BREAKING THE DIET CYCLE FOR GOOD

Stop counting calories and give intuitive eating a go

Thanks to the growing trend for intuitive eating, counting calories and cutting carbs is becoming a thing of the past. It’s about time, too, says registered nutritionist Laura Thomas

Are you one of the estimated 26m Britons who are starting a new diet this January? Perhaps you’re not doing a diet diet, just a little health kick. You know, no refined sugar, gluten free and low carb… A diet by any other name.

We feel pressure at this time of year to get ‘back on track’, be it from friends, family, colleagues or, of course, the health and wellness industry, which is projected to be worth about £25bn in the UK in 2020. For many of us, the January diet is the galvanising event in our annual calendar, marked by the highs and lows of ‘being really good’ and ‘spectacularly falling off the wagon’.

We call this the diet cycle. It starts out innocently enough, with wanting to drop a couple of pounds and restricting what we eat, but this sets off a chain reaction of bargaining and negotiating with ourselves about what, when, and how much to eat. We may lose a little bit of weight in the short term, but then the intense hunger pangs and cravings kick in. Our bodies can’t tell the difference between self-imposed restriction and genuine food shortage. This may mean that we faceplant into the bread basket/ice cream/pizza at the next opportunity, which, inevitably, results in feelings of guilt and shame. And, once we’ve fallen off the wagon, we are then likely to completely cave in and go on a week-long crisps bender.

This, of course, is a normal reaction to restriction and deprivation, but the

narrative that diet culture has created makes us believe we’re useless, with no willpower. What we are never told is that restrictive diets don’t work in the long term. Studies have shown that more than half of weight lost is regained within two years, and by five years, more than 80% of weight that had been lost is regained.

The diet cycle probably sounds familiar to most of us, but what we may be less aware of is that there’s another way to relate to food and to our bodies that is not punitive or based on self-loathing. This is where the concept of intuitive eating comes in: consisting of a list of principles that are designed to help us break out of the diet cycle and build a healthier, happier, more peaceful relationship with food and our bodies.

Intuitive eating invites us to move away from external influences on our eating and to reconnect with the messages our bodies send us about hunger, satiety, pleasure and satisfaction. It helps us tune in to what works best for our bodies and circumstances rather than following someone else’s idea of what we should and shouldn’t eat. It allows us to make peace with food so that there are no longer ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods, just foods. It teaches us flexibility and that eating doesn’t have to be perfect. Intuitive eating also helps us understand the function of emotional eating in our lives, and helps us to find new ways of dealing with uncomfortable feelings. Once you have worked to remove the all-or-nothing thinking that often comes with dieting, intuitive eating introduces the concepts of intuitive movement – tuning in to your body to determine what exercise you need to do – and gentle nutrition.

It’s been gaining a lot of traction in the UK lately, but intuitive eating has actually been around since the 1990s. It was first developed by two Us-based nutritionists, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, to help their clients get off the dieting merry-go-round. More recently, its popularity has been buoyed by the body liberation movement, which has raised our collective consciousness of the harms of the societal obsession with being super thin. Actor Jameela Jamil’s mental health and body positivity platform @i_weigh successfully lobbied social media platforms to remove diet and weight-loss product adverts (such as skinny teas and appetite-suppressant lollipops) to under 18s. Experts have warned against the negative physical and mental health impact that dieting can have, particularly on young people who are at a higher risk of developing eating disorders. Dieting is a risk factor for both development of an eating disorder and for future weight gain. Anyone who has ever been on a diet will know that it can cause you to become preoccupied with food, encourage you to feel guilty or ashamed for eating certain foods and, in many cases, trap

Intuitive eating allows us to make peace with food. There are no ‘good’ foods or ‘bad’ foods. Just foods.

you in a cycle of bingeing one day and starving yourself the next.

The anti-diet movement is not anti-health (although it may challenge your ideas of what constitutes ‘health’). While intuitive eating is still a relatively new field of research within nutritional sciences, there’s some compelling evidence about the physical and mental health benefits of approaching food and eating in this way. Studies have shown that it may help reduce blood pressure, cholesterol, inflammation and blood sugar levels. Evidence suggests it can reduce food preoccupation and perfectionist tendencies, improve overall quality of life and support a healthy body image. Win-win.

It’s important to say that, unlike diets, intuitive eating doesn’t claim to be a quick fix or a magic wand that will solve all of your problems. What it can help deliver, though, is the time, money and energy lost to obsessively following diets, and help you live a life where you have the space to pursue things that are more fulfilling and meaningful than worrying about everything you eat.

 Just Eat It by Laura Thomas (Bluebird) is out now