1 - Your Intuitive Eating Toolkit

Simple tools and techniques that help lay the foundation to build your intuitive eating skills on. We have brought in tools from self-compassion, mindfulness, gratitude, ACT, and CBT to make sure your IE journey is as smooth as possible. You'll come back to your toolkit time and time again throughout the course.

2 - Ditch the Diets

Pushing back against diet mentality is key to IE. Let's remove that bandwagon (ya know - the one you vow to get back on come Monday morning after a weekend of ‘being bad’) - in fact, it’s more like setting that bandwagon on fire. This is when we get mad as hell about the number that diet culture has done on us. It’s almost as though the wool has been pulled back from our eyes and we see diet culture BS for the lie that it is. Recognising that diets (or ‘lifestyle plans’) do not work in the long-term and learning about the negative physical and psychological health consequences associated with dieting is the first step to reconnecting to our bodies.

3 - Honour Your Hunger

This one sounds pretty obvious, but how many articles have we read out there with tips for staving off hunger - maybe by chugging a diet coke, chewing gum or heard “drink some water, you’re probably just thirsty”? This principle is all about respecting your normal biological drive to eat; for energy, for nourishment and for pleasure - and challenging the idea that hunger is something to be feared - it’s a sign that your body is working well and needs some fuel! Recognising what hunger feels like in your body can be hard work, though! When we’ve spent so long ignoring it, it can take a little work to tune back in to those signals. So we’ve got a tonne of tools to help you tune back in to those internal signals.

4 - Body Neutrality

This is the part where we learn to stop determining our value based on what we’ve eaten, how much we move, or a number on a scale. We’ll slowly and gently help you learn to develop gratitude (not just for your body, but for all the other cool shit in your life) which has been shown to help improve body satisfaction. Having respect for our body is health promoting no matter what the number on the scale is. AND if we stop hating our bodies, we’re more likely to take all-round better care of them. We help you build strategies for taking baby steps towards body neutrality like embodiment, self-compassion and positive self-talk.

5 - Unconditional Permission to Eat

This principle is all about letting go of ‘food rules’ and legalising ALL FOOD - yup, even gluten, sugar and dairy* (*unless you’re avoiding foods for medical reasons such as coeliac disease or a food allergy). It can feel scary, but it’s so important for learning to trust your body again. It also doesn’t mean that eating becomes a free-for-all - it’s about approaching previously restricted foods with a sense of curiosity so you can determine if you actually really like those foods, or whether they’re not as much of a big deal as you thought. And most importantly, it’s about letting your body know that you are allowed to eat these foods again whenever - with no conditions attached. We’ll first work towards practicing food neutrality as a stepping-stone, and then we’ll share tools and techniques for giving yourself unconditional permission.

6 - Neutralising Your Inner Food Critic

You know that voice in your head that says ‘you shouldn’t eat that’ or bargains with you to work out in order to ‘earn’ a meal? That’s your inner critic and he’s a little bitch. This inner food critic doesn’t have our best interest at heart - it gets its kicks from making you feel worthless for eating a piece of cake! We’ll help you work on neutralizing your attitudes towards food and learning that no food is good or bad; it’s all just food! It takes work, but we can replace the inner critic with a more gentle, kind voice that encourages us to approach foods with curiosity rather than judgement

7 - Mindful Eating and The Pleasure Principle

Food (or lack thereof) is not punishment - it’s meant to taste good and be enjoyed. Sad rice crackers, zero calorie noodles, and other diet foods are probably not the most satisfying. You know yourself that if something says it’s low calorie/fat/sugar you probably eat 10x more. If you just had the real deal, you’d probably feel satisfied with a lot less, and be more likely to eat the amount that’s right for you. This is where we find the pleasure and satisfaction in the food we eat. Using mindfulness techniques can help us tune into our enjoyment and appreciation of food and help us discover that sweet spot - not too much and not too little! Focussing on the pleasure of eating can help us decide what we actually want to eat.

8 - Feeling Your Fullness

This one can sound obvious, but when was the last time you stopped eating when you were comfortably full? Not when you thought you should stop, or when you felt totally stuffed. If you’ve been in the dieting mentality for a long time it’s probably likely that you may routinely eat past the point of comfortable fullness because you know it’s going to be a long time before you’re allowed to eat again. In IE, no foods are off limits and there are no rules to follow about when and what to eat, so you can stop eating when you’re comfortably full, safe in the knowledge that if you begin to feel hungry again later on - food is available and it’s OK to eat. Feeling your fullness comes this late in the game for a reason. If we force ourselves to respect our fullness, it can easily exacerbate feelings of deprivation and scarcity - potentially driving that Last Supper Effect.

9 - Understanding Emotional Eating

So first things first - emotional eating isn’t inherently bad. Let’s drop the idea that it means that you’re out of control. In fact, it can sometimes be a useful coping mechanism or your body’s way of letting you know that you’re in a funk. This is where we start to develop other helpful ways to soothe, comfort and care for ourselves, without face-planting into a bucket of Ben and Jerry’s every time (although if you do, that OK too - think of it as a clue that something else is going on for you!). Imagine your self care and coping strategies as a toolkit - if food is the only thing in there at the moment, it might mean that you’re missing out on other things that might be helpful. But if we take food out - there’d be nothing left in your toolkit. So it’s about thinking about what else we can put into your toolkit so that you have an array of options (as well as food!) when you’re feeling in a funk to help you process your emotions.

10 - Intuitive Movement

In the same way that we’ve become disconnected from eating, we rely more and more on workout programs, fitness trackers and weight to determine how we feel physically. Intuitive movement is about finding joy in activity - whether it’s taking a low impact yoga class, going for a walk, or training for a marathon - finding activity that doesn’t leave you drained and exhausted is a critical part of the process. By working out what is enjoyable, makes it more sustainable in the long run than those intense exercise routines that you can’t keep up with. This stage of IE is about helping you explore all the shades of grey in finding joyful, sustainable forms of movement.

11 - Gentle Nutrition

This is all about nourishing your body with foods that taste good and leave you feeling awesome. There’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ diet and nutrition isn’t all or nothing. Dichotomising foods as good or bad isn’t helpful. We’ll work on being gentle and kind with ourselves and understanding that play foods still have nutritional properties - and even when they don’t, they still nourish the soul!