you need to be extremely tuned in to when you’re hungry, and how hungry. And waiting to decide what to eat by then means you’re either going to waste a lot of gas running out to get the ideal food, and probably be famished by the time you get it, or you need to have taken a nutrition course to have a very good understanding of food groups (starches, proteins, and fats) to know which foods are similar enough so that they will be satisfying enough of a substitute when one craves a certain type of food and it isn’t on hand.
I recently heard a registered dietitian (RD) speaking at an eating disorders conference tell her audience that intuitive eating is advanced eating, and is basically the Ph.D. of eating. It was so validating to hear her say that.
There are other “health at every size” approaches to eating besides intuitive eating.
The best sources, in my opinion, are nutritionists (or RDs) who specialize in eating disorders (EDs).
Ellyn Satter recommends on her brilliant web site to just start with regular meal times, sitting down with one’s household at the kitchen table, electronic devices off. She says, serve a protein, plenty of starchy foods, and both low-fat and high fat options, and let everyone decide how much they feel like eating of whatever’s on the table. And to do this for 3 meals and I think she says 2-3 snacks per day. And throw in some vegetables and fruit now and then.
This is a much more sane approach, in my opinion.
Thanks for your affirming post. The advice in the book “Intuitive Eating” totally messed me up. The damn hunger scale made me feel like I was never hungry enough, according to the words to describe the points on the hunger scale, for it to be “ok” for me to eat. As a result, I have had ~20 years now of tuning out hunger cues because I’m afraid I’m not hungry enough to eat…until suddenly I find my blood sugar crashing and I’m starving, and then craving sweets and fats. Result? Since reading Intuitive Eating, I’ve gained almost 200 lbs. I started at ~130. To the authors of that book: “Thanks for nothing!”
Thanks again for your post.
I don’t think there’s anything about intuitive eating that’s meant to make you thinner. Some people do lose weight when they learn to better listen to what their bodies are saying, but some gain, and some don’t change at all. Getting thin isn’t the point; the point is to relearn to listen to what your body is saying and try to honour that. If meal planning is a problem, try to always things that you know you really like in the house, whether it’s cheese, cake or garlic stuffed olives (my favorite!!!). That way when your body says “Hey! I could really go for something sweet right now”, you can open up the fridge, grab a brownie, eat it and be satisfied. I’ve found having stuff in the house that I know I’m going to eat and can make without too much trouble has really helped me to stop eating so much prepackaged stuff.
One day when I am retired and can focus on things like “time for cooking”, I look forward to having “ingredients” in my house, rather than “packages”
I don’t do “pure” intuitive eating. I don’t think very many people do, nor do I necessarily think most people can, or should.
However, like Shannon, I have adapted some elements of the intuitive eating philosophy to my own life. And I did do pretty much “pure” intuitive eating for about a year, after I discovered Fat Acceptance. I put on some weight, I ate a metric f*cktonne of potato chips, and I frankly felt a little crummy. But-the world didn’t end. I didn’t wreck my health. And after the first few weeks, I didn’t find myself constantly reaching for the potato chips.
The “diet culture” tells all people (especially fat people, and female people) that all of our appetites and desires are bad and wrong, and must be rigidly disciplined. Basically, it teaches all of us that our eating patterns are inherently disordered-even though, for most of us, that is not the case. For individuals like myself, it was incredibly liberating and enlightening to realize that I can eat “whatever I want,” and not gorge myself into a sugar-induced torpor every day. And that most of my out-of-control eating patterns were a product of dieting and restricting, not of my own inherent wackiness.
What intuitive eating taught me was that my body is a basically smart, trustworthy, reliable sort of creature, that just needs a little gentle guidance-not a mad, disgusting monster that is constantly trying to kill me.
For me personally, that realization was a major step toward body acceptance.
i know for me intuitive eating wsa a HUGE step for me accepting my body. I have spent 18 years being a bulimic, restricting until i couldnt take it anymore then bingeing, then purging, and repeat cycle. Finally being able to eat what i wanted, when i wanted (for the most part) STOPPED that cycle…and i DIDNT blow up like a balloon. Once the constat restriciton went away i realized i DIDN’T crave cakes and cookies if i let myself something sweet daily (god i love yogurt). I actually crave stuff like salad, to the point that sometimes i will just eat salad for dinner (and its NOT as a punishment)
I dont even find eating intitively that expensive. i am a crazy coupon shopper and get all kinds of stuff that is non perishable and stockpile it. And i am lucky because i live like 1.5 miles from the local farmers market and can get cheap seasonal fruits on a semi regular basis. I also happen to love to cook and base the daily meals for my family on whatever it is my tummy wants (tonight its lamb and fresh green bean stew with a salad and crecent rolls yummo) .
