Difference Between Intuitive Eating and Mindful Eating

If you have heard of intuitive eating or mindful eating you may think they are similar. They certainly overlap in areas but there are differences.

Our eating habits are often influenced by our mental state. You may have noticed when you are sad or stressed that you desire to eat certain foods that bring you comfort. Unfortunately, that's not always healthy. This is where both these non-diet approaches can be helpful.

Let’s take a look at the difference between intuitive eating and mindful eating and how they can work together.

Mindful Eating

Mindful eating is about incorporating the practice of mindfulness into your eating habits. It means being intentionally aware of the moment and reducing distractions. Being mindful prevents you from eating on autopilot, which can lead to overeating or binge eating. With mindful eating, you focus on your food, not what’s going on around you. You eat slowly and pay attention to what you eat and use all your senses to enjoy your meal.

You notice when you are hungry and when you have had enough to eat. You savor the taste and texture of your food, and you chew your food slowly and thoroughly. Mindful eating allows you to recognize foods you like and dislike without judgment. It helps you understand your motivation for eating, whether you are bored, stressed, or hungry.

Aside from eating an enjoyable and satisfying meal, mindful eating has been found to bring several benefits. It has helped people fix bad eating behaviors and lose weight too.

Mindfulness focuses on four key foundations - mind, body, feelings, and thoughts - and these are what affect your eating habits.

Intuitive Eating

Intuitive eating is a broader concept than mindful eating. It incorporates mindfulness into the practice but goes beyond paying attention and enjoying what you eat.

Aside from recognizing hunger and fullness, intuitive eating has other principles. Here are a few to explain how this approach works.

• You reject the diet mentality by letting go of the diet rules that prevent you from eating certain ‘unhealthy’ foods or making you feel guilty when you gain weight or ‘fail’ if the diet didn’t work for you.

• You make peace with food, which allows you to eat any food that you want, not worrying if it is one of those ‘forbidden’ foods.

• You ignore your inner critic and don’t listen to what other people say about your food choices.

• You find ways to cope with your emotions and not just reach for your comfort foods when you feel stressed. You learn to find other ways to manage your emotions.

• You provide your body’s basic needs, keep it comfortable, and treat it with the dignity it deserves. You learn to love your body.

• You do the physical exercises or activities that you enjoy.

• You honor your health with gentle nutrition. Eating healthy foods consistently and ensuring that you feed your body adequately is a way to a better healthier you.

Intuitive eating teaches you to get in touch with your body's signals and feed yourself based on what your body needs, not what a diet program tells you you should be eating or avoiding. You learn to honor your hunger and eat enough food to give you energy, and you learn to recognize when you have had enough and that it is time to stop eating.

It is important to note that intuitive eating is not a diet program nor is it designed for losing weight. Some people will gain or lose weight, especially when starting with this approach and that’s okay. Your main goal of intuitive eating shouldn’t be to lose weight but to learn to be in tune with your body’s natural internal cues and develop healthy eating habits.

Mindful Eating and Intuitive Eating Together

You can practice mindful eating even without practicing intuitive eating. However, intuitive eating would not be complete without practicing mindfulness.

Both approaches are not weight loss diets, although, you may think you have found a weight management plan that is totally different from anything you have ever seen before. All because you develop better relationships with food.

Mindfulness and intuitive eating are tools that you can use to achieve healthier well-being, physically, emotionally, and mentally. They have overlapping concepts but they also have differences. You can use them together and get the health benefits they offer, particularly in developing healthier eating habits.