Intuitive Eating is often mistaken for lots of things by the internet. Intuitive eating is an approach to food and eating that focuses on listening to your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues, rather than following external diets or restrictions. It encourages eating based on physical hunger and satiety, fostering a healthy relationship with food by rejecting the diet mentality. Intuitive eating promotes body acceptance, self-compassion, and mindfulness around food choices, helping individuals break free from guilt or shame associated with eating. Rather than following rigid food rules, it’s about trusting your body to guide your eating behaviors, allowing you to nourish yourself in a balanced and sustainable way. IE is based on 10 principles that can help guide you through eating and relating to food in a neutral manner. Here’s how the creators of Intuitive Eating themselves describe each of the principles:

Principle 1: Reject Diet Culture

Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at diet culture and the lies it told you.

Principle 2: Honor Your Hunger

Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Under eating usually leads to overeating. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for rebuilding trust in yourself and in food.

Principle 3: Make Peace with Food

Call a truce; stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can’t or shouldn’t have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build to cravings, and often bingeing.

Principle 4: Discover the Satisfaction Factor

When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting, the pleasure helps you feel satisfied and content. You will find that it takes just the right amount of food for you to decide you’ve had “enough.” Food is meant to bring pleasure.

Principle 5: Feel Your Fullness

In order to honor your fullness, you need to trust that you will give yourself the foods that you desire. Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full.

Principle 6: Challenge the Food Police

Scream a loud no to thoughts in your head that declare you’re “good” for eating minimal calories or “bad” because you ate a piece of chocolate cake The food police monitor the unreasonable rules that diet culture has created.

Principle 7: Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

Food restriction, both physically and mentally, can, in and of itself, trigger loss of control, which can feel like emotional eating. Find ways to comfort, nurture, distract, and resolve your issues. Food can comfort us in the short term, but long term we must deal with the source of emotion.

Principle 8: Respect Your Body

Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally futile (and uncomfortable) to have a similar expectation about body size. Respect your body so you can feel better about who you are. All bodies deserve dignity.

Principle 9: Movement—Feel the Difference

Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie-burning effect of exercise.

Principle 10: Honor Your Health—Gentle Nutrition

Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel good. Remember you don’t have to eat perfectly to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or become unhealthy, from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating.

WHAT IT IS VS WHAT IT ISN’T

IT IS a way to listen to your body’s cues. Intuitive eating is about tuning in to your body’s natural hunger and fullness cues. It encourages eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re satisfied, rather than following external rules or restrictions. It focuses on freeing yourself from the constant cycle of dieting. It encourages breaking free from food guilt and eliminating food rules, allowing you to eat in a way that feels good for your body.

IT’S NOT a diet made up by woo woo dietitians who want you to eat whatever you want. IE is an evidenced-based, science-backed approach to eating. Intuitive eating does not mean eating uncontrollably or without regard for your body’s signals. It’s about finding balance, not disregarding hunger cues or health. IE encourages eating a variety of foods, and it doesn’t eliminate certain foods from your diet unless you have a specific medical need. It’s about trusting your body to make food choices without shame.

IT IS about being present when you eat—enjoying the flavors, textures, and sensations of food. This mindfulness helps prevent overeating and promotes a healthier relationship with food.

IT’S NOT something you should start with if you have an active eating disorder. IE is a helpful tool in recovery, but someone who has rigid rules and has lost hunger cues may have a hard time differentiating between what is the ED voice vs the IE voice. Working with a dietitian that specializes in eating disorders will be able to provide gentle nutrition guidelines to begin nutrition rehabilitation. IE is an option down the road, just not quite at the beginning of your recovery.

IT IS accepting of all body types, encouraging self-compassion and self-love, and recognizes that everyone’s body is unique. Intuitive eating is not a structured diet or eating plan that provides rules on what or when to eat. It’s not about losing weight, restricting certain foods, or trying to control your body size.

IT’S NOT about perfection. It’s not about always eating “perfectly” or having a flawless relationship with food. It’s about learning to trust your body’s natural signals over time, and it’s okay to have moments of misstep or indulgence. Intuitive eating is a process that takes time and self-awareness to develop. It may require unlearning behaviors shaped by dieting culture and requires patience as you build a healthier, sustainable relationship with food.

TL;DR – blending your body cues, knowledge of nutrition science, and emotional, social, and financial circumstances together will always leave you feeling grounded in your food choices. Not sure if the same could be said for diet culture….Intuitive Eating isn’t for everyone all the time, but it can be life-changing for those who decide to lean into this evidence based framework.

Caroline Shermer at Meant To Eat Nutrition Counseling is a Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor & Certified Eating Disorder Specialist. All the RDs on the MTE team have specialized training to support you in even the most complicated relationships with food. Take our quiz to figure out where you are in your relationship with food & if we’d recommend getting support from a dietitian. If you have BCBS or Aetna health insurance, you could work with an RD on our team for as little as $0!

Thank you, Mikayla, for writing such a thoughtful & important blog and for all you do for us at Meant To Eat!