Intuitive Eating. How to keep fit without dieting and calorie counting?

In today’s world, exhausted by diets and various restrictions, a new approach to nutrition is gaining popularity – intuitive eating. Its main principle is not a strict calculation of calories, as it is usually accepted, but the ability to listen to your body. We managed to talk to nutritionist, nutritionist Anna Berseneva, about the effectiveness of this approach and what nuances should be taken into account.

What are the rules?

As we have already said, intuitive nutrition does not imply grueling diets. Its main principle is the ability to listen to yourself. To take food with a conscious approach, the nutritionist advises only when the body gives a signal.

Of course, to begin with, you must learn to understand your body correctly, so as not to overeat or, conversely, not to starve. To do this at first is quite difficult, because we are used to eating “on automatic”, when bored or during work. That is, we do not notice what we actually eat. Therefore, to achieve mutual understanding with your body, Anna advises to follow the following diet plan:

• Remove artificial refined foods from your diet: refined sugar, oils and white wheat flour. These products upset not only the metabolism, but also the emotional background.
• Exclude sweets and fried foods. Spend at least a few unloading days.
• Eat dishes from vegetables: for example, green salads or vegetable soups.
• Before each meal, drink clean water.
• Do not starve yourself under any circumstances!

After your body will be reorganized and weaned from junk food, you will begin to understand it better. Then you will be able to honestly answer to yourself the main question: “Do I want to eat this dish or not?”.

How does this work in practice?

The intuitive approach is not yet widespread in Russia. But its effectiveness is easy to trace on the example of an experiment that was conducted in England. It involved children who were divided into two groups. The first group was fed according to all the standard rules: calorie calculation, eating on a schedule, observing the ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

In the second group children could take any products from the table at any time. Of course, it was impossible to find French fries or hamburgers on the table. But everything necessary was present: fruits, vegetables, eggs, cereals, nuts, meat and other products.

As a result, the second group of children had no deficiencies: vitamins, minerals and other important indicators were normal. But half of the children from the first, seemingly “correct” group had certain deviations.

The expert explains this result by the fact that children are still able to really listen to themselves, their body is not clogged with an abundance of refined and artificial products. That’s why such a clean body gives the right clues.

What are the benefits of an intuitive approach?

A clear plus of mindful eating is an established connection with yourself. And all this is combined with the absence of strict rules. The intuitive method will keep the body in shape both externally and internally. It eliminates the stress that a person so often experiences when following a strict diet. In addition, this hike is excellent for solving problems with eating disorders.

What are the disadvantages then?

The only downside to conscious eating is the difficulty in understanding yourself. To achieve the goal it is very important to clearly distinguish all the signals of the body and distinguish the real desire to eat from the emotional outburst. After all, when emotions take over, we can easily explain to ourselves the sudden impulse that the body is really asking for food. This is often not true.