WEBVTT - Episode Seven: Gut Instinct 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.480 Welcome to how I eat in a day where it's 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.560 not about what I eat, but how I eat. Let's 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:08.559 do this first things first, going to check in with 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.040 the body. Are we hungry? How hungry are we? I 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:15.520 am hungry, yes, and I want a full meal. Let's 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:20.360 choose it. This is Victoria Garrick. She's a former college 0:00:20.440 --> 0:00:23.919 volleyball player who's gotten kind of a falling on TikTok 0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:28.400 talking about body image and health, and she's showing on 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:33.920 TikTok how she approaches something called intuitive eating. I'm staring 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.080 at the fridge because sometimes that helps me. When I 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.280 don't have an immediate craving, something might pop out at me. 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.120 And it did. Sahitas, Yes, do we have tortilla? Yes 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:47.600 we do. Victoria find some salsa too. In the video, 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.720 she microwaves the food, eating some chips and salsa off 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:56.080 the kitchen counter. As she waits, she's clearly enjoying it, 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:01.320 closing her eyes after a bite and nodding vigorously after 0:01:01.360 --> 0:01:05.840 eating another chip. She even does a little dance. And 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.080 then her food is ready and she sits down to eat. 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.720 This is divine. That first bite is hitting. She eats 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:18.240 another chip, then goes back to her fahita. Then she 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.919 takes a brief break, saying that she feels like she's 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.679 been moving too quickly. Where's going to slow it down? 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.360 Get back too mindful. It's like moment by moment she's 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.280 paying attention to her body, how the food tastes, but 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:35.800 also whether she's still hungry. I'm getting to a point 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:38.720 now where I'm like kind of full, but I'm not 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.720 totally done eating, so just trying to determine when I'll 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:46.520 be done, and sure enough, once she's full, she says, 0:01:47.120 --> 0:01:51.680 she stops. All of this is part of intuitive eating, 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:57.440 which is about healing people's relationships with food. Intuitive eaters 0:01:57.480 --> 0:02:00.440 say that the way we eat has been screwed up 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.920 by diets and all the various rules about food. The 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:08.880 diets teach people that were so focused on calorie counts 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.680 that we can't actually tell what our bodies need anymore. 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:18.280 TikTok is full of these kinds of videos, people like 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.920 Victoria talking about what they eat in a day and 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.400 how they go about eating. Some of the videos are 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:29.760 just about eating in ways that aren't about dieting, about 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:33.800 having dessert and carbs, the kinds of things. Lots of 0:02:33.840 --> 0:02:38.440 diets say are off limits, but also eating healthy stuff 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:42.840 like oatmeal or an apple. Think about the last time 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:48.560 you eat something. What made you eat those things? Was 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:53.120 it lunchtime or were you just getting hungry? And what 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.680 made you choose that particular food. Did you crave that 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:02.320 thing specifically or maybe you chose it because you felt 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.760 like you should like it was the healthy choice. And 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.600 then when did you stop eating? Did you finish your 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:14.200 full plate or just some of it and you were done? 