I know not everybody is lucky enough to have these thing in their favor, but for me HAES and intuitive eating has been the first real step that i have ever taken towards recovery from a lifelong, sometimes deadly (10% of bulimics will die from it) eating disorder.
I would LOVE to live next to a farmers market. That would be awesome!
I have been working really hard on NOT labeling food “good” or “Bad” oer saying “I’m not allowed”… that is one thing I do take from the intuitive eating… even if I don’t always manage it
I think that for me, intuitive eating has meant that I have to plan my meals more by the seat of my pants. I like to know what I’m going to be eating all this week so I can buy in bulk. However, if I am really listening to my stomach, I may not want to eat anything I’ve bought. It does mean that sometimes fruit will get wasted because I feel like grapes on day and oranges the next and by the time I feel like them again, they’ve gone bad. Intuitive eating is more expensive. It’s way easier to keep chocolate bars in the cupboard because they’ll still be there and ready to eat two weeks from now.
I’ve been learning to buy a selection of items and negotiate with my tummy. I’m not going to go out at 10pm and buy a watermelon because my body wants it. However, if I’ve wanted watermelon for a few days, I’ll buy one the next time I’m in the store.
I also have to treat my tummy’s cravings like a child at times. If I want chocolate, I ask myself if there’s some actual meal I might want instead. If there’s nothing I want but chocolate, that probably means I’m not really hungry, and should think about what I’m craving. Am I thirsty? Do I want a nap?
For me, intuitive eating has led to 15 lbs lost, but I have no idea whether that will stay or not. It’s not my goal. I just want to stop overeating by listening to my body.
I allow myself to go more by the seat of my pants on the weekends… do I want Chinese? Fine, we’ll do that. Mexican? OK, let’s get that. But for regular weekly stuff, I am too cheap, um, er, thrifty to have lots of stuff available in the house. I just buy whatever I plan for the week, and if I want something else, well, I’ll have to get it the next week.
I really don’t practice intuitive eating because like Molly said, it can get expensive. However, there are times when I can go to the store to get items I want. For example, I was in the store getting items to make a cake for my aunt Saturday night. I realized that I wanted to get some hamburgers, steak and chicken wings to grill this week, so I bought them. There are also times I will want certain fruit so when it’s time to shop, if they have it, I’ll buy it.
And right now, I’m craving some garlic sesame sticks, so it’s off to the kitchen!
I am with you on this.
There actually have been times in my life (I am 61 now, so all this has changed) when I ate intuitively and I stayed tiny and fit.
Everything changed with menopause.
Now my body thinks it needs all sorts of grease and salt (something I never used to crave).
So I force myself to eat veggies and not cheese or carbs most of the time.
But cheese, like triple-creme is what I actually want, and when i do eat it (Cowgirls Mt Tam is heaven) I feel happy.
But it makes me even fatter.
Very annoying to crave things that make you not look the way you like or fit into the closes you like to wear.
If I had the money I would just buy a place with great temperature control and go naked and eat cheese.
Naked cheese-eating fat chick commune!!
Who’s with me???
I’m putting a big “HELLYEAH” on that one!
Oh yeah! You buy that place and I’m there!
I am totally going to have a piggy bank in my room at grad school with the words “Naked fat chick cheese-eating commune” on it.
I’m in, too!
My body also tells me it’s craving french fries all the time. But… maybe it’s my brain craving them. Not really my body. This is what comes from having an adversarial relationship with my body… My brain can trick me into thinking my body wants something.
Really, I admire the people who are able to do the emotional work to get to the point of trusting what their bodies are telling them.
I hear you on a delicious cheese. From a nutrition course perspective (I took one course, that is the sum of my expertise), the cravings for fat can be an indicator of not eating enough throughout the day, or not eating soon enough when hunger strikes, or not eating frequently and amply enough all day. Fats are higher in calories per gram than the other macronutrients (9 kcals/g, vs. 4 kcals/g for starches and protein, and 7 kcals/g for alcohol).
So when someone is extra hungry, we tend to crave sweets and fats because:
table sugar reaches the blood stream faster than any other nutrient, to restore blood sugar levels quickly, and
fats have more kcals/g, to ensure restoring blood sugar *fully*.
