If you have been struggling with diets your whole life, it might be time to learn trusting yourself with intuitive eating.

This episode is for all of you who need to work on healing your relationship with food and your body. Evelyn Tribole, MS, RDN, CERD-S is an award winning registered dietitian, co-creator of Intuitive Eating and best selling author with a nutrition counseling practice in Newport Beach, California.

Today, Evelyn’s new book, Intuitive Eating for Every Day: 365 Practices and Inspirations to Rediscover the Pleasures of Eating hits bookshelves. 

Evelyn has been seen on CNN, The Atlantic and The New York Times.

The Problem with Diet Culture

Evelyn was a registered dietitian working in private practice where she was trained in diet culture. She put together food plans for her clients, but she realized those people would be so happy with their food plan. However, they’d come back into her office without the success they had hoped for. She shares her patients would blame themselves.

“We realized they’re not at fault. It’s us. It’s the system,” Evelyn said she and her co-writer realized about ten years into her career. That’s when she co-created intuitive eating and is now teaching trusting yourself with intuitive eating.

While there is still a lot of dieting going on around the country in younger and younger ages, Evelyn says there is hope because “You can change the legacy of diet culture at your kitchen table.”

#160 Trusting Yourself with Intuitive Eating feat. Evelyn Tribole (Happiness in Progress podcast)

How to Step Away From Diet Culture

When we’ve grown up with calories, points, macros – how in the world can we step away from that?

Evelyn says she wants us to know, “Every time you diet, every time you try to fake out hunger, every time you fake out fullness – that’s a trust disrupter.”

She says it’s very understandable that we don’t trust our bodies because we’ve been outsourcing our health to apps, counters and trackers.

Instead, it starts with honoring your hunger.

“Every time you honor hunger, you’re restoring trust,” Evelyn encourages.

She says this is not a pass or fail experience, it’s a journey of a discovery. Evelyn says it’s very normal to feel wobbly as you begin your journey.

“When your brain space is being occupied with worrying and tracking and counting – it interferes with the quality of your life,” she said as my jaw hit the actual floor.

But don’t worry, because as we come home to our body through intuitive eating we will have more space and time for the things that “make you flourish.”

Mental Health Matters Just as Much

As Evelyn mentioned at the beginning of this podcast episode, she realized in the pursuit of physical healthy many of her clients where neglecting their mental health. It was ending in feelings of blame and shame.

While there are many studies on how different foods impact us, Evelyn points out, “We can’t look at one little microdot of something and say ‘oh well now this is really bad for you.’ She brings up the centenarians who often celebrate their 100+ birthdays talking about the things they eat and drink.

She laughs as she says there’s not a 100-something-old counting macros. I actually did a podcast episode about the impact of stress on this very thing – check it out here.

“There’s nothing wrong with pursuing health as long as it doesn’t hurt you in the process,” Evelyn says.

So Much More

This is a brief summary of the first 10 minutes of the episode. You’ll find that plus:

• How to walk away from guilt associated with eating
• What I learned from my own intuitive eating attempt
• What to do if you want to lose weight AND intuitive eat
• Hear the incredible parts of Evelyn’s book that I love