As an anti-diet dietitian, I am anti dieting for weight loss. I am not against specific, researched-based diets such as diets for chronic kidney disease or congestive heart failure. Too often I see people caught up in fad diets like the keto diet or intermittent fasting. These types of diets focus on weight loss and hinder developing a healthy relationship with food and body. For most people, yo-yo dieting leads to weight cycling, a decreased metabolism, disordered eating, and many other issues.

When I say I practice from a weight inclusive lens, this means I don’t associate your weight with your health status. I will never ask you to lose weight or restrict food for your health. There are so many other (better!) factors I can assess that point to health. My nutrition recommendations come without weight bias.

Here’s the short list:

• Help you reduce bingeing
• Spark enjoyment of eating and movement
• Feel more connected to your body and emotions
• Release shame and judgement around food and body

This is different for everyone. For some it takes a few months, others years. Everyone starts out in a different place and with different experiences. For example, someone with an eating disorder, or a very disordered relationship with food/body, might be on the longer road. Someone who grew up as an intuitive eater and developed disordered eating later in life might find it easier to reconnect to their food and body again. There is no time like the present to get on the track to intuitive eating!

Medical nutrition therapy and intuitive eating are not exclusive. In fact, intuitive eating may be a better way to manage your chronic disease. 

Take diabetes as an example: the traditional way to manage high blood sugars is to restrict carbohydrates. However, with restriction often comes cravings and bingeing (and also shame when we give into these cravings). 

The intuitive eating route says: lift restriction, eliminate judgement and shame, reduce cravings, eat in a balanced way (meaning no swinging from extreme restriction to all-out bingeing which leads to more balanced blood sugars).

No! Intuitive eating is often made into a diet, but this is not true intuitive eating.

The very first principle of intuitive eating is reject diet culture/diet mentality. Intuitive eating is anti dieting for weight loss. The goal of intuitive eating (as created by Evelyn Tribole, RD and Elyse Resch, RD) is to create a better relationship with your food and body, which cannot be done if the measure of success is a “goal” body weight/size. Any company or person who claims that intuitive eating can be used for weight loss is not really using intuitive eating.