Intuitive Eating vs. Dieting
and other Monday morning thoughts
You told us your newsletter was going to be about health, happiness and productivity. Where’s the health, Riemer?
Well… here it comes
🍽 Intuitive Eating
I’ve tried Weight Watchers, Herbalife, the 80/20 rule, calorie counting, weighing & scanning all food, creating my own diet, intermittent fasting, … They all worked for a while, but they weren’t sustainable. After some time, you stop with the diet, gradually or at once.
Result? You’re gaining weight. You get into a yo-yo weight cycle, you get a disturbed relationship with food, food cravings and lower self-esteem.
After a while you get motivated again and decide to create New Year resolutions or a solid plan for next Monday. At the start of a new diet the number on the scale decreases. Congratiulations, you have now completely messed up your body. Your fat set point (your genetic-based weight) is now disturbed and likely to increase.
Probably some months or maybe even years later, you see a new advertisement about green coffee or shakes which promises you to lose weight. And it all happens again. People commit to diet after diet. Lots of them even are on a diet for most of their life.
My own yo-yo weight cycle was a long-term one. I didn’t realise it on the moment itself. I didn’t realise it right after a diet cycle. I even didn’t feel really like ‘dieting’ and more like ‘keeping healthy’. But my personal data analysis showed inevitable proof that this wasn’t going the right way.
I’ve first time heard about the intuitive eating concept in April this year. Despite what most think, intuitive eating is not just eating whatever you want. It’s about listening to your intuition and eating more consciously.
“Intuitive Eating is a self-care eating framework, which integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought and was created by two dietitians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995. Intuitive Eating is a weight-inclusive, evidence-based model with a validated assessment scale and over 100 studies to date.” intuitiveeating.org
There are no strict rules, but 10 principles. Food is no longer labeled as ‘bad’ or ‘good’. You learn to feel when you’re really satisfied and when you’re really hungry. As an intuitive eater, you’re still getting that exercise, you’re still eating healthy, but you’re doing it for you. Because you know it’s something your body needs, rather than because you want to lose 7.5 kg to have a BMI below 25.
Intuitive eating is not a diet. Therefore the goal is also not to lose weight. Most people hope for it, but some people also gain some weight in the first months. You’re playing the long-term game here. The goal is to restore your relationship with food. It’s not a diet, but a process of learning to listen to the messages of your body and get more healthy.
Note 1: It’s not always black and white. Intermittent fasting can be a great tool to reactivate your body (or the whole intermittent living concept). Calorie counting and macro’s tracking is a great tool if you’re a professional sporter or focus on specific body goals (f.e. bodybuilders), …but they aren’t a good solution for sustainable weight loss.
Note 2: There’s a lot of bullshit online about Intuitive Eating. Please don’t experiment with any “I tried intuitive eating for 10 days” video’s. If you want to dive deeper into the topic I recommend the book “F*ck it, maandag start ik echt” (NL) from Celien Rombouts or intuitiveeating.org
😍My Favorite Things of last week
📚 Book: The Power of Now - Finally, I made some progress in the book ‘The Power of Now’ of Eckhart Tolle. It’s a classic book teaching you all about living in the moment rather than worrying about the future or regretting the past. So far, it has been really interesting and enlightening, but heavy to read. It will still take some time to finish it.
🙏 App: Three Good Things - I’ve started with the app ‘Three Good Things’. It’s a gratitude app with a very simple setup: every day you enter three things you are grateful for. Those can be big things (f.e. a promotion) or small things (f.e. the taste of your coffee). The idea behind practising gratitude is to enjoy more the little things in live. By noting down 3 daily things, you’re ‘tricking’ your brain into noticing these little happy moments more actively. I will definitely get back to this topic!
🎨 Art: On the Colorado State Fair fine art competition in August, this piece won in the digital arts category. The shocking part is that nobody knew it was an image purely generated by AI. The ‘artist’ said after winning the competition "This technology exists, and it's creating pieces that prove it can do this now. Art is dead, dude. It’s over. AI won. Humans lost.”
🎥 Video: My second brain - I saw the video’s of Elizabeth Filips on her ‘second brain’. The second brain is actually a digital archive of everything she consumes: quotes from books, articles, videos, … all linked in one database. Looks great, but a lot of work. I’m not yet sure if I would experiment with it.
🗨 Quote of the week
“One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Do it now!” - Paulo Coelho
✏Visual of the week
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One last thing…
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This concept is also used by doctors. We say that you do it for yourself and for doing good to your body. If the weight follows, it is ok, if it doesn’t it’s also ok. Your metabolism and body will benefit from it eitherway.
- Power of Now is great! if you'd like to read A New Earth too, ill let you borrow it!
- Didn't know there was an app for gratitude, and 3 is the perfect number for a daily practice. I used to do it for 6 months to a friend using whatsapp, I sent mine and he sent me his so we held each other accountable.
- Wow cool art work story!