Intuitive Eating, 3rd Edition by Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch

TITLE: "Intuitive Eating" (3rd Edition)
AUTHORS: Evelyn Tribole & Elyse Resch
DIETY?: no
IE?: YES!
MY RATING: 5*****

Intuitive Eating encompasses ten principles, but the main three (3) keys are these:

• Unconditional permission to eat when hungry and what food is desired
• Eating for physical rather than emotional reasons
• Reliance on internal hunger and satiety cues to determine when and how much to eat

I have been a big fan & promoter of this method since I first heard about it in 2005. Using its principles, I lost twenty-five pounds in six months while eating my favorite things (chocolate, ice cream, cheeseburgers, pizza, etc).

In this latest edition of the book, the authors have removed many of the numbers that were in the previous edition (stats, weights, heights) because they believe that it leads to self-sabotage when these are the focus. They have also added two new chapters — one that gives scientific backing to prove that IE works, and the other that focuses on how to help children and teens become Intuitive Eaters.

The chapter on kids was actually very interesting to me, as I have two of my own (ages 11 & 14), one of which is very rebellious in regards to food — he loves chips & ice cream, and it worries me that he’s learning all of my own bad habits. The authors insist, though, that letting kids make their own decisions regarding food (how much, what kinds, etc) is the best method because they will intuitively get in the balanced nutrition they need, if they’re left alone. It’s when an issue is made of their eating habits or their weight that they start to rebel, and/or lose faith in their ability to trust their internal cues.

One thing that surprised me about this new edition was the constant reminder of how it’s important to put weight loss on the back burner in the beginning of this process. The reason for this is that, if you’re focused on losing weight — as opposed to just learning how to become an Intuitive Eater — you will sabotage yourself by either getting depressed over the slowness of your weight loss progress, or by seeking out other diets in hopes of quicker results.

Here are some quotes from the book that I found helpful (some of which I forgot to write the page number references for):

• bring peace to your eating life and body image (p.32)
• focus on weight loss MUST be put on the back burner while you learn to return to Intuitive Eating
• If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating (chp.1)
• undereating leads to overeating
• you can’t fail at IE — it’s a learning process at every point along the way (p.53)
• the more you practice, the more confidence you’ll have (p.86)
• focus on continual change and learning, and start thinking in terms of what you can learn along the way (p.119)
• pause in the middle of eating to gauge your hunger level, and to ask yourself how the food tastes
• give yourself permission to eat again when you get hungry
• if you start eating when you’re not hungry, it’s hard to know when to stop from satiety (p.128)
• slow down while eating
• It’s what you eat consistently, over time, that matters — progress, not perfection…
• Intuitive Eating means having no guilt in your eating (p.301)

Lastly, there is a chapter on eating disorders, too, and how those caught in the throes of one can seek help, and also learn to eat intuitively.

Overall, I most highly recommend this book, and this method. It is very much based on common sense, and we all know that dieting doesn’t work in the long run, anyway. This method is great because you can still eat what you love, you can eat out at restaurants without worrying about blowing your ‘diet’, and you can lose the craziness of obsessing over what food is “good/bad”.