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.
Yup. Sounds about right to me!
“…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.”
Maybe that’s what I’m doing and didn’t even realize it. Seriously, I’ve been eating bacon with breakfast almost every morning for nearly a year, with eggs and a bagel or toast and coffee, and it’s been GLORIOUS. I don’t worry about the fat or calories, I just want bacon. I make two strips, and I eat it. Noone says anything (though people have in the past) and I just have breakfast. Its’ not a big deal anymore. And now? Now I don’t want bacon. Listening to my body rules. Great post and thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I think some people get confused about intuitive eating, meaning that the body always craves “healthy foods”, like fruits, veggies, grains. To me, it’s whatever your hungry for at the moment. Sometimes I really want a salad, sometimes I need a juicy hamburger and some fries to satisfy me, or just a handful of crackers. Last night, I was in Wal-Mart and my brain told my body that the popcorn shrimp they were selling in hot foods would make a good meal, so I bought some. And then there are times that ice cream has been in the freezer, uneaten for a month, because that’s not I wanted.
[...] — erylin @ 11:46 pm Heidi over at Hortus Deliciarum wrote a great post called Intuitive eating vs. “calorie restriction” or dieting . As i was posting, i realized my reply had outgrown the “comments” realm and [...]
i am finding that myself as well…as someone to who “Restriction” quickly spirals into binging and then purging, intuitive eating has been…nothing short of life saving and glorious. and i just realized that i wrote WAY too much for this to be jsut a reply, so imma quote you and write my own post, thanks for the writing inspiration! and i LOVE the post it made me cry.
“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.”
so very powerful and true.
Yes, yes a thousand times yes!!! You have described my journey to intuitive eating almost perfectly. I had years and years of deprivation to make up for and ate mostly from mouth hunger, and ate past full for a loooooong time.
And yes, when you are eating intuitively the calories Just. Don’t. Matter. What matters is: Is it the taste I want right now? Will it satisfy my hunger? and *most* of the time: How will my body feel later today today if I eat this now? I say most of the time because there are times when I will occasionally eat something (like a very rich dessert, or something that might make me gassy) that I know might make me feel tired/bloated/whatever later but I still want to eat it because it’s delicious and I want it.
Great post today!!
This was very enlightening to me, as I come to fat acceptance from such a different perspective. I was rail thin until after university, but I was also a consumer activist, and I knew that diets didn’t work long before I ever got fat. So I’ve actually never tried calorie restriction at all. I did a few “lifestyle change” things like South Beach and that guy that Oprah works with. The whole idea of “dieting” to me is about what you eat, rather than how much. And those failed just like calorie restriction, though probably with lower chance of leading to eating disorders.
So my difficulties with food have always centered around an inability to develop of healthy habits, like eating vegetables and fruit instead of cold cereal and peanut butter sandwiches. Intuitive eating for me would never work as a way to improve health, because what I want is always “whatever’s easy”.
Your post really paints a powerful picture of what eating is like for people who have tried to calorie restrict many times. I can finally see why so many people rave about intuitive eating now.
Thanks for the edjication!
Your description of intuitive eating is almost exactly what I’ve experienced, too. Ice cream and potato chips used to be my #1 “naughty” foods. I gave myself permission to eat as much of them as I wanted, and for a few months, I ate both every day, in VERY large amounts. Then one day, all of a sudden, I realized that I didn’t WANT ice cream or chips. That day.
And while I still love ice cream, I no longer eat the whole carton. I have a few bites and I’m happy. Usually. Sometimes I want more and when I do – I eat it! I haven’t lost any weight, but I AM a lot happier and I think I’m healthier, too!
Yep, and the other thing too is that the deleterious effects of dieting (or involuntary food insecurity) can hang around for many, many years after one is no longer dieting (and has full access to food). The Ancel Keys Minnesota Experiment from the 1940s, wherein men who were previously ascertained to be in perfectly fine mental and physical health beforehand became completely neurotic about food when they were put on 1600-kcal diets for six months, and the neurosis hung in without abatement for the full year they were observed afterwards. And that’s one lousy diet. Imagine what dozens of those can do to a person’s head!
Such an insightful post! I am exploring the idea of intuitive eating for the first time in my life. Dieting includes the word “die” for a reason! I found it interesting that you were able to leave a doughnut uneaten on your desk. I am learning, gradually, to do things like that, since I don’t have to worry about stuffing it down in preparation for the calorie restriction that I plan to start…tomorrow….or Monday…or next month. I have given up dieting. I also appreciate that you are able to speak up to people who mean to be helpful by giving unsolicited advice. Keep it up!
Yes! THIS!
You have touched on some things that really resonate with me. Thank you for articulating these ideas so well and so clearly. It’s such a relief to know I’m not the only one.
I’ve dieted for many years, losing and gaining many pounds. The end result is that I’m fatter now than when I began. If I never have to hear the word “diet” again, it will be too soon.
And ITA to what Meowser wrote. I read about that study a few years back and I remember thinking “No wonder I’m depressed and food-obsessed. I’m eating 900 calories a day. People eating TWICE that go nuts.”
So if a dieter/binger stops bingeing and dieting, gets comfortable with intuitive eating, realizes that she can still eat bacon and does, can still eat sugar and does, no longer even tries to eat low-fat nor low-carb, and finds that she is happy and comfortable with food, can eat with both health and taste in comfortable compromise, and the weight comes off, is it then a diet?
Julie – in my opinion, no. Dieting is calorie restriction for the express purpose of losing weight. If, in the process of developing intuitive eating, an individual loses weight because they’re better responding to their body’s signals, matching cravings, and not eating past the point of full, there is no restriction there. The final goal is not weight loss (although that can be an appreciated side effect, I suppose, because it really would make it easier to buy clothes if I were a smaller size!).
Dieting to me implies ignoring your body’s signals to impose a forced structure on your eating. Intuitive eating implies getting in touch with your body’s signals so that you respond to what your body truly wants. The end point in dieting is all about the weight loss. Intuitive eating is about finding a healthy attitude toward food and eating – if weight loss follows it’s a side effect but not the intentional end goal.
@ Julie re: is the weight-loss side effect of intuitive eating the result of a “diet”? What Heidi said – No. IE will often lead to some weight loss, and often won’t. Every body is different. Dieting = eating ***with the goal of weight loss in mind*** which is the oppositie of IE.