Is Intuitive Eating Suitable for You and Are You Ready For It?
Intuitive Eating (IE) is a brilliant approach for making peace with food. But after years of dieting, disordered eating or full blown eating disorders, embracing Intuitive Eating can be a very daunting task. It’s also not suitable for everyone, right away. It’s therefore important to assess honestly, where you’re at with food and eating, before you dive into Intuitive Eating. Here’s some questions to help you assess your readiness…
Want to Improve Your Health? Focus on Reducing Stress, Not Weight
Stress, and stress-related illnesses and symptoms are on the rise, and there’s no doubt that COVID-19 has compounded what was already a huge problem for society. In this article, I will explain why stress is so damaging for your health and illustrate how many of the health problems we associate with weight, can be alleviated or managed by tackling mental health rather than fixating on dieting or weight loss.
Body Neutrality, Acceptance and Confidence: What's the Difference?
Many of us are wondering how on earth we're meant to like, or even accept our bodies, when we're being told from all angles that something isn't right about them and needs to be changed. Here I explain why it’s important to reach a place of body neutrality first and foremost, then progress to body acceptance/respect and then we may finally find body confidence.
Best Podcasts for Intuitive Eating, HAES, and Ditching Diet Culture
There are loads of great podcasts presented by dietitians, nutritionists, doctors, and therapists. Often, they feature other experts on their shows. It’s a fantastic way to learn a lot about a topic and hear some of the discussions and debates on an issue. Here are my favourite podcasts on Health At Every Size®, Body Positivity, and Intuitive Eating.
Anti Diet, Emotional Eating and Body Positivity Books
Looking to make peace with food, exercise and your body? These are the books you need to start with. These books cover the topics of intuitive eating, body confidence, emotional eating and listening to your body's own cues and wisdom.
The Dangers of Diet Culture
Diet culture is life-threatening, toxic and damaging to both our physical and mental health. It can also spread like wildfire through the family tree. Many of the women on my courses have spoken of their friends, mothers, sisters and aunts dieting. If you struggle with disordered eating now, I can pretty much guarantee that someone in your circle has experimented with diets, body-shamed you or body shamed themselves in front of you. Can you relate to my story?
The 7 Stages of the Binge and Restrict Cycle (And How to Break Free)
Do these 7 stages of the dieting cycle sound all too familiar to you? Find out how to finally escape the dieting trap, make peace with food and your body, and improve your health (both physical and mental).
Talking Therapy: Counselling vs CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy)
A comprehensive guide to the different types of talking therapy available, including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), Counselling, Psycho-dynamic counselling and Psychotherapy. I also include links to therapist directories and a guide to choosing the right mental health professional for you.
The Pros and Cons of Tracking Food & Fitness
Fitness trackers and food journals are still big business. Nowadays it seems everyone is wearing one and there hundreds of different types and brands too choose from. But is tracking fitness and writing down every bite, for everyone? Here are the pros and cons of tracking your food and fitness…
Intuitive Eating when you have PCOS
Intentional weight loss is often a real struggle for women with PCOS and more often than not leads to feelings of frustration, guilt, shame and desperation, especially where fertility becomes a concern. It’s understandable that many women in this position will turn to drastic diets and risk developing disordered eating, poor body image and eating disorders as a result. These resources discuss how intuitive eating can work with PCOS.
How to deal with weight gain while practising intuitive eating
Gaining weight is very normal for anyone who begins practising intuitive eating after a period of restrictive eating (whether through dieting or restrictive eating disorders). Here are my tips for how to address and cope with your fears around this initial weight gain, in order to avoid falling into the temptation of dieting or disordered eating behaviours.
A Guide to Seeking Professional Help For Disordered Eating
Struggle with disordered eating? Here’s who to turn to first for professional help and a crash course guide to ‘who’s who’ in the health professions, including the difference between a dietitian and a nutritionist, or a counsellor and a psychologist, and what the heck a health coach is.
What is A Binge Eating Disorder?
In this article I cover what is meant by ‘Binge Eating Disorder’, how it is diagnosed, the definition of a ‘binge’, the difference between binge eating disorder and Bulimia and the health issues associated with BED.
Are you really hungry? How to Identify the Source of Your Hunger
Having a truly peaceful relationship with food means also having a non-judgemental awareness of the different types of hunger we experience. Here are 8 different types of hunger you might experience…
Which type of eater are you?
Taking some time to figure out which eating style you fall into can help bring awareness to any patterns of disordered eating you may have, and highlight the particular challenges you need to tackle on your own recovery journey.
Why Diets Don't Work: The Biological Response
Many of us have managed to lose weight at some point in our lives, But how many of us have managed to keep this same weight off for 5 years or more? In this post, I'm going to be summarising some of the most commonly cited biological explanations.
Does body positivity promote obesity?
Short answer: no, it promotes radical self-acceptance over self-loathing. It promotes a kinder society over a culture rife with appearance-based bullying and body shaming and it promotes physical and psychological recovery from dieting and disordered eating. Here's why:
Are you dieting because you feel out of control in your life?
Do you feel more ‘in control’ of your life on some level, when you're restricting or micro-managing your weight, food and exercise? Here's how to handle that.
How To Improve Your Health Without Focusing on Weight Loss
Here's how you can improve your health, without focusing on weight loss. I also explain why not all weight loss is a 'good' thing, or likewise: why not all weight gain is 'bad'.
What is Intuitive Eating and its Meaning?
Intuitive Eating is much needed a breath of fresh air from diet culture. It's about listening to your body's cues for hunger, fullness, satiety, taste and emotional needs - i.e. your instincts, instead of external 'food rules' and giving yourself unconditional permission to eat.