Solutions? At meals (at least 3 per day) and snacks (up to 3 per day), try to have some protein, starch, and fats at each, in proportions that feel good to you. Nutritionists recommend this combo because it tends to be filling and covers all the bases in a nice balanced way. For example, granola with milk or soymilk, eggs and toast (with butter if you like it), cereal with nuts and milk, any type of sandwich with some protein and fat in the filling, crackers and cheese, or rice cakes and nut butters, burritos w/beans, rice and cheese and/or guacamole, the combos are endless.
Also, if you are not eating a mid-morning snack, try that, and a mid-afternoon snack, too, so you don’t feel overly hungry. Cheese and crackers is great for these, or a Kashi bar, a pb&j sandwich (or any sandwich). By adding in plenty of starches (grains foods like bread or crackers or rice, or starchy vegs like potatoes or yams) with the fats you eat, you’ll feel more full and less likely to overdo it on the fats (and reduce overall kcals in the meal or snack, b/c starches have fewer calories, so they make the snack go further with less calories.)
I have to try that MtTam Cowgirls cheese….thanks for the suggestion;)
I guess I do a kind of pared down version of IE. I stick with the “eat what you want, stop when you’re done” mentality. To me, IE doesn’t mean running out and buying new stuff every time a thought occurs to me that I’d like a certain food. My way of doing IE is more – eat what I want within the range of what’s available to me. I also try not to waste food and eat the fresh stuff first so it doesn’t go bad, etc. but I never force myself to eat something I really don’t want because it’ll go bad. I basically grocery shop twice a month. I buy a mix of whole ingredients that require cooking but also include packaged stuff (usually of the Trader Joes variety) to fill in when I don’t feel like really cooking. I’m much more honest with myself and can anticipate cravings and keep what I think of as “fun” food around so it’s there when I want it. I’ve stopped stressing over whether I’m hungry for emotional reasons or whatever. It’s funny, once I let go of that worry, I feel LESS inclined to eat out of boredom, upset, etc. It was the restrictive constraints in my head that made me feel like I’d eat a whole gallon of ice cream at a time if I “let myself”. When first letting go of the rules, I did overeat but soon got the message that there isn’t really any point. The food will be there later when I can truly enjoy it. I don’t have to stuff it all in now because I’ve already messed up so why not. There’s no more messing up so there’s no more need to overeat.
As a 20 year champion food restrictor (thank you WW), I never thought I’d reach this place mentally about food. The only real issues I still have with it revolve around body image. Intellectually, I know that it’s normal to gain weight just by eating normally after a lifetime of restriction. It’s still scary, though, and occasionally has me second guessing my new way of being. IE has not resulted in me becoming thin but that was not the goal. The goal is to let go of all the crap that was holding me back from living my life in the present. Being thin and getting all the societal praise and reinforcement that engenders would be nice, if I’m being honest, but it wouldn’t do a thing to improve the most important things in my life that are pretty wonderful already. So, I have to talk myself down from the ledge now and then but in the end, it’s worth it.
I read on another about IE site that if it doesn’t result in weight loss after 2-3 weeks, or the weight is going up and not turning around after about a month, to scrap it, it’s not for you.
My experience: I gained 200 lbs. after-and as a direct result of-reading the damn I.E. book and trying hard to understand and follow it. I gained that weight because not only did I gain weight at first after reading it (after having had a stable weight for ~10 years prior), the fear/guilt the authors lay on about waiting to eat until hungry “enough,” had me delaying my eating like crazy. To this day, thanks to IE, everytime I feel hungry, I think I should wait to eat.
By the time I feel hungry “enough,” I’m craving sweets and fats. Not healthy. Sometimes I delay eating without realizing it by skipping breakfast and lunch because it never seems that I’m hungry “enough” as those authors put it, which is ridiculous. It got me really anxious about eating. Then they tell you to stockpile your “forbidden” foods and then when your starving, you’re faced with a kitchen with lots of cookies and ice cream. Not a good combo: starving plus massive amounts of sugary foods there.
I think Francie Berg and Ellyn Satter (registered dietitians) have better advice:
Eat at regular meal times (and snack times, if you’re hungry for snacks), THEN stop when full.
At those meals and snacks, eat from the 5 food groups: starches, proteins, fruits, vegs, and dairy, in the quantities you want, until full.
To me, that is normal, sensible eating.
Now, if I could just get the IE voices out of my head and not be afraid to sit down to the table at meal times!
This damn book’s advice worked me from disordered eating into an eating disorder.
