4 Quick Tips for Healthy Eating, From an Intuitive Eating Dietitian

If you know me by now and have read my past blogs, you would probably know that these tips are going to be nuanced, shame-free and realistic. Sometimes you just have to feed the search engines exactly what they want, you know?

tip #1:

Eat within an hour of waking up.

I know that everyone has a different relationship with breakfast and being hungry in the morning. However, I am a big cheerleader for this tip for multiple reasons.

The why:

• It wakes up your metabolism and gets your energy going for the day.

• It helps to regulate your blood sugar after coming off an all night fast.

• It can help build the consistency of eating patterns by starting off your day with a meal.

• It can help reduce overeating/binging later in the day.

Tip #2:

Eat every 3-6 hours.

This is a general guideline and of course can be effected by what you ate last, how much, if you exercised, didn’t eat enough the day before and on and on. Even with all the caveats, this is a helpful cadence when you are starting to build in an eating routine. You can start by spacing out your meals and add in snacks as needed.

The why:

• It helps to keep your blood sugar from spiking or dropping too low.

• It helps keep your body regulated in knowing that you will eat at regular intervals (and build trust).

• It help keeps you hunger from becoming too intense, which could lead to becoming hangry, irritable, etc.

• It helps you with making the choices you want to make, whether that be meal planning or having a balanced meal rather than grabbing whatever is in sight.

tip #3:

Add, don’t subtract foods.

This is my favorite tip to give because it really supports the idea that there are no “good” or “bad” foods and you can still align with your health goals at the same time. For example, if you are wanting to eat more veggies, then add in veggies into your meal instead of replacing them with something else or thinking “I really should eat this veggie instead of xyz.” I have found with my clients but having the addition approach they still meet their health goals and overtime the foods balance themselves out without having to feel restricted.

The why:

• It decreases the feeling of restriction and helps with habituation/abundance mindset around foods.

• It supports the premise that there are no “good” or '“bad” foods (so important I said it twice).

• It helps thinking about food creatively rather than from a place of restriction.

TIP #4:

Slow down when eating.

I am reclaiming this tip from diet culture! This isn’t about chewing your food x number of times (ew), taking tiny bites or making sure that you take an hour to eat. This is to address something that I see so commonly in my work with people - they report eating meals really quickly (I’m talking minutes), sometimes standing up in the kitchen , etc. I feel this is a sign that you are eating in a stressed state, and a way that we can help our nervous system is to slow down the whole eating process. That means plating your food, sitting down at a table, and aiming for the meal taking at least 20 minutes.

You can also build to this! Start with setting a timer to see how long meals take you right now. Then from that starting point see if you can build up, adding a few minutes at a time. All the while taking deep breaths as you eat and really experiencing the food. This practice will help you notice your fullness and satisfaction cues, decrease stress and help the eating experience be more mindful and pleasant.

The why:

• It helps your body cue you that you are full and satisfied, if you quickly eat that can be extremely difficult to catch.

• It makes the eating experience more pleasant and less something that you have to “get it over with”.

• It helps you be more engaged in the eating experience and savor the foods.

• It helps you to learn more about yourself and your eating habits. Imagine trying to observe something that takes 3 minutes vs. 20 minutes.

•••

There we have it, my four tips! I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, especially if you tried any of them out.

Also, if you’re feeling lost or like you don’t know where to start, I’d love to work with you on your journey towards food neutrality and improved health. I know that even quick tips like these can hold so much nuance, and sometimes you just need to talk out your personal situation with an expert!

How to Get Hunger Cues Back: A Guide to Getting In-tune With Your Body's Natural Signals

Anyone who has ever dieted knows the dilemma of feeling hungry but thinking you aren’t *supposed* to eat. In those moments, you might choose to eat anyway, or you might decide to restrict your food intake and eat nothing. You can see how over time, chronic dieting disconnects you from your body’s hunger cues. Imagine your body saying to you, “Well, you never seem to listen to me when I tell you I’m hungry, so I’m done communicating!” 

If you’re healing from disordered eating or trying to lean into intuitive eating, a vital part of the process is regaining your natural hunger signals. Ideally, you will restore your relationship with your body and with food so that one day eating will be a natural, normal and easy action that doesn’t require a ton of thinking. For this to be the case, we want your body’s internal cues, like hunger, fullness, cravings, likes/dislikes and satisfaction to inform your food choices, instead of external cues, like diets or food rules, calling the shots.

In this post we dive into what hunger cues are and some steps you can take to restore your body’s natural cues. 

Understanding Hunger Cues

Let’s go over a basic definition. Hunger cues are physical and emotional signals that indicate the need for food. They vary in intensity based on how long it’s been since you ate, what kinds of foods you ate, what kind of activity you’ve been doing, your level of distraction or busyness, and more. 

Some examples of hunger cues include: stomach rumbling, inability to concentrate, crankiness, nausea, lightheadedness, feeling weak, or shaky hands. As you get more in-tune with your body and engage in regular body check-ins, you will be able to detect the more subtle, early hunger cues, instead of waiting until the later, more intense cues hit. 

