Intuitive Eating

As a Registered Dietitian and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, I help clients locally in Edmonton and across Alberta with the practice of intuitive eating.  The term intuitive eating and all that it truly entails is not easily understood at first glance.  So, here I break it down for you: the what, why, and how.  If you’re still not sure if intuitive eating is right for you, don’t hesitate to reach out.

What is diet culture?

The belief that health, happiness, and self-worth is achieved through being thin fuels the cultural norm we call “diet culture”.  While diet culture can be obvious (just think of the latest fad diet), it can also take shape in subtle thinness-seeking and food-restrictive beliefs, thoughts, and behaviours.

Consider the following:

  • Do you feel guilt or shame for eating foods that aren’t “good” or “healthy” enough?
  • Do you feel pressure to maintain a certain weight or clothing size?
  • Does your weight determine how much you allow yourself to eat or how much you exercise?
  • Do you eat by a set of rules and then feel guilt or shame when you break the rules?
  • Do you eat according to your emotions?
  • Do you lack the trust in yourself to know what, when, and how much to eat?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you would likely benefit from working on your relationship with food through the practice of intuitive eating.

What is intuitive eating?

Intuitive eating is a comprehensive framework used to teach you to listen to your body and reframe your beliefs and thoughts so that you can satisfy your physical and psychological needs in relation to food.  Simply put, intuitive eating is eating in a way that’s true to you.

Image showing a lightbulb inside the brain, symbolizing how an intuitive eating dietitian helps to reframe beliefs related to food.

Key concepts of intuitive eating include:

  • Self-compassion – a safe space for your learning experience
  • Autonomy over your body and your food decisions – only you are your own expert
  • Attunement to and trusting your body’s signals
  • Process-based learning about yourself – an evolution and a practice unique to you
  • Emphasis on well-being and satisfaction – meeting your emotional and physical needs
  • A comprehensive approach and lifelong practice – not an oversimplified quick fix

The intuitive eating framework

The framework used to learn intuitive eating was created by two dietitians, Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CECRD-S, and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN, CECRD-S, FAND and consists of 10 core principles:

  • Reject the Diet Mentality: Letting go of the diet beliefs, thoughts, and behaviours, whether overt or subtle, that interfere with your ability to tune into your individual needs.
  • Honour Your Hunger and Feel Your Fullness: Reconnecting with your body’s internal hunger and fullness cues.
  • Make Peace with Food: Making all foods morally equal and giving yourself unconditional permission to eat the foods you want to.
  • Challenge the Food Police: Retraining your beliefs and thoughts around food. Teaching your inner voice to be factual, objective, and compassionate about food rather than critical and fearful.
  • Discover the Satisfaction Factor: Rediscovering the pleasure that eating brings to you by mindfully savouring your food.
  • Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness: Developing a toolbox of strategies to cope with your emotions, so that coping with food isn’t your only way to cope.
  • Respect your Body: Retraining your beliefs and thoughts regarding your body image. Learning to respect your body, take care of your body, and be compassionate and appreciative rather than critical, regardless of size.
  • Honour your Health with Movement: Retraining your beliefs and thoughts around exercise, focusing on well-being rather than achieving an “ideal” appearance.
  • Honour your Health with Nutrition:  Marrying your body attunement with external evidenced-based nutrition recommendations to achieve your own authentic health.

The benefits of intuitive eating

Intuitive eating has grown in popularity in recent years.  A growing body of research shows that intuitive eating is linked to positive health indicators1, including higher self-esteem2, greater body appreciation2, reduced emotional eating2, and general well-being.2

Can I lose weight or reduce my body mass index (BMI) while learning intuitive eating?

Intuitive eating is a weight-inclusive framework to guide eating, where the focus is on making cognitive and behaviour changes to meet your needs with the overall goal of improving health and well-being. While your weight/ BMI may change through the process of intuitive eating, the goal remains to focus on your health and quality of life.

