Episode 88: Intuitive Eating Vs. Eating Intuitively SOLO EPISODE
Episode 88: Intuitive Eating Vs. Eating Intuitively SOLO EPISODE
In this episode we sit down with....your host, Katelyn Parsons.
Katelyn Parsons is a Certified Intuitive Eating + Body Image Coach, Speaker, and host of the weekly podcast, Body Truth.
After years of struggling with bulimia and disordered eating, she not only found recovery but recognized a crucial missing link in the wellness industry- empowerment + individual sustainability around health. This inspired her entrepreneurial journey and life mission to shift the conversation toward healing our relationship with food and body.
For the past 4 years, Katelyn has helped countless creative leaders transform their relationship with food and body image through an integrative, evidence-based process so that they can move through each day feeling more present, empowered, and comfortable in their skin, without worrying about what to eat.
You’ll also find Katelyn snuggled up with her cat or strolling the beach in sunny San Diego with her husband and their pup Winnie.
In this conversation we talk about:
The difference between intuitive eating and eating intuitively
Misrepresentation around intuitive eating
Practical tips as you begin to heal your relationship with your body
Connect with me...
IG: @katelyn.parsons
Website: katelynparsons.com
Ready to heal your relationship with food + body?
Book your FREE Body Trust Breakthrough Consult
Grab your FREE Intuitive Eating Workshop
Get weekly email support from me to help you heal your relationship with food + body image
TRANSCRIPTION
Episode 88: Intuitive Eating Vs. Eating Intuitively SOLO EPISODE
Katelyn Parsons:
Hi. So today it is just you and me, here's what I'm thinking, I am going to start sharing some solo episodes, probably alternating this on a bi weekly basis, because I want to offer you some really laser focused coaching advice, tips for your own personal healing process. And I know how it is sometimes when you just want something to listen to something to inspire you or to support you. But you don't want to spend more than 30 minutes or, you know, however long you have in your time budget for the day, because your time is precious.
So I want to start offering that to you just these little quick snippets, as we continue having really incredible women on the show talking about their body image stories and their own personal expertise. Just another option for you to get support, and for us to connect in a different way. So that being said, that's the plan.
And I want to kick this off by talking about something that has been on my mind for a while now I have spoken up about this in a lot of interviews that I have done and have sprinkled this into content and have certainly talked about this with clients and whatnot. But we haven't talked about it too much on the podcast.
And that is the difference between intuitive eating and eating intuitively. I was certainly confused by this when I was learning about intuitive eating years ago. And at that moment, in my own journey, it was deeply triggering to me.
I was also, like I mentioned really just confused by the concept of intuitive eating. And I thought that it meant that you were just giving up on yourself. I didn't feel like it would work for me because at that time I was binge eating. And I was thinking, well, if I give myself permission to eat, what difference is that going to make? As opposed to when I am bingeing, if I'm giving myself permission, eat well and I just be in this place of discomfort with my body and myself and myself trust just like I am now.
I just wasn't too sure it would work for me. I wasn't too sure what it was. And I see a lot of misrepresentation around intuitive eating right now I see a lot of just mixed messages and confusion.
My mentors who founded the movement, intuitive eating are very outspoken about the way that this movement gets just kind of side-swept. And what's the word I want to use for this just kind of like hijacked, I guess, and kind of morphed into something that it's not.
So all of this is really inspired because a few months ago, I guess someone reached out to me on Instagram and shared a post from a pretty well-known celebrity nutritionist Who was sure all of her thoughts on intuitive eating, and what she thought intuitive eating was and this is somebody with massive influence. And basically, she kind of made it sound like intuitive eating had no structure at all and that you basically were just kind of not really approaching your relationship with food or your body from an empowered place.
And to each their own right. You are allowed to have whatever kind of opinion you want to have. And it's also a reflection of wherever you're at, on your journey.
If this person has this opinion, that's their opinion. I want to speak up about it because I think it's really harmful when we don't have all the information to be able to speak up about things in a really empowered, intelligent way.