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:19.000 Were you full? Did you feel satisfied? These are the 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.960 kinds of questions at the core of intuitive eating. The 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:27.639 movement was started by two dietitians in THEES. This is 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.800 a lease rush one of those dietitians. You want to 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.240 be aware of your instincts. You want to be aware 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.080 of what emotions might pull you away from your natural instincts, 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.880 and you want to be able to use your caring, 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:43.640 self compassionate, loving, cognitive part of your brain to help 0:03:43.680 --> 0:03:46.080 you find a way to eat the nourishes you and 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:50.160 gives you spatisfaction. That all sounds great, don't get me wrong, 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.320 but what does that actually mean? Intuitive eating? Yes, gives 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:59.680 you the freedom to choose whatever it's going to satisfy you. 0:03:59.800 --> 0:04:03.160 Also takes into consideration how does your body feel based 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.320 on your on your choice of eating. Like a last 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:12.600 just said, intuitive eating is eating what satisfies you, eating 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.880 in ways that make you feel good. Some people would 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:23.040 call it regular old eating. Eating when you're hungry and 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:29.720 stopping when you're satisfied. Sounds easy enough, right, But intuitive 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:35.279 eating exists because we can't just eat, or at least 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:40.800 many people can't. There's no way around it. We've just 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:47.720 gotten so screwed up about eating. Intuitive eating advocates say 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:52.640 that's why people need to relearn how to eat. They 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:57.120 say that our bodies don't need rules because we naturally 0:04:57.160 --> 0:05:01.640 know when and what we should be eating. M or 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:07.039 our bodies knew at least we knew when we were babies. 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:11.120 We cried when we were hungry and stopped after we 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.279 were fed. That's the intuition that we have to relearn. 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:23.160 So what changed? Why don't we know anymore? Well, you 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:29.760 can blame diets, and intuitive eating does blame diets. Deprivation 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.240 always leads to seeking what you can't have, and diets 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.960 are depriving. You know, culture dominated by diets. This is 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:43.880 a pretty radical idea. Is intunivating. The solution, Yes, is intunivating, 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:48.279 the remedy, the healing that comes from deprivation, and a 0:05:48.320 --> 0:05:52.120 sense of lack of trust in oneself. Yes, we are 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:56.480 constantly being told that eating fewer calories is not just 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:01.520 good but even virtuous, That dieting will make you thinner, 0:06:01.960 --> 0:06:06.280 and losing weight means being healthier. But those things are 0:06:06.320 --> 0:06:11.400 actually totally wrong. That's what this whole series has been about. 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:17.240 Our ideas about weight are messed up. Diets don't actually 0:06:17.279 --> 0:06:21.240 make most people thinner in the long term, and they 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:25.800 probably aren't the best way to get healthier either. The 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:32.320 battle to lose weight it's actually a losing battle. And yet, 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:36.640 in spite of all that, dieting still has a hold 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:40.920 on us. We're just not always calling them diets anymore. 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:46.320 We keep believing that being thinner is better, even though 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:51.599 that's questionable. Intuitive eating sells itself as the solution to 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:55.080 all this, as a fix for so many years of 0:06:55.200 --> 0:06:59.799 messed up ideas about food, weight, and health. It says 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:03.240 the people have put their faith in diets and food 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.600 restrictions for far too long, and that people should put 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:14.080 their faith in intuitive eating instead. Naturally, I was intrigued 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:19.080 by this. Intuitive eating seemed to offer a way forward 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:25.600 past dieting and into something new, But I was skeptical too. 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.960 If there were no rules about eating, would people still 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:35.160 eat in healthy ways? And what happens to their health, 0:07:36.040 --> 0:07:41.280 not to mention their weight. In our final episode, You're 0:07:41.320 --> 0:07:46.280 gonna come with me on a journey to Intuitive Eating University. 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.360 That's not actually a real place, but there are classes 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:54.600 that teach people what intuitive eating is and how to 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:59.000 put these ideas into practice, something that's a lot harder 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:03.560 than it sounds. By the end of this episode, you 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:07.240 may well be convinced that it's time to ditch dieting. 