When people are introduced to the topic of intuitive eating and hear “all foods are equal,” it’s so common their first reaction is to reject the idea. Dieting and health information teach us all the differences in food, so how could it be equal?
What we really mean in the intuitive eating space is all foods are morally equal. You’re not a bad person or doing bad things if you choose to eat the cookie. And of course an apple and steak have different nutrients. This is where the idea of gentle nutrition comes into play.
What is gentle nutrition?
Gentle nutrition describes using the information you know about food to support you in making decisions around food. The term gentle is used because we want to pull curiosity, kindness, and compassion into the picture.
Chronic dieting can lead to a lot of shame, guilt, and beating yourself up around food. This ends up with a lot of people avoiding, giving up, and feeling defeated about their eating habits.
Unlike dieting, gentle nutrition isn’t about policing your food choices. It looks more like here’s what I know about the food, this is how I’m feeling right now, and I think this is the most aligned choice for what I need right now. Then trying and seeing how it goes.
Gentle nutrition is combining what science knows about food and what you know about how different foods affect how you feel.
When to add gentle nutrition as an intuitive eater
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for when to add gentle nutrition to your intuitive eating journey. In general, you’ll see people recommending not adding it until after you’ve healed your relationship with food.
My answer is it depends. If you have really strong dieting beliefs, I think it’s great to not try gentle nutrition at first because most like gentle nutrition will start to feel like dieting rules. But you may be coming into intuitive eating with a health condition, like diabetes, where you need to have some focus on nutrition from the start.
If you can, I’d recommend not starting gentle nutrition until
- You feel connected to your hunger and fullness cues
- Don’t feel guilty after eating food
- Have practiced giving yourself full permission to eat any food
You don’t need to be in some perfect place before you start gentle nutrition because most likely starting gentle nutrition will stir up some dieting beliefs. It’s helpful to add a little bit at a time and lean into the idea that you know what’s best for your body. You might not always feel like you know and sometimes it could be a new experience where you just test something out.
Intuitive eating is just playing, testing, and figuring out what works best for you.
How to use gentle nutrition without old dieting beliefs taking charge
Gentle nutrition and healing your relationship with food doesn’t happen at the snap of your fingers. It’s better to view it as slow, steady growth.
So let’s cover how to slowly introduce gentle nutrition to help you be more successful with it.
Spotting dieting beliefs
First, let’s go over how to spot old dieting beliefs. While I do think it’s helpful not to rush into gentle nutrition, I actually find that adding in little challenges brings up what you need to work on to heal your relationship with food.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that you need to avoid all diet culture triggers because whether you like it or not, they’ll most likely all come up. So I like to intentionally challenge myself and my clients because those intentional exposures work through the beliefs that cause the triggered reaction.
That way if you end up seeing your weight, getting around foods you used to lose control around, or sitting by people talking about their latest diet you’ll be prepared with tools to manage your response. Or you may eliminate the response so you aren’t bothered by it anymore.
When you start gentle nutrition, thinking about your body’s response to food may trigger your diet thoughts.
Let’s use sugar which is demonized over and over again. Glucose (sugar) is essential for our bodies and our metabolism even breaks fat and protein into glucose if you aren’t eating enough of it. But like anything you can eat, too much sugar can lead to you not feeling great. And too little sugar can also lead to you not feeling great.
So gentle nutrition is more about paying attention to how eating that food in that amount impacts how you’re feeling. But the years and years of messaging about food, can create some complicated reactions to food.
Dieting beliefs will often contain words like can’t, shouldn’t, have to, not supposed to, and other statements with obligations. Here’s some examples:
- I shouldn’t eat that
- I should eat my vegetables first
- I have to avoid that
- I’m not supposed to eat this
- I can’t have that
- I shouldn’t eat this late
You want to switch from it feeling like an obligation or a rule to what you want to do.
Introducing gentle nutrition
Gentle nutrition is just you making decisions about food. It’s what you want to eat or don’t want to eat. And I mean what you as a whole human being want, meaning physical, mental, and taste.
I’ve heard this hundreds of times — “if I were to just let myself eat whatever I want I’ll just eat pizza, candy, pop, and desserts all day.”
But think about it, how would you physically feel if that’s all you ate?
I know myself if that’s all I ate I’d feel sluggish, wouldn’t sleep as well, and just feel off. I do let myself eat all those foods without any of those problems, but I know without some balance I wouldn’t feel great.
But I also know if all I ate was broccoli, kale, and apples, I wouldn’t feel great either. My energy would be off because I wouldn’t be getting the protein and fat my body needs.
When I say eating whatever you want, I don’t mean that rebellious side of you that’s fighting against dieting rules. If that’s how gentle nutrition feels, then we need to work on other parts of your relationship with food before doing gentle nutrition.
Eating what you want means as a whole person — so not just taste but also how you feel physically and mentally. It’s a balance of all of the types of hunger.
When you start introducing gentle nutrition, I like to start with just paying attention to how food affects you based on all types of hunger, with a little extra emphasis on physical hunger.
I teach a relationship with food that centers around you and your body. Over time you can pull in information from health guidance and science, but first keep the focus on you. You’re the authority and decision maker here regardless of what any experts say. That’s the foundation we want to work from.
Plus after years of chronic dieting, you probably have been told a lot of health information already.
Once you have the foundation for gentle nutrition, you might opt to dive deeper into specific nutrients or foods. Then you’ll move into more practice.
Putting it into practice
With any skill, repetition and practice builds your ability and confidence. So you’ll want to practice gentle nutrition in the areas you want to focus.
I like to approach gentle nutrition with a balance of being proactive while not overanalyzing. You don’t want it to start feeling like a rule or something you have to do. And it’s nice to be mindful of how your body is feeling and what might be supportive to help your body feel good.
The practice of gentle nutrition is just that. Checking in with your body to see what it needs and you can think about it in advance too. Over the past year, I had an injury that required surgery. So leading up to surgery and after, I prioritized extra protein and vitamins to help with skin healing, rebuilding muscle, and boosting recovery. That’s one example of using what we know about food to help support us, and how gentle nutrition is meant to function.
Be open to experimenting, playing, and getting it wrong. You won’t learn how eating different foods impacts your overall health without testing it. This can mean saying yes or no to some foods based on how they will suit you overall at that moment.
Try to view practicing as an opportunity to test and play. And whether sometimes it goes well or doesn’t, it’s all just a chance for you to learn a little more.