Intuitive Eating 101 with Christy Harrison | Get Fit Sanely Listener Picks

Overview

This episode revisits a listener-favorite concept from the Get Fit Sanely series: intuitive eating. Dietitian Christy Harrison shares her personal journey with food and body image, explaining how intuitive eating can transform one's relationship with food. Listener Tracy reflects on how this approach helped her break free from decades of dieting and disordered eating.

Notable Quotes

- Intuitive eating is the default mode... where we honor our hunger, feel our fullness, and trust our sense of satisfaction and pleasure. – Christy Harrison, on the essence of intuitive eating.

- Wait a minute, if you tell me there are no good foods and no bad foods, I can eat whatever I want whenever I want it. Well, I'm just going to have my face in an Oreo box forever. – Dan Harris, voicing skepticism about intuitive eating.

- Foods I thought I could never keep in the house are now regular parts of my pantry, and I don’t feel like I have to dive to the bottom of the box. – Christy Harrison, on overcoming the fear of forbidden foods.

🍎 Intuitive Eating: A Paradigm Shift

- Christy Harrison explains intuitive eating as a natural, peaceful relationship with food that avoids guilt, shame, and obsessive planning.

- It emphasizes listening to hunger and fullness cues, enjoying food without judgment, and rejecting diet culture's restrictive rules.

- Dan Harris shares his initial skepticism, fearing it might lead to overeating, but later embraces the approach after working with Evelyn Tribole, a pioneer of intuitive eating.

🌍 Personal Journeys with Food

- Listener Tracy recounts decades of dieting, from Atkins to fasting, driven by a desire to be thin rather than healthy. Intuitive eating helped her find freedom and satisfaction with food.

- Christy Harrison shares her own struggles with disordered eating, triggered by societal pressures and diet culture during her early 20s. Her recovery began with the book Intuitive Eating and mindfulness practices.

🍪 Overcoming the Fear of Forbidden Foods

- Christy Harrison addresses the common fear that intuitive eating leads to bingeing on previously restricted foods. She likens this phase to a honeymoon that eventually balances out.

- She emphasizes that intuitive eating allows for a relaxed relationship with all foods, where cravings diminish and forbidden foods lose their allure over time.

🧘 Mindfulness and Self-Compassion in Eating

- Intuitive eating aligns with mindfulness practices, encouraging an embodied experience of eating—focusing on flavors, hunger, and satisfaction rather than rules.

- Christy Harrison highlights the importance of self-compassion, allowing individuals to approach meals without guilt or judgment, even when fullness signals indicate it's time to stop.

📖 Practical Tips for Beginners

- Start by tuning into hunger and fullness cues, and let go of diet rules that dictate portion sizes or food choices.

- Approach meals with curiosity and ease, rather than calculation or self-control.

- Recognize that intuitive eating is a process, and initial phases of overindulgence are normal as the body adjusts to unrestricted access to food.