Intuitive eating vs. “calorie restriction” or dieting
Feb 5th, 2010 by heidi
To expand on my last comment in the last post, there are some major differences to me between intuitive eating and calorie restriction. Again, this is all my own point of view – polite debate in comments is more than welcome. Emphasis on the “polite” – my blog is on the Notes feed and I abide by the no-dieting rule (that’s my rule too) but I don’t mind hearing an alternate perspective, as long as you express where you differ with respect. I delete where necessary.
As a result, comments may prove triggering if I do get debate – Caveat Lector.
As I see it, the problem with saying that intuitive eating is calorie-restrictive is that I absolutely see calorie restriction as dieting. Dieting is calorie restriction. One’s diet may not be “dieting” – you can eat diabetes-friendly diet without eating any fewer calories.
May one eat less if they’re intuitively eating? Of course…but one may also eat *more* and gain weight while doing so. HAES is not a promise that one will lose weight and neither is intuitive eating. Personally, I don’t think caloric restriction IS a good thing. I think that the ideal is when one learns to eat when hungry, eat what one is hungry for (i.e., what the body is craving), and eat until full and preferably not until uncomfortable, unless one has made the intentional decision to do so, such as at a special meal where food is the centerpiece and it is especially emotionally satisfying to eat everything possible. I do not see eating-to-discomfort every day as an ideal situation for anyone but your mileage may vary.
Intuitive eating, as I describe it above, may or may not mean eating less than you previously ate and even if it does mean that, it’s entirely irrelevant. Not listening to your body’s signals is the problem, not the actual quantity of food eaten. For some people, intuitive eating means eating MORE than you previously ate – certainly that is true for those who have done extensive dieting and are relearning how to listen to their bodies.
The path to intuitive eating for those people, as it has been for me, may be in eating past the point of full time and time again until my subconscious recognizes that I will not deprive or starve my body ever again. It’s a long, slow process and has, if anything, meant calorie overloading…eating two coconut cream pies in two weeks, or bacon every morning for breakfast for a year, may not be the most healthy eating option, and almost certainly is calorie overloading, but it serves a long-term function. I no longer need to eat more than two pieces of bacon in a sitting…and, sometimes, can just eat one and want no more. I can go to a nice breakfast restaurant and choose granola, yogurt, and a side-order of sausage, instead of cinnamon roll French toast, or waffles, and be entirely and utterly satisfied with only half of it.
I think the problem is that discussing caloric restriction absolutely does equal diet for most women out there. Even the choice of words made in using the term “restriction” implies a lack of freedom, a lack of choice, and a lack of free will. For me, that is triggering. It is far more peaceful to set it within a frame of “eating what my body tells me that I should eat”. If I truly want one of the two doughnuts sitting on my desk (one for me, one for my mom & son when they get here), I’ll eat it. But, as it is right now, I smell the sweetness and think “ugh, SO not what I want! Give me a salad or a Chipotle fajita burrito with lots of veggies!” My body is sending me very clear signals.
The burrito may or may not be fewer calories than the doughnut – I neither know nor care. What I do know is that one will be meeting a nutritional need because my body is telling me so. Because I don’t see the doughnut as forbidden, my body is free to let me know what I need, regardless of how many calories are in a given food.
FYI, I deleted a comment from Staci to my last post. Staci, that sentence about “I neither know nor care” whether Chipotle burritos have more calories than a Krispy Kreme doughnut? It means that I don’t want links to Chipotle’s nutrition information. I. Don’t. Care. No doubt you meant this kindly (or perhaps not) but I could search for both restaurants’ websites if I wanted to know. I’m a librarian-in-training. I know how to use the internet. I just don’t care to know because it means nothing at all to me.
In the end, half that fajita burrito was exactly what my body wanted. I also had a tiny scoop each of pistachio and lemon ice creams from Gelatiamo, our local Italian gelateria. I wouldn’t normally have done (I have sweet snacks in my desk that are free) but it sounded good and was a special treat for my mom and son. Half that burrito is waiting for later, if I want it. The doughnut is still on my desk, uneaten. I’ll probably take it home with me and offer it to my husband instead.
That is intuitive eating. I may eat more or less on a given day, depending on my body’s signals. Sometimes I need to swim back to my safety-log of overeating to make it through a day, because I’m not yet ready to swim all the way to the shore of recovery, but I never, ever calorie restrict. That way lies madness.





