Are mindful eating and intuitive eating the same thing?
You may have heard the terms mindful eating and intuitive eating before if you’ve spent any time reading about dieting, health, or nutrition. Sometimes you might even see these terms used interchangeably.
But, are they actually the same thing?
Not exactly.
Intuitive eating is a weight-neutral approach to health with ten principles that are designed to help you re-learn how to have a healthier relationship with food and body. You can learn more about what intuitive eating is here!
Mindful eating means actively paying attention to the food you’re eating with non-judgemental awareness in order to learn more about your hunger and the fullness and satisfaction you feel during and after a meal.
These often end up being used interchangeably because the goal is similar: become more in tune with your body so you can better address it’s needs.
However, mindful eating is specifically focused on the food and eating behaviors. Intuitive eating is a different approach to health as a whole that acknowledges that the factors that influence your health are much more than the food you eat and your size.
Because of this, mindful eating is actually just one important part of intuitive eating.
Before I tell you more about how to implement some mindful eating practices into your life, let me clarify one thing. Mindful eating is MUCH easier to practice if you are adequately nourishing yourself throughout the day, every day.
In my program, my clients must first work on honoring their hunger and giving themselves unconditional permission to eat before we can work on mindful eating practices. If you are completely out of touch with your natural hunger and fullness cues and following a restrictive dieting pattern, you won’t be able to listen to your internal cues in order to mindfully eat.
For example, let’s say Kristen is an intuitive eater who is practicing mindful eating. Kristen makes herself a meal low on carbs, starts eating, and checks in with herself throughout the meal and realizes she hasn’t made herself enough food to stay full and satisfied for the next few hours. In that scenario, she may add carbs to her meal because she normally likes carbs with her meals and she knows carbs can help improve fullness, satisfaction, and the staying power of her meals. Her other alternative could be starting to plan to eat a snack in the next couple of hours.
On the other hand, Molly is following a calorie counting meal plan for yet another attempt at weight loss. When she realizes her meal is unlikely to keep her full for the next few hours, she starts reminding herself that what she made is enough if she has the willpower because the meal plan said so. She also doesn’t want to break the rules and go over her calorie count by adding a snack either, so that option is out of question. The weight loss will be worth it… right? Plus this time she’s actually planning on keeping it off “for good”.
You can see how the intuitive eater is actually able to listen to her internal cues and respond, while the dieter is stuck convincing herself that the food she made will have to be enough. Think about who is more likely to end up ravenously hungry and eating over the sink some time soon. Kristen, the person who honors her hunger when it’s happening or Molly, the person trying to convince herself she’s had enough food despite continuing to feel hungry?
This is not to say you can’t start to practice being more mindful during your meals and get some of the benefits of better attunement if you are currently dieting. It will just be harder to honor your internal cues if you have to stick to external rules.
No matter what stage you are in, starting to be more mindful at meal time can help you learn to be in better touch with your hunger and fullness cues.
A few tips for more mindful mealtimes:
- Intentionally savor your food.
Sometime this week when you sit down for a meal, plan to focus on the experience instead of just getting your meal over with. Pay attention to the taste, texture, smell, temperature, and how satisfied you feel during and after eating the meal. - Slow down!
Making a conscious decision to slow down while you’re eating will help give you more time to pay attention to how the food you’re eating is actually making you feel. - Ask questions throughout your meal.
A few examples:
– How is this food making me feel?
– Am I enjoying this?
– Do I want to keep eating?
– In the past when I’ve finished a meal like this, was I actually satisfied or did it make me feel more uncomfortable than it’s worth this time?
– Have I eaten enough to keep me satisfied until my next opportunity to eat?
– What could I add to my meal to feel more full and satisfied?
Practicing these tips will quickly help you start to see the difference in your relationship with food. Mindful eating can help you to be more in tune with what will actually make your body feel good, and giving yourself permission to honor your body’s requests can even take you a step further.
Start to practice these mindful eating tips and see the difference.
If you’re wondering how working with me can help YOU create a healthier relationship with food and body, send me an email at lauren@nutritionwithlauren.com so we can set up a FREE 15 minute chat to get to know each other better.
You can also check out my FREE TRAINING for more info about intuitive eating and an activity to help you start one of the most important steps to becoming an intuitive eater!
Until next time,
— Lauren