So here's the deal. intuitive eating is different from eating intuitively, I always like to describe the difference, as eating intuitively is kind of the goal, by way of intuitive eating.
So intuitive eating is actually an evidence-based framework.
To heal your relationship with food and your body. It has about 125 different scientific studies to date. It was developed by the dieticians, Evelyn Tribole, and Elyse Resch, who I've done my personal certifications with. It is a weight-neutral Health at Every Size approach to do this work. It is based on 10 principles.
That being said, it is not a 10-step program, all of these principles are avenues to do this work.
So an example of this might be let's see, one of the principles is honoring your hunger and your fullness, those are two principles.
Well, for somebody that might not be the first point of entry, very often, the first point of entry, which is another principle is rejecting the diet mentality. And really, you know, just getting curious about where that diet mentality is coming up for you that awareness is so crucial.
So all of that to say, when we start to unpack this, when we start to go through the framework of intuitive eating, and slowly and patiently and compassionately and curiously adopting these principles, that allows us to rebuild the essential trust with our body that has been disrupted by diet culture.
And that trust is creating all of this fear that is being perpetuated by posts like this that are coming out, right. It's the fear that I experienced when I was kind of dipping my toes into the intuitive eating world, just trying to figure out what it was. I didn't trust myself, because it had been massively disrupted by diet, culture, by systems of oppression by all of these areas in my life.
That led me to feel like I couldn't trust my body. Like I couldn't trust myself. Like I was broken and I needed a plan I needed to validate myself through an external tool versus my ability to trust my, my body, and my body's intuition, my body's wisdom, you use whatever words you want, if intuition feels like to out there, you don't have to use it, I like to say, my, you know, body's wisdom, wisdom bodies, my relationship with my body, like, whatever that means for you, right.
And this is where I personally like to take intuitive eating and kind of break it up in a way that works for the person individually. Because you know your body better than anyone.
And I know that might feel like a really far stretch right now. Because you might be feeling like you can't trust it. And you might be feeling like you don't know what's best for it, or you don't know how to listen to it.
Maybe you're mad at it, maybe you're grieving something.
Maybe you are in this intense state of desire, wishing that it was something that it's not all of these things are normal, all of these things are valid.
All of these things are elements of that disruption that has been caused by diet culture.
I want to just kind of separate the two so that you have an understanding of what this work is. And so that you have some language in your toolkit.
When conversations like this come up, or questions or posts like this, things flying around the internet or wherever you're hearing things like this. Intuitive eating doesn't mean that all Structure goes out the window, it really means that you are building structure back into your relationship with food because you're able to trust your body.
And what's so cool, you know, there are so many different phases of intuitive eating. It is physical, it is mental, and it is emotional.
It is such a reductive statement to just assume that it's an unstructured way to navigate your relationship with food, there are so many different elements that come up in this healing process. And so just taking that into consideration as well, too, that the structure that most people are afraid is not going to be there in intuitive eating actually develops really naturally, when you start to rebuild your relationship with food, and you start to rebuild that trust with your body that has been sabotaged example of this show.
When I started intuitive eating, I literally had like, a list of foods that were not written down, but kind of in my head a list of foods that were okay to eat, and foods that I felt safe eating. And I had kind of created this rule for myself for so long that I didn't even really know if I liked those foods or not. I didn't even really know how they made me feel.
And the foods that were not on that list, my binge foods, or my cheap foods, or my foods that perpetuated all of this anxiety and shame and all of these things, I actually didn't really know deep down how I thought about those foods either.
That was so black and white, it was so all or nothing, a pattern that was showing up in all of these different areas of my life. And it's very often true for my clients as well to this all-or-nothing cycle.
And so when I started to really unpack all of this, and dig into my relationship with food and do this deep healing, I really looked at food on a step-by-step basis, and how it made me feel physically, mentally, emotionally, getting really curious with all of this. And having that knowledge to inform my decisions around how I wanted to eat moving forward.
This certainly did not happen overnight. And it is such a, Oh, it's such a moment for deep self-compassion in the process too. Because we're so ingrained to want that quick fix we've been taught, especially in modern culture, we've been taught to just expect that quick fix in all of these different areas of our life.