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.679 But then we also have to ask does it work. 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:17.400 I'm Bloomberg News health reporter. I'm a court and from 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:33.360 the Prognosis podcast. This is Losing It. Welcome to your 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:39.120 first day at Intuitive Eating University. Take a seat. I 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.160 hope you brought a notebook and the syllabus. Of course, 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.440 let's go meet our instructor. I found her on where 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:52.280 Else TikTok. My name is Sammy Prevett and I am 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:58.120 a registered dietitian, certified Intuitive Eating counselor, certified personal trainer 0:08:58.280 --> 0:09:01.840 and the founder of Fine Food Freedom. She also offers 0:09:01.960 --> 0:09:07.360 online classes like the one we're taking. Intuitive eating has 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:12.400 been around for nearly thirty years, but it's become incredibly 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.680 big in the era of social media. It's also taken 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:19.679 off at a time when more people are fed up 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:26.040 with diets. Intuitive eating very explicitly defines itself as anti diet. 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.640 According to TikTok, videos with the hashtag intuitive eating have 0:09:31.800 --> 0:09:36.320 gotten more than a billion views. Some of those are 0:09:36.559 --> 0:09:42.440 Sammy's videos. Sammy is thirty one, peppy, and has blonde hair. 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:47.920 She makes these really accessible videos about intuitive eating. Intuitive 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.240 Eating Breakfast Edition. Here you will see I have one 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:51.840 of my two because I already ate the other one. 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:56.000 Frozen waffles covered with peanut, butter, cheese, seeds, livered almonds, raspberries, 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:59.280 as well as topped with honey. Sammy will give viewers 0:09:59.480 --> 0:10:04.480 tips and little exercises to do, like challenging them to 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:09.319 eat a food they forbid themselves to have. She encourages 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:12.880 people to feel free to eat in ways that diet 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.480 culture forbids, and here to remind you, I think you 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.800 are allowed to eat ice cream whenever you want. I know, 0:10:20.120 --> 0:10:23.640 sounds crazy, right, Well, if you're like, no, no, no, no, 0:10:23.720 --> 0:10:27.440 I'm not Why write what diets have you been on 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:29.040 that I've told you can only have ice cream at 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:33.440 a certain time. Sammy has this very plain spoken way 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:38.160 of talking that's appealing. You feel like she's talking too 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:44.120 straight and probably because of that and other reasons will 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:49.840 get into later. Sammy's TikTok's are pretty popular. She has 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:55.520 more than six hundred and fifty thousand followers. Sammy is 0:10:55.720 --> 0:11:00.440 one of the dietitians and certified Intuitive Eating counselor. Out 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:05.240 of practice, she started called Find Food Freedom. They call 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:11.040 themselves non diet Dietitians and they offer coaching along with 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.600 the online classes I took to be a certified Intuitive 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:20.560 Eating counselor, Sammy and others went through special training and 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:24.560 even coaching by the founders of Intuitive Eating. Do you 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:29.000 want to understand what intuitive eating really is? This is 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:32.400 Sammy teaching and Intuitive Eating training that I went to 0:11:32.640 --> 0:11:37.240 a little while ago. At first, I honestly wasn't sure 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:41.160 what to expect. I figured though, that a lot of 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:46.120 my attitudes about food were about to get challenged big time. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:49.360 Do you have a desire to find food freedom but 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:52.679 are also feeling afraid to give up the pursuit of 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:56.319 weight loss and don't really know how those interact together. 