Why doesn't this sub have much discourse about Intuitive Eating?

Hi dears,

Many of us diet hopelessly, or with major effort, and a good portion of us end up having disordered eating or eating disorders.

I'm part of that group and I've been in CBT therapy for it for a few months. I also have some major food trauma from childhood which makes things harder. Long story short, restriction and intentional weight loss are really not something I can consider right now and probably not for a few years.

But I so rarely see anyone talk about intuitive eating here.

Maybe because it's misunderstood? Maybe because of the fear that if we stop or give up restriction we will never be able to deal with our symptoms?

It's also of course entirely fine that for a big chunk of people some extent or form of restriction is sustainable and a good balance, to each their own.

There's a major misconception that intuitive eating is just "Eat what you feel like, with no limit" and it's true that Unconditional Permission to Eat is part of intuitive eating, but it's by no means what you should start with or the only important principle, there's ten.

I find the most important part of it is to eat in connection with your body, and based not so much on intuition in the intellectual sense of it, but more in the sense of introception (by perceiving the signals from inside your body).

When I do that, I put in place habits that help my PCOS, like eating a breakfast which includes protein, which helps me greatly. The times I binge or overeat on sweets, I'm not doing that out of a connection with my body, I'm doing it out of my disordered eating and I would do it even if I was dieting or restricting, I would just do it with more guilt than how I do it now (that's exactly what I did for years).

One of the last steps of Intuitive Eating, to which many professionals in the field dedicate a lot of space and work with their patients, is gentle nutrition, but to be honest even if I'm not there yet, I'm doing Gentle Nutrition already simply because what is best for my health is best for my body and is best for my wellbeing and for how I feel.

I just wanted to put this forward as I think it could be useful to many here.

https://www.intuitiveeating.org/

Good luck on your PCOS journey, whatever that means for you.

EDIT: I am by no means saying this is a cure all approach and I acknowledge insulin resistance impairs our ability to do this as spontaneously as others who don't have IR. I think IR medication should be more widely prescribed to us, and then this would be a different conversation.

I want to position intuitive eating as an option that can be more approachable for some people who can't handle their food through restriction, for whom any form of restriction is a no go. I'm not trying to sell anything here, just putting out there an option that I think should be on the table, for at least some of us.