Obviously, I do not recommend it, and think it can be extremely harmful and urge caution to anyone considering trying it.
aquilegia,
I think Satter’s method (not familiar with Berg) is totally reasonable. And I think most IE people will recommend a balanced, diverse diet. I think trying to cover the five food groups is a good way to ensure that variety and that once you decide what foods you are going to eat, eating that food intuitively (as in, eat the quantities you want of those foods… if you’re feeling protein hungry, then go ahead and eat all your protein… if you’re sick of veggies, take a break one day).
IE also becomes dependent upon your ability and access to the best and freshest foods. It can be more difficult to achieve optimum nutrition if you have financial obstacles or time constraints that make fresh food preparation more difficult. You have to balance so many variables when it comes to achieving a healthy diet that it becomes a monumental task for all but the most privileged among us. incorporating what healthy foods you have available to you and enjoy.
I think that is what IE attempts to teach people, but many interpret IE to suit their own needs, which is okay. The most important part is to normalize our relationship with food, so that it does not become of greater importance than it should be.
Peace,
Shannon
For me, intuitive eating means looking in my fridge and cupboards and thinking “Out of all the food options available to me, which is the most appealing?” and then eating that until I feel satisfied, then moving on to some different kind of food (using the same selection process) until I no longer feel the need to eat anything. Eating this way has stopped me worrying about whether I’ve eaten enough broccoli or apples or calcium-foods or whatever the latest super-foods are. It’s taken a load of stress out of my life. And I do include ALL food options, including sugary fatty ones. Food is food.
This is another reason why fat acceptance never went mainstream. Intuitive eating worked 50 years ago when people ate differently and the world was not dominated by corporate food. Today with all the processed food one must eat mindfully to be healthy.
Can you elaborate, Valerie? A person may eat mindfully or intuitively and still be fat. And fifty years ago, people also ate junk. Maybe not the same kind of junk, but junk nonetheless.
While HAES is related to fat acceptance, it isn’t necessary for it. Civil rights shouldn’t depend on the kind of food one consumes.
Valerie,
It depends on your definition of “eat mindfully.” Eating intuitively, to me, is eating mindfully. Eating intuitively requires you to check in with your body and see how the food you eat makes your body feel. IE means understanding your hunger and satiety signals, and respond to them accordingly. To me, that is the epitome of mindful eating: eating in response to how your body feels, rather than simply making food and eating mindlessly.
Peace,
Shannon
I think IE needlessly complicates restoration of reasonably healthy, satisfying eating.
I think that as Satter and Berg suggest, sitting down to 3 meals and 2-3 balanced snacks spread throughout the day, at regular, consistent intervals, with proteins, starches, produce, and high and low-fat options and eating what one wants of them, in proportions that feel satisfying and filling for the individual, is much easier.
Also, Geneen Roth’s books tell people to wait til hungry, then decide *precisely* what one is craving, to jump in the car and go get it, which, as one poster wrote above, means feeling starved by the time one buys that exact food. I tried this advice years ago and soon concluded it was expensive and nuts. In nutrition classes, they explain a food groups principle: that one type of starch can be swapped for another type (bread for potatoes, or yams for corn) and satisfy one’s need/craving for starch. Chicken or peanut butter can be swapped for beef and be reasonably satisfying. Same with fruit and veggie groups, and fats. So one can have several types of each food group on hand at home, personal favorites, and then make reasonably satisfying meals from them.
If I start craving a different type of starch (maybe sourdough bread, for example), I can put it on the grocery list to pick up on grocery day. That way, I can provide basically the nutrition my body is craving, and rotate in my various cravings/favorites of each food group on the next shopping trip.
I would simplify this to repeat Berg’s advice, in lieu of IE.
I think many people would benefit more from this advice than getting further messed up by waiting to see when they are hungry “enough.”
She and Satter advise, essentially:
- eat at regular meal times, 3 meals and 2-3 snacks/day
- eat a variety of foods you enjoy
- eat until full or satisfied
Eating at regular meal times throughout the day allows a person to get filled up on a regular basis, so they’re not craving excessive sweets or fats (“junk.”) It also allows them to eat and then focus on other things, to get on with their lives.
I think many plus-size people would benefit from this, and not get so messed up by overly complicated efforts.
I’ve never read intuitive eating as having hard rules, more like principles. Every explanation I have read has talked about sometimes eating out of boredom or for fun or from sadness or overeating sometimes etc. Its a prescription for normality, something that a lot of folks need after years of diets with inflexible rules and crazy externally based measurements of healthful eating.