Intuitive eating: Learn how Nutrition for body and soul works!

Eating without restrictions and losing weight at the same time is considered by many to be a rumour. However, those have probably not heard of an intuitive diet yet! When it comes to intuitive eating, you will fully rely on your gut feeling. Although, there is a long learning process behind this, as old habits are difficult to stop again. How this actually works and how you can manage to eat intuitively will be explained in this article!

With intuitive eating, you do not follow strict rules and do not have to forgo anything, you almost completely rely on your gut feeling. Sounds too good to be true? Well this is the reality, because your own body awareness is in the foreground of intuitive nutrition. Many of us have forgotten how to listen to the body’s own signals correctly. In this respect, we should all rewind a few years and be a child again – babies are the best example when it comes to intuitive eating. They scream when they are hungry and refuse the next spoon as soon as they are full. Unfortunately, in the process of growing up, we unlearn these intuitive qualities through external influences and habits. I’m sure almost everyone has heard something like: “eat up, otherwise you won’t grow big and strong”, “you eat lunch at the same time every day, whether you are hungry or not”, or “comfort yourself with a bar of chocolate on a bad day.” That’s all over now, because we’ll take you back to the origins and show you how you can relearn intuitive eating and what you should consider with an intuitive diet.

Intuitive eating is no diet, so you completely rely on your body awareness and there are no prohibitions. Nevertheless, you can achieve your ideal body weight with an intuitive diet. For this you must first be able to correctly interpret the signals that your body sends you again. Intuitive nutrition means that you only eat something when you feel hungry and stop as soon as your feeling of satiety sets in. But the most important thing is to consciously enjoy and devote full concentration to the process of eating. Even if your body sometimes cries for a piece of chocolate, you can enjoy it with the intuitive diet without regret. Diets usually fail because of prohibitions, and everything only happens in our head. It is in our nature to want to have exactly the things that we can’t have – so sweets etc only become really interesting for us through a ban. Likewise, emotions or stress influence our eating behaviour and tempt us to ignore true hunger signals.

However, after years of diet attempts, it is relatively difficult to be able to interpret the gut feeling correctly. Therefore, you should move away, step by step, from old habits and replace them with conscious and healthy behaviours. We explain to you what you should pay attention to in order to learn intuitive eating. However, intuitive eating should only be the second step after intuitive drinking. The differentiation of signals of hunger and thirst are not always self-evident. When it comes to drinking, water is the best decision.

Most diets fail due to the well-known yo-yo effect. You can find out the main reason why you lose weight quickly and even have more on the scales at the end here.

With intuitive nutrition, everything is suddenly allowed again, which can sometimes be quite overwhelming. However, it is important that you listen deeply to yourself and really question what your body needs. The following points can help you learn intuitive eating. However, you should know that intuition is based on experience and previous knowledge and is not so easy to interpret. Therefore, 9 out of 10 people will not be able to intuitively eat healthily.

Before each meal, go deep into yourself and think about whether you are really hungry right now or are just eating out of habit. Do the crisps really have to be in front of the TV in the evening or is it just a learned custom? Do you eat at 12 noon every day because you are hungry or is it just your trained rhythm? When eating intuitively, ask yourself if you want to eat something out of hunger or appetite. If you are not sure, we have put together a few hunger and satiety signals of your body below.

With intuitive nutrition, you pay full attention to your meal. Be aware of what you are eating. Do you give yourself enough time to eat or do you slow down your meal? Enjoy your food consciously and don’t be distracted by a TV or something like that. In addition, you should not eat on the side, such as on the way to work in the car. Intuitive eating means investing all your concentration in your meal.  

You can also treat yourself to something sweet or salty with the intuitive diet. However, you should always let the above points go through your head in advance. And always remember: the appeal of the forbidden makes unhealthy foods really interesting. In addition, a snack does not necessarily have to be unhealthy. We have many delicious, healthy alternatives for you. 

The most important control center for our feeling of hunger and satiety is located in the brain, more precisely in the hypothalamus. Various signals are used to communicate whether we need food or not. Up to 80% of saturation is mediated by stretching the stomach. The energy content of the food does not matter here, so foods with a low energy density are preferred.

A low blood sugar level is also an important hunger signal, but an increased blood sugar does not necessarily mean that we are full. In addition, many hormones play a crucial role in our food intake. Thus, ghrelin and neuropeptide Y stimulate food intake, while serotonin or leptin inhibit food intake.  

Signals from the environment influence our eating behaviour extremely. The fresh scent from the bakery tempts you to a freshly baked croissant or your favourite dish to a second portion, although we are actually already full. In these moments, you should always stop for a moment and ask yourself, am I really hungry right now or maybe just tempted? If it is hunger, you should devote your full attention to the food during intuitive eating in order to recognize satiety signals in time. In general, it is very important to correctly interpret hunger and satiety signals in intuitive nutrition. Therefore we have listed the typical signals for you. However, if you are not sure, you can also first drink a glass of water and see if the signs continue. Over time, however, you will gain a feeling for your body and be able to interpret it better.

Here you can learn how to get a better grip on your stimuli while shopping.

In order to become successful with intuitive nutrition, it is worth keeping a food diary. After each meal, make a note of whether you liked it, whether you got full and how you felt after eating. You can also generally write down key points about your day to find out if you may have eaten out of stress or because of certain emotions. Before each meal, you should pause for a moment and ask yourself if you are really hungry right now or just want to eat out of habit or appetite. On the one hand, you can pay attention to the signals mentioned above, otherwise we have put together a scale with which you can question your feeling of hunger for intuitive eating.

Intuitive eating is not primarily about losing weight, but about finding your way back to your physical needs much more. The harmony of body and mind is therefore the goal of intuitive eating. For this reason, your motivation should not be influenced by any slimming ideals. Just like the eye or hair colour, every physique is different. Nevertheless, you can certainly achieve your personal feel-good weight with the intuitive eating. The most important thing here is self-love. Accept yourself as you are, do something good for your body and love yourself. After all, your body is the only one that will accompany you your entire life. Through more mindfulness and self-love, you will also increase your quality of life and your ideal weight will eventually follow all by itself.

• With intuitive eating, you do not follow strict rules. You are more relaxed and can enjoy your eating behaviour more.
• After a while, you will have got rid of bad eating habits and regain a healthy, balanced, intuitive diet.
• You will get to know your body better, which will increase your self-awareness. This leads to a better quality of life, because you accept your body as it is.
• You learn to treat your body mindfully.
• You will have less stress, which will result in less cortisol being released. This automatically means less food cravings.
• Losing weight is not the top priority in intuitive eating. However, you will be able to interpret your body signals correctly again and give your body the energy it needs. Therefore, weight loss is a bonus.
• You will achieve your feel-good weight in the long term in a healthy and sustainable way.  

There are no right rules, but:

1. Only eat when you are really hungry.
2. Eat what you’re hungry for.
3. Treat yourself to something sweet.
4. Eat consciously and not out of stress or frustration.
5. Eat mindfully and enjoy your food.
6. Stop eating as soon as you feel satiety.
7. Learn to love yourself and accept your body as it is.
8. Your health should always be above any ideals of beauty.
9. Through exercise you keep your body and mind fit and healthy.

The intuitive diet is characterized by eating according to feeling. A weight loss is less in the foreground here, but usually results completely by itself. However, it is important that you listen to your body feeling when eating intuitively and enjoy your meals mindfully and consciously. For this you should pay special attention to your feeling of hunger and satiety.