Intuitive eating and mindful eating are often used interchangeably. You might think they mean the same thing, but there is a difference between intuitive eating and mindful eating. Mindfulness is a general approach to life based on Buddhist meditation practices. The teachings of Zen monks from Japan in the US during the 70s popularized Buddhist meditation in the West. In the 1990s, the influence of Buddhist thought on Western medicine and psychology led to what we now know as ‘mindfulness’. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, a medical doctor at the University of Massachusetts, had training in Buddhist meditation practices. He successfully applied meditation techniques to improve the condition of his patients at a chronic pain clinic, in the absence of medication for managing chronic pain. The methodology he created by combining traditional meditation practices with his own work, separating meditation practices from their religious context, is known as Mindfulness. 

The difference between mindful and intuitive eating is that eating mindfully helps you become aware of your connection with food by focusing attention on your sensory experience of it.  Eating intuitively teaches you the art of listening to your body and helps you eat in accordance with your individual needs. 

What is intuitive eating—rejecting the diet culture?

Dietitians Evelyn Tribble and Elyse Resch coined the term in their book Intuitive Eating, first published in 1995. The book enjoyed great popularity because it offered a way for people to adopt healthy eating habits outside the diet culture. While some diets may be healthy, the diet culture means that you are constantly trapped within the idea that some foods are forbidden and others are allowed, and that you must lose weight to fit unrealistic personal and social body goals. 

Since most diets restrict the intake of certain foods and/or require you to go hungry, they often don’t produce long-term results. Most of us are familiar with the yo-yo effect of losing weight only to regain it all. The reason why diets don’t work long-term is that trying to control weight by reducing calorie intake is a flawed strategy. You can’t constantly be hungry. Only optimal food intake for you as an individual can be a constant method of eating, but this will not lead to achieving unrealistic body goals. The full range of harmful effects of yo-yo dieting is still not clear, but it can make you more prone to angina, heart attack, and stroke, among others. 

While you may think that body goals are becoming more realistic, with plus-size models gaining attention, the fact remains that the new curvy body goal is also unrealistic. Being tall, having a flat stomach, a tiny waist, long, slender legs with a thigh gap, but a full bust and buttocks can frequently only be achieved with surgery. Furthermore, the super-thin body is far from being out of fashion.

In certain professions, such as haute couture modeling, the pressure to lose weight can be overwhelming. A 2024 study finds that 62% of female fashion models were asked to lose weight and to change their body shape and/or size, putting them at higher risk for developing subclinical (symptoms are present but not to the degree of meeting official diagnosis criteria) anorexia nervosa.

For centuries, women and girls have been trapped in the struggle to achieve unrealistic body goals, affecting their self-esteem and emotional well-being. This is not to say that men and boys do not experience similar problems, but historically, females have been more prone to eating disorders. 

In a diet culture, where almost everyone is into calorie counting, watching their weight, with a flat stomach and tiny waist as constant body goals, intuitive eating returns you to the basic facts of life. You need to eat to stay alive and healthy. Food is not your enemy. Your body is your friend. Health is more important than unrealistic body goals.

How to practice intuitive eating—applying core principles

If you respect your body and listen to it, it can guide you to eat healthily. You can maintain your individual healthy weight without constantly striving for unrealistic body goals and shaming yourself for failing. 

To begin with, we must eliminate some common myths and misconceptions. 

Contrary to common belief, intuitive eating does not mean a lack of discipline, but rather being vigilant to what your body is really saying. For instance, the body of a person with insulin resistance cannot access glucose or stored body fat to utilize it for energy. People who suffer from insulin resistance constantly feel hungry and tired. They experience strong cravings for carbs and sugar, frequently in the form of junk food. If a person is overweight and experiences such symptoms, listening to their body would mean questioning whether they might have an underlying health issue and consulting a doctor. 

Some think that intuitive eating is another form of dieting. This is not true because the foremost principle is to reject diet culture. Diets impose external rules of eating. Intuitive eating teaches you to honor your hunger and listen to the body’s inner voice when it comes to choosing what to eat. We can often lose touch with basic internal cues such as hunger and fullness. Along with honoring hunger, feeling your fullness is also an important principle of intuitive eating. 

It is important to stop categorizing foods as good or bad, or in other words, to make peace with food. Our nutritional needs don’t always remain the same. We want to eat watermelon during summer, but prefer to eat roasted chestnuts in the winter. We may need to increase our intake of protein or carbs if we engage in a physical activity, such as running. When we make peace with food, we can eat according to our specific needs and challenge the food police—the voice inside us or outside, saying what we can or cannot eat.

Some people believe that intuitive eating does not allow you to exercise. This is not accurate. Intuitive eating focuses on movement and guides you to enjoy the kind and degree of physical movement you prefer. It does not impose punishing workout routines that you cannot enjoy. 

You should also acknowledge that your emotions play a role in your eating habits, and this can be addressed with kindness rather than self-hate. Learn to understand how emotional states affect food intake and be kind to yourself. Stress can make us eat more or render us unable to eat. You can find ways to cope with emotional strain instead of allowing stress to affect your eating habits. You can use psychological tools to regulate emotions, such as spending time with a friend, playing with a pet, taking a relaxing bath, and, of course, seeking professional help. 

We all tend to indulge ourselves sometimes when it comes to food. There is no need to see this as a huge issue. If you are meeting your body’s nutritional needs in general and honoring your health with gentle nutrition, you can eat in a flexible and normal manner. And don’t forget to take time to enjoy your food. When you eat what you want and make your meal a pleasant experience, you will discover the satisfaction factor; this will help you eat the right amount of food. 

Concluding words…

Intuitive eating is an approach to eating that rejects diet culture. It frees you from shame and guilt for your body while teaching you to take care of yourself. Body positivity is not just being okay with your body; it’s understanding that your body is a source of knowledge, and it can help you live a physically and emotionally healthy life. So the next time you feel like having some of Kaiser’s butter chicken, don’t feel guilty. You can eat what you want, and there is nothing wrong with allowing yourself an enjoyable meal!