0:11:56.960 --> 0:12:00.400 Do you genuinely want to improve your health? Do you 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.719 want to understand how it impacts health? Have you been 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.480 dieting for what seems your entire life? Do you have 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:11.360 shame and guilt associated to body size? Do you feel 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:17.160 uncomfortable or discomfort in your body? All? Right, now that 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:22.640 we've met our instructor, it's syllabus time. Intuitive eating has 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:27.880 ten core principles. We'll go over some of them today, 0:12:27.920 --> 0:12:32.360 like the first rule of intuitive eating, which is you 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.960 do not talk about intuitive eating. Oh wait, that's fight club, 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:42.320 My bad. But actually the first principle of intuitive eating 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:48.760 is to reject diets, specifically to reject the diet mentality. 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:53.560 That means tossing the South Beach Diet book, getting angry 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.360 about how when a diet didn't work you felt like 0:12:57.400 --> 0:13:02.280 it was your fault, un following social media accounts that 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:07.040 make you feel bad, telling up how much time you've 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:12.000 spent logging food in the new map, think about how 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:16.559 many hours of your day are spent on the obsession 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.960 about food or body image. And I want you to 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:24.520 think about what would you do with those hours, those 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.960 minutes every single day, if you could get them back right, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:35.439 take it seriously, think about it, I for one, would 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:40.360 be a lot better at some of my hobbies like pottery. 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:46.440 During the training, it became clear just how much dieting 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:52.360 takes over people's lives and how sad they were about it. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:58.559 They got really emotional. Sammy asked people how long they 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:02.440 had been dieting for trapped in a cycle of weight 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.640 loss and weight regain. So let's look at some of 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:10.040 these answers coming through years since I was twelve, ten years, 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:12.920 my whole life over forty years, since high school thirty 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:17.360 plus years. Then Sammy asked people what they thought would 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:22.040 happen if they chose a different path, and they gave 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:27.840 such hopeful answers. Here's Sammy reading those out from a 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.760 chat in the online training. I would be the best 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:33.560 version of myself. It would take away the guilt. I 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:38.320 would not be thinking about food always right. I would 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.600 think I would feel free. Did you hear that last one? 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:47.880 I think I would feel free to me? This reflects 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:52.960 how constrained diets make a lot of people feel like 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:56.440 they're running on some kind of treadmill. They can never 0:14:56.520 --> 0:15:02.000 get off. Rejecting diets means letting go of them in 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:07.560 an abstract sort of way, rejecting new and paleo and 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:12.760 whole thirty. But it also means rejecting diets in terms 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:16.680 of what you wanted them to do for you. No 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:20.840 longer holding out hope that there's some new program that 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.720 will work for you, no longer believing that you can 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:28.920 change your diet, change your body, and change your life. 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:36.080 In fact, along with rejecting diets, Intuitive eating asks people 0:15:36.240 --> 0:15:41.200 to also cut weight out of the equation. Stop worrying 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:46.480 about your weight when you eat, even stop weighing yourself entirely. 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.360 The scale is just a false idle. That was a 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:54.640 lease again, the co founder of Intuitive eating with self care, 0:15:54.760 --> 0:16:00.320 self compassion, tuning into hunger, fullness, and enjoyment satisfaction. Our 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:02.080 bodies are going to be what they're going to be, 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.680 and it's about learning how to be liberated from a 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:07.840 belief that you have to change your body in order 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:12.800 to be acceptable. Discomfort with diets is actually where intuitive 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:17.760 eating first began back in the es. Remember how I 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.040 said earlier that Elise Rush is a dietitian. You can 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:27.160 think of dietitians as food and nutrition experts. Many of 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:32.200 them work in medical settings, including to help people lose weight. