When I first started out as a dietitian, I assumed most people would come to me for weight loss. I figured it would be easy to counsel clients in weight loss considering I knew all about nutrition and how to calculate calorie limits.
Very shortly after I started working this way, I realized it was not aligned with my beliefs about nutrition. I knew it didn’t feel right to counsel clients this way but I wasn’t sure where to turn from there.
Around that time someone introduced me to Intuitive Eating. Intuitive Eating is not something we are taught in school to be dietitians. Very far from it, actually, as the curriculum is very weight-focused. When I read Intuitive Eating for the first time it truly changed my life and my practice!
One of the major “do’s” of intuitive eating is not discussing food or the nutritional value of food early on in the process. A lot of work must be done to eliminate your diet mentality, work on challenging your beliefs and rules you have about food and learning how to refocus on your internal hunger, fullness and satiety cues.
If we are going to work on your relationship with food, I would be doing you a disservice by talking to you about meal plans, calories or macros. Because with the majority of my clients, lack of knowledge is not the problem when it comes to diet or weight.
The information I give you will be falling on the same ears and going through the same filters that you’ve always had. So in order to change your behavior around food, we first have to change your mindset.
Once you’ve improved your mindset, then you are able to take in nutrition and food and health information and understand it in a different, more healthful way. Not an obsessive way.
I’ve even had clients who, at the end of the program, have said things like “whew, I feel so good now but I have to admit I was worried for a while in the middle about where we were going with all this!” It feels like we aren’t getting to the point quick enough but I’d also argue that’s another thing we have to work on as a society – our instant gratification and quick fix problem!
I believe in my proven method to improve your relationship with food SO much! It even took me a while to get comfortable basically ignoring nutrition for the first half of my program, but the rewards are undeniable.