Intuitive Eating & Health At Every Size (HAES)

Intuitive Eating (IE) is a brilliant approach for making peace with food. But after years of dieting, disordered eating or full blown eating disorders, embracing Intuitive Eating can be a very daunting task. It’s also not suitable for everyone, right away. It’s therefore important to assess honestly, where you’re at with food and eating, before you dive into Intuitive Eating. Here’s some questions to help you assess your readiness…

Stress, and stress-related illnesses and symptoms are on the rise, and there’s no doubt that COVID-19 has compounded what was already a huge problem for society. In this article, I will explain why stress is so damaging for your health and illustrate how many of the health problems we associate with weight, can be alleviated or managed by tackling mental health rather than fixating on dieting or weight loss.

There are loads of great podcasts presented by dietitians, nutritionists, doctors, and therapists. Often, they feature other experts on their shows. It’s a fantastic way to learn a lot about a topic and hear some of the discussions and debates on an issue. Here are my favourite podcasts on Health At Every Size®, Body Positivity, and Intuitive Eating.

Looking to make peace with food, exercise and your body? These are the books you need to start with. These books cover the topics of intuitive eating, body confidence, emotional eating and listening to your body's own cues and wisdom.

Intentional weight loss is often a real struggle for women with PCOS and more often than not leads to feelings of frustration, guilt, shame and desperation, especially where fertility becomes a concern. It’s understandable that many women in this position will turn to drastic diets and risk developing disordered eating, poor body image and eating disorders as a result. These resources discuss how intuitive eating can work with PCOS.

Gaining weight is very normal for anyone who begins practising intuitive eating after a period of restrictive eating (whether through dieting or restrictive eating disorders). Here are my tips for how to address and cope with your fears around this initial weight gain, in order to avoid falling into the temptation of dieting or disordered eating behaviours.

Having a truly peaceful relationship with food means also having a non-judgemental awareness of the different types of hunger we experience. Here are 8 different types of hunger you might experience…

Taking some time to figure out which eating style you fall into can help bring awareness to any patterns of disordered eating you may have, and highlight the particular challenges you need to tackle on your own recovery journey.

Here's how you can improve your health, without focusing on weight loss. I also explain why not all weight loss is a 'good' thing, or likewise: why not all weight gain is 'bad'. 

Intuitive Eating is much needed a breath of fresh air from diet culture. It's about listening to your body's cues for hunger, fullness, satiety, taste and emotional needs - i.e. your instincts, instead of external 'food rules' and giving yourself unconditional permission to eat.  

The ability to pick up on your body's signals and translate them is called 'Body Awareness'. Here's how to develop the skill of listening to what your body is trying to tell you and knowing how to act on it. 

When it comes to our health and fitness, our mindsets (i.e. our attitudes, beliefs and assumptions) are often the hardest part of us to change. Mindset matters because it affects the relationship you have between food, exercise and your body. In this blog post we look at the difference between a dieting mindset and a healthy mindset.

Are you tired? Do you suffer from headaches, backaches or pelvic discomfort? Do you experience depression or feel anxious? Do you have allergies, rashes or autoimmune issues? Have you lost your sex drive? Dr Rachel Carlton Abrams' new book, Body Wise, might just hold the answers.