When your body is running healthy good, intuitive eating can be a sustainable non-diet approach. As daily eating routines, you listen to what your body wants and needs.
That includes a balance of proteins, healthy fats, and good carbs. Below, I share some valuable nuggets from a Vata (body) perspective… along with some RD thought weigh ins.
For most, as we age, we need more proteins that help build muscle. If you’re a natural Vata especially, you need more filling foods that give you the most energy like proteins.
Intuitive eating refocuses our attention on what our bodies are telling us, rather than hard food “rules” that are imposed on us from diet culture and other external forces.
Vatas tend to get hungry easily (and can lose weight even faster), and we’re more likely to get close to the 23 servings per day Food Pyramid diet than the other body types, just to feel full.
Food is fuel and I realized I wasn’t getting enough proteins… because I wanted to tone muscles and despite the same exercises I did, I couldn’t make a dent.
So the change I made is trying to get 50 grams of protein in per day. I work in the yogurt, seafood, legumes, nuts… and eggs that have a smidgeon of protein. Like an appetizer plate of shrimp doesn’t hurt 🍤
Many of us Vata bodies are lean (or have a small frame) and need to eat more, not less… and more often.
And it’s easiest to get daily satisfied-full with proteins. Vatas can easily gravitate toward comfort carbs, instead of veggies that don’t do the job to keep away the hunger pains.
We can also get a skinny fat build if we eat too many sweets (another natural Vata trait), and if we don’t work on moving and exercising like everyone else.
And while this is the profile of a typical Vata, whatever body type you have, you want to figure out what works for you.
Protein and plant-based are a good combination for most people. With most healthy eating habits, healthy intuitive eating is about getting enough good healthy foods in the diet.
While I do follow some food rules, the RDs I collaborate with who promote intuitive eating, describe it as a way to make peace with food and prioritize your physical and mental wellbeing.
“It’s a way to get back in tune with your body and refocus your mind away from “food rules” that can be good for certain people.”
Intuitive eating deprioritizes weight as a primary measure of health, while inviting you to eat the foods you want when you’re hungry—and stop eating when you feel full.
Eating intuitively means being curious about what and why you want to eat something, and then enjoying it without judgment.
It’s about trusting your body’s wisdom without external influences. When you have a healthy body, it’s a reliable way to see what’s missing in a diet.
These were the original 10 Intuitive Eating principles that Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch (practicing registered dieticians) came up with decades ago:
Reject The Diet Mentality
Ditch diets that give the false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. You are not a failure for every time a diet stopped working and you gained the weight back. Until you break free from the hope that there’s a new diet around the corner, you cannot fully embrace intuitive eating.
Honor your hunger
Your body needs adequate energy and nutrition. Keep yourself fed to prevent excessive hunger. By honoring the first signal of hunger you can start rebuilding trust in yourself and food.
Make peace with food
Stop fighting with food and give yourself unconditional permission to eat. Stop fostering intense feelings of deprivation by denying yourself a particular food, as these can lead to cravings and bingeing. You don’t want your “giving in” to lead to overwhelming guilt.
Challenge the food police
Confront the thoughts that you as a person are “good” or “bad” based on what and how much you eat. Diet culture has created unreasonable rules. The food police are the negative, hopeless, or guilty thoughts you can chase away.
Discover the satisfaction factor
Pleasure and satisfaction are some of the basic gifts of existence. By allowing yourself to feel these when you eat, you can enjoy feeling content and fulfilled. When you do this, you will be able to identify the feeling of “enoughness.”
Feel your fullness
Trust that you will give yourself the foods you desire. Pause in the middle of eating and ask how the food tastes. Listen for the signals that you’re not hungry anymore. Respect when you become comfortably full.
Cope with your emotions with kindness
Restricting food can trigger a loss of control and feel like emotional eating. Be kind to yourself. Comfort and nurture yourself. Everyone feels anxiety, loneliness, boredom, and anger. Food won’t fix these feelings—it’s just a short-term distraction. Ultimately, you have to deal with the uncomfortable emotions.
Respect your body
Everyone is genetically unique, whether it’s shoe size or body size. Respecting your body will help you feel better about who you are. Being unrealistic or overly critical of your shape or size makes it hard to reject the diet mentality.
Movement—feel the difference
Feel the difference activity makes. Not militant or calorie-burning exercise, but simply moving your body. Focus on how energized it makes you feel.
Honor your health—gentle nutrition
Choose foods that honor your tastebuds and health. Don’t focus on eating perfectly. One snack, meal, or day of eating won’t suddenly make you unhealthy or deficient in nutrients. Look at how you eat over time. Choose progress, not perfection.
The science behind intuitive eating
Studies show that people who eat intuitively tend to also have lower body-mass indices (BMIs) and higher levels of body appreciation and mental health. They are also associated with lower blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and inflammation.
A review of eight studies compared “health, not weight loss” eating styles with conventional weight-loss diets. While they found no significant differences in heart disease risk factors between the two types of diets, they did find that body satisfaction and eating behavior improved more for people in the “health, not weight loss” groups.
Another review of 24 studies of female college students showed that those who eat intuitively experience less disordered eating, have a more positive body image, and greater emotional functioning.
Overall, there is a growing amount of research that shows the benefits of intuitive eating on both physical and mental health.
The non-diet approach of intuitive eating fits within the concept that there can be health at every size.
It’s good to come up with your own sustainable healthy habits so you’ll stick with them, finding the foods that satisfy you and your body.
It’s about removing the labels of “good” or “bad” food and ditching the guilt or pride about eating a certain way. It’s about taking care of our bodies and embracing what we enjoy eating.
Next time, I’ll share thoughts about eating for the Kapha body and healthy metabolism.