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:37.080 When Alice was first starting out, what you wanted was 0:16:37.160 --> 0:16:42.120 to work with kids living with developmental disabilities, but that 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:46.920 didn't end up happening. Instead, doctors were sending patients to 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:51.080 her for weight loss to help improve health metrics like 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.760 blood pressure and blood sugar, and I wasn't interested in that. 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.360 Alice had previously struggled with an eating disorder, so she 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.120 doesn't of doing this kind of work. Then she comes 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.640 across some books that sparked a totally different way of 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:10.280 thinking about eating and weight. One of them was a 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:14.359 bestseller called Fat is a Feminist Issue. It was written 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:18.199 by the psychotherapist Susie Orbach and is still known today 0:17:18.280 --> 0:17:22.600 as a classic anti diet book. The other book, called 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.840 Overcoming over Eating, was also geared at helping people stop dieting. 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.359 Lease is intrigued by this idea of letting go of 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:38.879 dieting and helping people trust themselves instead of depriving themselves, 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:44.840 so she gets together with another similarly minded dietitian named 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:49.760 Evelyn Tripoli, and they write a book. It's called Intuitive Eating, 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:55.360 first published it's sold more than five hundred thousand copies 0:17:55.400 --> 0:18:02.399 to date. Back to our lesson plan, we were just 0:18:02.560 --> 0:18:07.040 talking about how the first principle of intuitive eating is 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:13.000 to reject the diet mentality check. The next principle is 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:18.199 to honor your hunger a k a. Eating when you're hungry. 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.359 Like I mentioned earlier, that doesn't sound like it should 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:28.360 be so hard, but remember we've absorbed all these rules 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:34.120 about food from diets. Intuitive eating teaches that because of this, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:40.320 we have to rediscover things like hunger and fullness. First 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:44.840 things first, how do you know that you're hungry? Your 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:49.840 stomach growls, right, Maybe you feel a little sick, dizzy 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:54.119 or tired. And for that matter, how do you know 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:59.440 you're full? You can actually feel it in your stomach. Right, 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:05.400 Maybe you're not as interested in your meal anymore. Again, 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:08.840 we're in class, so your homework assignment today is to 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.040 track how hungry and full you are over the course 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.920 of a day. This is actually an exercise Sammy private 0:19:15.960 --> 0:19:21.800 assigned in our classes together. As you're eating, think about 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:27.120 enjoying your food. Are you able to savor it and 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:33.520 take pleasure in eating? Then, when you're finished, how does 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:38.760 that fullness feel do you feel a little too full, 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:44.440 does it feel pleasant? Or maybe you're not full at 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:49.560 all and you need to eat more. But it's not 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:53.840 enough to just tune into your bodily cues about eating, 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.240 Sammy take it away. To be able to listen to 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.800 the body, to be able to be intentional and aware 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:06.119 of hunger and fullness, we have to drop the guilt 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.280 and shame associated with food because so often what will 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:14.159 happen is people will want to listen to their hunger 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.720 and fullness and satisfaction, but they can't even tap into 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:21.680 that because there's so much noise going on in their 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.800 heads saying you shouldn't be eating that, why are you eating? That, 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:29.199 you're such a bad person. I bet a lot of 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.360 people listening right now have had these kinds of feelings 0:20:32.400 --> 0:20:36.560 about food. I know I have, But it's kind of 0:20:36.600 --> 0:20:39.840 crazy to think about because when you step back for 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.480 a second, I'm sure you can see that you're not 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:46.280 a bad person for eating a brownie, and you're not 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:49.679 a good person because you had grilled vegetables at dinner. 