But unfortunately, this type of work is super far from a quick fix. And so it did require a lot of patience and a lot of self-compassion. And just learning how to sit in that discomfort. Guess what, it's not always that uncomfortable. And it's not about crossing a finish line and achieving this perfect healing in this perfect relationship with food.
Really looking at perfectionism is a huge part of this as well, too. It's really understanding that this is a journey, our relationship with food is just like any other relationship that we have in our life, it's the most important relationship that we have. And so just breaking up with that assumption that it is going to be a quick fix, and an easy and super obvious and just building that into this work is really important too.
So wrapping back around to what I was sharing before when I was able to really get clear about what foods I liked, how food made me feel physically, mentally, and emotionally, all of these things. I was actually able to build structure into my day in a really easy and empowered way without feeling like I had to do a bunch of research or, you know, take a lot of time.
You know, as I started to really understand how food worked with my body. It gave me more creativity to just kind of experience how to put food together. And it challenged me to break up with food that I thought that I should have and to, again, get curious about trying foods and learning from how they made me feel and moving forward.
Guess what? Love, we're all creatures of habit, especially in this culture, if you live in America, I think it's really just humans in general, though. So, you know, country aside, we're all created creatures of habit. And certainly, this comes with some privilege, based on socioeconomic status, and, you know, so many different things. But for the most part, we tend to eat the same five-ish meals for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, right?
And that's not to say that it can't change, it's not to say, it should change, you know, it absolutely will change if you can give yourself that permission to let it. But when you really start to understand how foods make you feel, you can heal your relationship with the rules with the rigidity with the shoulds, around what you should be eating, and start adding in more variety. And deepening your understanding of what feels really satisfying for you.
That's when the creature of habit framework, and all the foods become more fun because like the foods that you're gravitating towards, feel more enjoyable, and also healing and this word just allows you not to sweat the small stuff over time, right? Because it does take time.
So you know, if I'm traveling, what I'm eating is gonna look different than when I'm at home. When I have a full day of clients and projects, what I'm eating is probably going to look a little bit different than if I have a completely open schedule, right?
All of this is based on what tastes good, the type of satiety and energy that I need for the day. You know, how I'm feeling just in general, if I need something more grounding, if I need something light, what I'm craving, all of these things are just aspects to consider. But that being said, they don't shift the challenge of creating meals and choices around food, they're just information. So intuitive eating is really like building your personal toolkit in your own relationship with food and your body.
So all of this to say, zooming out again, I just wanted to share this because I think it's important to really understand this when you are coming up against different messages and different people's opinions. And you know, I always want to empower you to make the best choices for yourself and to be well informed.
And to really have the lay of the land especially as it relates to food and our bodies. There are just so many layers here and it's really fun to unpack and it is really empowering, the deeper that we dig and the more tools that we build in so all that to say they are different. intuitive eating is different from eating intuitively.
I hope I made that clear, just in terms of all these examples and whatnot if you have any questions about this, please send me a message on Instagram that's probably the easiest way to to connect.
You can also send me a message over email hello@katelynparsons.com that's the best way to reach out.
And if you are feeling that pull through this information that you are really at a place where you're ready to heal your own relationship with food and your body, take that as a sign.
You know, this might be a great opportunity to book a call and we can discuss what the best next step is for you. Might be coaching with me might be another resource might be coaching with someone else. That's why I always like to say this is for you.
I only work one-on-one with clients. You might not want one-on-one but through our consultation call will get really clear on where you're at and where you are looking to go. It gives me an opportunity with your permission to dig in. A little bit and illuminate some of the root causes that are keeping you stuck. And once we have all of this information, then we decide on the best next step for you, whether that's coaching with me or another path all of this is for you, and your best your intention and so if you are ready to do that, then go to my website katelynparsons.com you can book a call there and we will set it up and get clear on the best next step for you.
If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. Let's spread this message and really break up with the idea that intuitive eating and eating intuitively are the same.
Okay, I love you. I will talk to you later and have a good week.