Why Do Hunger Cues Disappear?

There are many things that can cause hunger cues to fade, either for a short time (acutely) or chronically. Let’s review some of the causes:

• Long term dieting, regular food restriction or eating disorders decrease the activity of your body’s hunger messengers, and eventually slow down your metabolism, too. Think of your body being in survival mode. If it learns that you aren’t providing it with adequate nourishment (energy), it attempts to conserve as much energy as possible, and can slow down many of your body’s internal messaging systems, including hunger. 

• Stress, depression or anxiety can quiet or completely eliminate your body’s hunger cues.

• Acute sickness (like having the flu) or taking certain medications can impact hunger signals, either increasing or decreasing them. 

• Life stages and conditions like aging, pregnancy or puberty can also impact hunger cues. 

The bottom line is this: ignoring hunger cues can lead to disconnection from your body’s needs. If you want to be an intuitive eater, it is imperative you reconnect with your body. Sometimes (like when you’re sick) hunger cues might fade, and you may need to eat without relying on hunger cues to tell you when it’s time. But most of the time, we want hunger cues to be a central part of how you know when and how much food to eat to adequately nourish your body.

The Role of Intuitive Eating

You’ve heard me mention intuitive eating a few times now. If you’re not sure what that is, check out this post “What is Intuitive Eating” for a bit of background. 

Very simply, intuitive eating is using the body’s intuition in harmony with the head’s knowledge when it comes to food, eating and connecting to your body. Babies are a great example of intuitive eating: they let you know they’re hungry by crying (or exhibiting some other signals) and once satisfied they’ll generally stop eating on their own. As we grow up and are exposed to all kinds of influence and ideas about food and eating, we can get disconnected from that intuition. Intuitive eating is a return to eating based on our body’s cues.

Intuitive eating relies heavily on you reconnecting with your body. As you practice it over time, it should reduce food-related anxiety and guilt, help you meet your nutritional and energy needs and support long-term health and well-being (including mental and emotional health!

Steps to Regain Hunger Cues

If you’re thinking that this all sounds great, but wondering how in the world you go about reconnecting with your body, let’s cover some actionable tips you can start practicing right away.

Step 1: Let Go of Dieting Mentality

If you want to fully regain and reconnect with your hunger cues, you have to ditch external cues, like diets and rules. I know that the idea of quitting dieting can be scary. It won’t happen overnight, but you can start with baby steps. Reassess who you follow on social media and unfollow any diet-y accounts. Begin to focus on nourishment instead of restriction. Get rid of diet cookbooks in your home. Quit getting on your scale (or throw it away, perhaps). When you notice a diet thought pop up, remind yourself it’s normal to keep having these thoughts, but remember that you can choose whether or not you act on that thought. 

Step 2: Start Eating Regularly

Establish regular meal and snack times. This is critical if you have been in a pattern of going long periods without eating (intermittent fasting) or if you’ve been limiting yourself to only 2-3 meals a day. As you begin the journey to regaining hunger cues, I recommend having a schedule of eating, with alarms set to remind you, if necessary. Consistent eating will do wonders to regulate your hunger and hunger cues. Aim for eating every 2-3 hours, with three full meals and 2-3 snacks each day.

Step 3: Tune Into Your Body

Practice mindfulness before, during and after meals. Try to quiet your mind and feel for different symptoms within your body. How does it communicate hunger, satisfaction or fullness?

You can use a hunger and fullness scale, if helpful. It’s a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is sickeningly famished and 10 is painfully full to bursting. As you progress with your hunger signals, you’d like to avoid letting your hunger get down to the 1-2 range, and aim to wrap up your meal when you’re around an 8 on the fullness scale. 

Step 4: Honor Your Hunger

Part of using the hunger fullness scale (and finishing a meal at a 7 or 8, rather than a 9 or 10) is building trust with your body that you will always respond to its hunger cues. Your body may be used to eating beyond fullness because historically you didn’t supply it with food at regular and predictable intervals. As you begin to eat regularly and frequently (see Step 2) your body will learn that you plan to honor its hunger. 

If you notice yourself feeling judgemental or shameful about the amount or frequency of hunger, try to acknowledge those thoughts, but then discard them. Replace them with a self-affirming mantra like “I am honoring my body’s needs” or “I am compassionately caring for myself.” 

Step 5: Seek Professional Support if Needed

If you feel totally overwhelmed by this kind of work, that’s okay! You are not alone. Everyone is at a different place with their relationship with food, and some people will benefit hugely from partnering with a professional.

If you decide to get some outside help, I recommend working with a Registered Dietitian or therapist who specializes in eating disorders, disordered eating and intuitive eating. If you see that they offer “weight loss” or “weight management” services, red flag! Their approach to health and healing contains conflicting ideas.

I would love to work with you on rebuilding trust with your body. You can download my Hello Intuitive Eating free workbook, or read more about my services here. 

Wishing you all the best!