Learning about Intuitive Eating, for me, has been a gradual process over the past two and a half years. It started with a realisation that without a mental shift and behaviour change, my own body dissatisfaction was likely to be passed on to my daughter – to read more about this head on over to my blog on how becoming a mum helped me to quit dieting.
I started by learning about the concept of Health at Every Size®. This sparked a curiosity in me that I couldn’t fan out. The more I learned, the more I realised I had been contributing to harm, the more I knew I had to change.
It was then a natural progression from learning about and incorporating Non-Diet, Weight Neutral approaches into my practice, to starting to integrate Intuitive Eating Principles into my sessions.
What is Intuitive Eating?
Dubbed a “Self-Care Eating Framework”, Intuitive Eating is a process of listening to, trusting, and honouring your body when it comes to food and eating.
A foreign concept to most, paying attention to what your own body needs is the best way of ensuring you get those needs met.
Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch, two Registered Dietitian’s from the US, came up with 10 principles to help those that have lost touch with their bodies. Built on a foundation of interoceptive awareness, sensitivity, and responsiveness these principles are designed to help you regain recognition of your body cues and remove obstacles that may be impacting your ability to notice and respond to them.
If you would like to know more I have covered some of the concepts of the principles in previous blog posts:
How to use the hunger scale and eat happy
Yes, It is possible to have a healthy relationship with food
How to feel satisfied after eating
Why emotional eating is normal
How do I help?
My role as a Dietitian is to act as your road map and overall guide. It’s important to remember you are always in the driving seat.
In our initial consultation together, I complete a thorough nutritional assessment. This helps me to understand you as a person, where you are in your journey, what has led you to this point and where you would like to go. All this information helps me to know how best to guide you.
What does it mean to be a Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor?
The decision to become certified sprouted from a combination of knowing how much the principles had helped heal my own relationship with food and my body, and feeling a fire lit within me when I was able to talk about them in session.
The certification process involved:
✔ 7.5 hours of Teleseminars – which were recordings of Evelyn talking about how the research shaped different principles and how to best implement them in a practical way with clients
✔ 4.5 hours of group supervision with Evelyn Tribole – these sessions ended up running at 4:30 am for me due to the time difference ?. That didn’t end up mattering once we got into sharing case studies and practical ways to overcome challenging scenarios and common barriers.
✔ A lot of self-study – there was a lot of research to wade through for this. As well as reading the book cover to cover, multiple times, to get a thorough understanding of the principles. I really wanted to pass the exam.
✔ Passing the Intuitive Eating Certification Exam – This was the final step for me, and I was very excited to receive notification that I has passed and was now a Certified Intuitive Eating Counsellor.
How can I help you to become an intuitive eater?
If you are just looking to learn more about Intuitive Eating, I will always recommend starting with reading the book. Evelyn and Elyse are constantly revising it based on the latest evidence and feedback from the community (at the time of writing this they are up to revision four).
If you are looking for more individualised help I would recommend booking in for an Intuitive Eating Discovery Session. This is a complimentary 20 minute video or phone call where we can discuss your expectations and goals to see if I am the right fit for you before locking in a 60 minute Initial Assessment.
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