Intuitive Eating and the Case for Not Weighing Yourself
We've all heard it before: To lose weight, you need to account for every calorie the passes across your lips. The scale and calculator are necessary tools to get results. As much as we've heard this advice, it's no secret that such traditional diet approaches are ineffective in producing long-term weight loss, but they're also counterproductive, often causing mental distress and disordered eating patterns.
The real question researchers are beginning to ask, beyond whether we should be counting calories, is whether we should even be weighing ourselves. As a result, much attention has been brought to a health-centered non-diet approach like intuitive eating that promotes food choices based on internal cues of hunger and fullness, body acceptance, and making behavior choices based on health and enjoyment.
[Read: 3 Steps to Ditching the Scale .]
A recent literature review published by the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics showed that by removing all diet rules and dietary restrictions, participants in almost all the studies were still able to lose or maintain weight. When focus shifted from dieting to adopting a nonrestrictive approach to eating, people had a healthier relationship with food, along with decreased depression and anxiety, increased self-esteem, improved body image and significant decreases in total and LDL cholesterol.
Now those are results you can't deny -- no matter how stuck you are in our "thin ideal" culture. How refreshing to think that you can ditch the food rules, take weight loss off your goal list and get healthier physically and mentally.
In the nutrition counseling private practice I founded, Capitol Nutrition Group, we operate from an empowerment behavior change model grounded in the non-judgmental principles of Health At Every Size. We are weight neutral. We do not focus on weight loss as a goal. I have a scale in my office only if clients are at a place where they mentally need to know someone they can trust is observing their weight. I call it breaking out of " scale jail."
[Read: The Diet Mentality Paradox: Why Dieting Can Make You Fat.]
You would think my business would dry up because everyone wants to lose weight. (Trust me, I did!) Quite the opposite has happened. By the time a client comes to me, he or she is frustrated, confused and frankly exhausted from years of one failed weight-loss attempt after another. They're looking for permission to let go of their diets, food rules and years of suffering. As they begin to let go of these unrealistic expectations and shift their focus away from weight, they begin to transform into happier and healthier people.
The biggest problems with diets is that they rely on rules such as following unrealistic portion sizes or avoiding "bad" foods, which often leads to wanting those foods even more and overeating them when "willpower" and "discipline" finally fade. In nearly all cases I've seen, dieting has only increased weight obsession and disordered eating patterns. By learning how to trust your own ability to meet your needs, you're able to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings.
I had the honor of studying Intuitive Eating under one of the co-authors of the book by that name, dietitian Evelyn Tribole. Intuitive Eating is a process-based approach that ultimately teaches you how to have a healthy relationship with food. It teaches you to become the expert of your own body, learning how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings. If you're interested in learning more, you can join a free online community for Intuitive Eating from the pros who wrote the book.
[Read: The Case for Never Weighing Yourself Again.]
The bottom line is diets or "lifestyle plans" (the new diet in disguise) are bad, because they leave you hungry and unhappy. If you wouldn't tell your daughter or best friend to do it, then reconsider why you should. Remember weight and size is not a valid indicator of health -- and it certainly doesn't measure how beautiful you are or how much your family and friends love you.
I encourage you to make peace with where you are in your wellness journey and even when there is a lack of weight loss, there are still positive outcomes. A life of eating foods you enjoy allows you the gift of a healthier, happier you.
Rebecca Scritchfield MA, RD, ACSM Health Fitness Specialist, is the founder of Capitol Nutrition Group, a Washington, D.C,. private practice committed to helping people live healthy on their own terms. Rebecca is a passionate advocate for self-care as the foundation for a healthy lifestyle and has been seen and heard internationally on TV, print and online media. Follow her 30-day challenges on Twitter at #SelfCareChallenge.