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:53.280 And yet we get these kinds of messages all the 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:58.200 time about food, which brings us to the third principle 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.760 of intuitive eating, we have to make peace with food. 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:07.800 Intuitive eating argues that the reason we overeat a k 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:14.680 a binge is because of restrictions on food. Dieting has 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.960 some form of restriction. We do that restriction as long 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.680 as humanly possible, right until maybe we don't have access 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.480 to food, or stressful life event comes up, or simply 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.520 we just can't do it anymore. And then we usually 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:31.000 binge or feel out of control around the foods that 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:34.280 were restricted. We say, see, this is why I have 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:37.840 to be on a diet. I can't be trusted around X, 0:21:38.000 --> 0:21:42.400 Y or Z food. Right. This also aligns with how 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:47.879 researchers think about scarcity, which is that it leads people 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:54.320 to focus disproportionately on whatever is in short supply. If 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:57.840 I'm trying to avoid sweets and there's a dispenser of 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:01.440 chocolate covered almonds at work, I'm going to think about 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:06.320 them a lot. An Intuitive eating argues that I will 0:22:06.359 --> 0:22:10.680 at some point eat those chocolate covered almonds, and probably 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.560 over eat them. Actually, you hit a breaking point where 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:17.880 you say about that I would like some cars. By 0:22:18.040 --> 0:22:24.000 intuitive eatings, logic diets are actually creating the very issues 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:29.920 they're trying to stop Okay, so learning how to intuitively 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:36.000 eat means getting rid of food rules. Now, what does 0:22:36.080 --> 0:22:41.040 intuitive eating mean? Basically just having whatever you want to eat? 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:47.600 Sammy says that this is sort of a misconception because 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:53.680 what you want might actually change once you let yourself 0:22:53.840 --> 0:22:59.480 have it. That's the idea. Anyway. Now, when we are 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:02.199 going to big getting stages of our intuitive eating journey 0:23:02.200 --> 0:23:05.080 and trying to make peace with food, we do allow 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:09.080 all foods and it will feel We call it a 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:13.439 couple different things. You might hear celebratory binge phase, honeymoon phase, 0:23:13.800 --> 0:23:16.800 where we're eating a lot of those fun foods or 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:20.680 those playfoods, or those foods that were restricted for fifteen 0:23:20.720 --> 0:23:25.000 plus years. Sammy teaches that over time, you get used 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:29.320 to it. Once you've given yourself permission, those foods may 0:23:29.320 --> 0:23:33.440 not seem as exciting anymore. When there are no good 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:37.960 or bad foods, food is just food. You can have 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:42.760 it when you want it. Any good college class wouldn't 0:23:42.800 --> 0:23:47.639 be complete without a case study. So here's an example. 0:23:47.880 --> 0:23:51.959 A Lease Rush, one of the founders of intuitive eating, 0:23:52.680 --> 0:23:57.199 gave me. She had this one client who loved to 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:02.320 eat grilled cheese sandwiches, but wouldn't let herself eat them. 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:04.560 So I said, well, how about having grilled cheese every 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:06.800 day for this coming week? Until I say it again, 0:24:07.200 --> 0:24:12.560 that's right, grilled cheese every day for a week, prescribed 0:24:12.600 --> 0:24:16.400 by none other than a dietitian. What do you think 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:21.960 of that? If your reaction to that was really you're 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:26.040 probably not alone. It's worth thinking about why that was 0:24:26.080 --> 0:24:32.960 your reaction, Probably because it's really really hard to shape 0:24:32.960 --> 0:24:37.760 diet culture and the messages it sends. I'd also gently 0:24:37.920 --> 0:24:41.000 remind you that we're in coast today to learn to 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:46.440 make peace with food. Remember, but you almost can't do 0:24:46.520 --> 0:24:51.080 that without principle four of intuitive eating, which is challenge 0:24:51.119 --> 0:24:54.800 the food police. That refers to the way diets have 0:24:54.960 --> 0:24:59.159 conditioned us to make