Doing Intuitive Eating "Right"

A common question while exploring Intuitive Eating (IE) is how do I know if I am doing it right? