Mindful Eating vs Intuitive Eating

It seems like every other week there’s a new diet trend on the rise. You’ve heard of keto and intermittent fasting, but then there’s less conventional ideas like mindful eating and intuitive eating. The latter is a current trend that has a lot of people confused. Let us explain them both and give you tips on if and how they can help support your weight loss goals.

Mindful eating teaches you to distinguish the difference between physical and emotional hunger. A lot of us are emotional eaters, we eat for comfort, when we’re stressed, and when we’re plain bored! Eating mindfully allows us to recognise our body’s hunger and fullness cues, and provide our body with foods that will benefit our overall health.

Here’s a little break down on the fundamentals of mindful eating:

• Eat Slowly Without Distraction: Turn off the TV, put down your phone, focus on the meal itself and the way it makes you feel both physically and emotionally.

• Listen To Hunger Cues: Stop eating when you’re full, even if you haven’t finished the entire meal.

• Distinguish Between Hunger And Fullness: Take a step back and really think are you really hungry? Or are you just bored? Depending on how long ago your last meal was, you could just be thirsty!

• Eat For Overall Health & Wellbeing: Understand that food is fuel for our body, we need it to survive and we shouldn’t feel guilty for overindulging sometimes.

• Appreciate Food: Don’t just scoff it down! Eat slowly, and savour the flavours and aromas.

Mindful eating is a form of meditation, and it can aid with weight loss but also promotes a healthy relationship with food.

Intuitive eating is a self-care focused eating strategy that’s all about respecting your body. It’s similar to mindful eating in that it focuses a lot on listening to your body’s hunger and fullness cues, but it doesn’t provide any guidelines on what you should or shouldn’t be eating. It’s a philosophy that aims to teach that you are the only person that knows what’s best for your body, but it does include exercise!

Let’s break down the fundamentals of intuitive eating:

• Respect Your Hunger: Understand that hunger cues are natural, and respond to them early. When we wait until we’re starving to eat, then we’re likely to overeat anyway!

• Make Peace With Food: Don’t focus on what you should and shouldn’t eat, just recognise that you need food to survive, and you shouldn’t feel guilty for eating.

• Food Doesn’t Define You: Eating badly does not mean that you are bad.

• Respect Fullness Cues: Your body will let you know when it’s full, so listen to its signals of comfortable fullness.

• Make Eating Enjoyable: Eat what tastes good to you and how it makes your body feel.

• Acknowledge Feelings Without Food: If you can recognise you only want to eat out of boredom, stress or any other emotion, practice mindfulness like meditation or journaling. Having a self-care routine can help with this! So can crying and scheduled sadness. 

• Respect Your Body: Don’t criticise yourself, recognise it as both capable and beautiful exactly as it is.

• Enjoyable Exercise: Find ways to move your body that you enjoy. Your focus is on your health rather than weight loss. 

In essence, mindful eating is a way to respect your body while giving it the nutrients it needs to survive, and it’s a good idea to eat mindfully when you’re on a weight loss journey. 

Intuitive eating is a non-diet, it’s more of an eating strategy to help you maintain a good relationship with food and your body. 

It’s possible to engage in mindful eating without engaging in intuitive eating, but you can’t practice intuitive eating without practicing mindfulness!