all these moral judgments about food. 0:25:00.240 --> 0:25:03.800 In this example, Elisa's client has been thinking of grilled 0:25:03.880 --> 0:25:09.119 cheese as bad even though she enjoys it. Maybe she's 0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:14.600 eating salads for lunch instead because salad is good. And 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:19.679 who was telling her that exactly? Other people or some 0:25:19.760 --> 0:25:24.880 little voice inside herself. That voice is the food police, 0:25:25.200 --> 0:25:28.520 as I learned from Sammy's class. And you challenge the 0:25:28.560 --> 0:25:33.560 food police by letting food be neutral, cutting out all 0:25:33.600 --> 0:25:37.520 the moral judgments about it. So let's go back to 0:25:37.520 --> 0:25:40.760 Elsa's client, who has been told to live her best 0:25:40.880 --> 0:25:45.040 grilled cheese life. What happened with that? She came in 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:46.600 the next week and I said, how did it go? 0:25:46.720 --> 0:25:49.320 And she said, after about three days, I didn't want 0:25:49.320 --> 0:25:51.440 to look at any grilled cheese, and all I wanted 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:56.040 was a salad. Imagine a world in which grilled cheese 0:25:56.280 --> 0:26:01.840 isn't bad and a salad isn't good. They're just foods. 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:06.399 They both fuel you, even if one of them is 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:11.080 more nutritious, and you can choose the grilled cheese because 0:26:11.119 --> 0:26:14.480 you're going to enjoy it more without feeling like the 0:26:14.600 --> 0:26:17.479 size of your body means you need to make a 0:26:17.520 --> 0:26:22.439 different choice. Intuitive eating says this world doesn't have to 0:26:22.480 --> 0:26:27.879 live just in our imaginations, that it is entirely within reach. 0:26:29.480 --> 0:26:33.399 You might be wondering by now whether people gain weight 0:26:33.560 --> 0:26:38.879 when they intuitively eat, and the answer is yes, that 0:26:39.000 --> 0:26:44.800 could happen. People could also lose weight, or their weight 0:26:44.920 --> 0:26:50.040 could stay the same. Anything could happen. It seems to 0:26:50.080 --> 0:26:53.600 me that the whole point is to take fear out 0:26:53.640 --> 0:26:57.800 of the equation, to not think of your weight changing 0:26:58.040 --> 0:27:03.000 as a consequence. Instead, the point is to develop a 0:27:03.040 --> 0:27:07.639 new relationship with food, to see it as both fuel 0:27:07.840 --> 0:27:12.920 for your body but also a source of enjoyment and pleasure, 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:19.040 and also to develop a new relationship with your body. 0:27:19.400 --> 0:27:23.119 Recognize that you may never be in as small a 0:27:23.200 --> 0:27:27.360 body as you would like to be, or as beauty 0:27:27.440 --> 0:27:31.560 ideals say you should be. You might look the way 0:27:31.720 --> 0:27:37.000 you look your whole life, and that would be okay, 0:27:37.240 --> 0:27:41.239 because intuitive eating says that people can be healthy no 0:27:41.280 --> 0:27:45.879 matter what they weigh. But I still couldn't help but 0:27:46.040 --> 0:27:51.360 think about healthy eating. If we could eat whatever we wanted, 0:27:52.160 --> 0:27:57.359 would we still make healthy choices? Elise and other intuitive 0:27:57.400 --> 0:28:01.560 eating teachers say that we would. I think that's a 0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:06.280 big misconception that having that food available will lead you 0:28:06.320 --> 0:28:08.679 to only eating that food. If you're really listening to 0:28:08.680 --> 0:28:11.320 your body, you're not going to feel very well. If 0:28:11.359 --> 0:28:14.720 that's all you need, you might start craving a salad 0:28:15.080 --> 0:28:19.240 after a few days of eating grilled cheese sandwiches like 0:28:19.359 --> 0:28:24.639 Alice's client. Alice says that making peace with food is 0:28:24.840 --> 0:28:29.199 emotionally healthier for us, and that when it comes to eating, 0:28:29.960 --> 0:28:34.800 mental health is as important, if not more important, than 0:28:34.840 --> 0:28:41.120 physical health. Intuitive eating also does teach people about nutrition, 0:28:41.840 --> 0:28:46.640 which they call gentle nutrition. It is the last principle 0:28:46.960 --> 0:28:51.840 of intuitive eating principle number ten, and was the final 0:28:51.960 --> 0:28:56.640 lesson of the course I took. Alice says that eventually 0:28:57.280 --> 0:29:02.600 you're not eating only so called bad foods or so 0:29:02.680 --> 0:29:07.160 called good foods. You have a nice balance of many 0:29:07.240 --> 0:29:09.400 different kinds of foods so that you can feel good 0:29:09.400 --> 0:29:12.480 and get satisfied. And who doesn't want to feel good 0:29:12.520 --> 0:29:20.280 and get satisfied. Even before I started reporting this series, 0:29:20.840 --> 0:29:24.640 I have thought a lot about food and weight. They 0:29:24.680 --> 0:29:30.200 are incredibly thorny subjects. We get so many messages about 0:29:30.240 --> 0:29:35.240 them in society, especially as a woman. And also they 0:29:35.280 --> 0:29:41.440 are completely unavoidable. You've got to eat, and no matter what, 0:29:41.840 --> 0:29:46.560 you're going to weigh something, so you're faced with countless 0:29:46.600 --> 0:29:52.440 fraud decisions each day about how to handle it. Intuitive 0:29:52.440 --> 0:29:57.160 eating seems like it could offer a solution. Listen to 0:29:57.240 --> 0:30:01.400 what your body needs. Let food be fuel and also 0:30:01.560 --> 0:30:06.240 a source of pleasure. Stop judging yourself for what you eat. 0:30:07.200 --> 0:30:11.200 You don't have to be thin to be healthy. In 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:15.960 some utopian world where what you eat doesn't matter and 0:30:16.000 --> 0:30:20.840 there's no baggage or judgment about food and weight. This 0:30:21.000 --> 0:30:25.240