Deciding whether to pursue a weight-inclusive approach like intuitive eating instead of a weight-focused approach can be tricky.  While a higher weight can increase the chance of chronic disease, guidelines also note that weight alone is insufficient to capture your whole health picture.3,4,5  For many, making positive changes to eating patterns may result in health benefits, even without weight change.5  Conversely, overemphasis on weight carries risk, including internalized weight bias, body dissatisfaction, and disordered eating.6,7  For some, the risk of psychological harm and in some cases physical harm outweighs the benefits of a weight-focused approach.6,7

I recognize that everyone’s starting point is different: focusing on weight loss may be harmful for some, while for others, weight loss from a health-centric and behaviour-oriented perspective may be a reasonable priority.  Deciding how to navigate this decision warrants an evidence-based, compassionate, and nuanced conversation with a registered dietitian to help you decide what approach truly serves your health and wellbeing in your specific situation.

If intuitive eating is right for you at this time, actively shifting your focus away from weight loss may bring up challenging thoughts and feelings.  The reality of living in our society – one that equates being thin with health, self-worth, and moral virtue – means that the desire for weight loss is often deeply rooted.  Working with a registered dietitian who specializes in intuitive eating can help you turn this from another attempt to diet to an opportunity to grow.  Through the process of intuitive eating, you will gain knowledge and skills to respect, care for, and nourish your body even on the most challenging days.

The process:

Step 1:
Getting to Know You

If you’re ready to begin your intuitive eating journey, I’m here for you.  Working with me, we will complete a thorough nutrition assessment with a focus on components of the intuitive eating framework.

Step 2:
Customized Nutrition Plan

Based on your individual needs and goals, we will come up with a plan to address all facets of intuitive eating.

Step 3:
Individualized Nutrition Support

Through a collaborative process, we will begin your intuitive eating journey.  With learning and counselling, we will develop your body attunement, reframe your thoughts and beliefs to support your overall well-being, and develop your skills to nourish your body.  An intuitive eating journey can bring challenges but ultimately personal growth and a lifelong practice of taking care of yourself.  Working at a pace right for you, I’ll be there to support you through the process.

Let’s Work Together
Sources
  1. Van Dyke N, Drinkwater EJ. Relationships between intuitive eating and health indicators: literature review. Public Health Nutr. 2014;17(8):1757-1766. doi:10.1017/S1368980013002139
  2. Linardon J, Tylka TL, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz M. Intuitive eating and its psychological correlates: A meta-analysis. Int J Eat Disord. 2021;54(7):1073-1098. doi:10.1002/eat.23509
  3. Twells LK, Janssen I, Kuk JL. Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines: Epidemiology of Adult Obesity. Available from: https://obesitycanada.ca/guidelines/epidemiology. Accessed April 2025.
  4. Kraus WE, Bhapkar M, Huffman KM, et al. 2 years of calorie restriction and cardiometabolic risk (CALERIE): exploratory outcomes of a multicentre, phase 2, randomised controlled trial. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. 2019;7(9):673-683. doi:10.1016/S2213-8587(19)30151-2
  5. Brown J, Clarke C, Johnson Stoklossa C, Sievenpiper J. Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines: Medical Nutrition Therapy in Obesity Management. Available from: https://obesitycanada.ca/guidelines/nutrition. Accessed April 2025.
  6. Kirk SFL, Ramos Salas X, Alberga AS, Russell-Mayhew S. Canadian Adult Obesity Clinical Practice Guidelines: Reducing Weight Bias in Obesity Management, Practice and Policy. Available from: https://obesitycanada.ca/guidelines/weightbias. Accessed April 2025.
  7. O’Hara L, Taylor J. What’s Wrong With the ‘War on Obesity?’ A Narrative Review of the Weight-Centered Health Paradigm and Development of the 3C Framework to Build Critical Competency for a Paradigm Shift.  Sage Open. 2018; 8(2). doi.org/10.1177/2158244018772888

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