How Long Does It Take to Become an Intuitive Eater?
If you clicked on this post looking for a neat and tidy answer like 30 days or 3 months, I am sorry to say I don’t have one. Each of us is starting in a different place, and intuitive eating is a map, not the turn-by-turn navigation we have been taught to expect from weight loss diets or wellness programs. It is possible to see and feel changes relatively quickly when starting intuitive eating but switching your default thoughts and behaviors usually takes more time than just a few weeks.
Perhaps you have talked to people, come across articles online, or even tried intuitive eating yourself for a short period of time, and it didn’t work. Thinking you can try intuitive eating like you try any other diet is the first mistake. There is a reason that “reject the diet mentality” is the first principle. If you are looking at intuitive eating through a diet culture lens, you will try to turn the principles into diet rules.
If you treat intuitive eating like a diet, it will fail you, like a diet.
I don’t say this to scare you away from intuitive eating. I say this so you go into it with the right mindset. You may have to wrestle with letting go of using the scale or weight as a measure of success before fully unlocking the transformational potential of intuitive eating for yourself.
What Disrupts Intuitive Eating?
Most of us are born intuitive eaters, and we lost it along the way. Well-meaning care, health professionals, societal messages, conventional beauty standards, and a nearly $90 billion weight loss industry have exerted their influence over what, why, how, when, and where we eat or don’t eat.
To become a confident intuitive eater, it is common for clients to work through one or more of the following:
A history of dieting or following restrictive wellness programs
Childhood rules about food and weight
Using food as a primary tool to manage emotions
A harsh inner dialogue related to body size or shape
Guilt or shame around food and eating
Suppressing or ignoring hunger and fullness cues
Depending on external rules to guide food choices
Equating body size with health
Only exercising when dieting or to change body size or shape
Skipping meals
Intuitive eating is based on interoceptive awareness, or our ability to hear and respond to the signals in your body. The principles of intuitive eating help you improve your interoceptive awareness by either increasing or removing obstacles to body awareness.
But Really, How Long Will It Take to Be an Intuitive Eater?
The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, conducted during World War II on a group of 32 physically and mentally healthy conscientious objectors, gives us a glimpse into the time it takes to return to baseline eating after a period of restriction.
This experiment was divided into three parts: 3 months of normal eating, 6 months of semi-starvation, which reduced calories to about half (and, frighteningly, the calories they consumed during this semi-starvation period still worked out to more calories than some current low-calorie diet plans), and, finally, a refeeding period.
During the semi-starvation period, the men experienced many of the same things that those on restrictive diets experience, including:
Decreased metabolism
Feeling hungry all the time
Obsessing over food
Increased cravings
Chewing gum or drinking large amounts of coffee
Binge eating
Increased irritability and moodiness
During the refeeding period, the men could eat what and however much they wanted. Observed during this period were:
Intense hunger pangs
Insatiable hunger
Fear of food not being available
Binge eating
Lack of satisfaction
Skewed ability to gauge hunger
On average, it took 5 months of refeeding before eating normalized for most of the men. That’s right; after one 6-month period of food restriction, it took nearly that same amount of time to return to “normal” eating.
If you have been dieting for years or decades, it is unrealistic to expect to return to an intuitive style of eating in just a few weeks.
Give Yourself a Year to Find Your Footing with Intuitive Eating
Sure, you could push yourself to read the Intuitive Eating book in just a few days, but reading a book does not make you an intuitive eater.
At the end of Intuitive Eating for Skeptics, a 3-month program guiding you through the nuances of the 10 Intuitive Eating Principles, I suggest giving yourself at least one full calendar year of practice. In a year you will experience holidays, gathering with family and friends, vacations, and seasonal variations in food, stress, and schedules. Any and all of these things can change the way you view eating and your body, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways.
It may take more or less time than a year (but often more) depending on your personal circumstances, including how much time and attention you can give to practicing the principles while also showing yourself compassion, kindness, and care.
Understanding Intuitive Eating at a logical level comes before you embody it. You need to practice, and quite frankly, mess up, intuitive eating to be an intuitive eater.
If you want support for all or part of your intuitive eating journey, consider taking Intuitive Eating for Skeptics or scheduling one-on-one nutrition counseling.
The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended to be medical advice or to diagnosis, treat, cure or prevent any disease. This information does not replace a one-on-one relationship with a physician or healthcare professional. Dietary changes and/or the taking of nutritional supplements may have differing effects on individuals.
To learn more about how working with a nutritionist could help you, schedule a free 15-minute call.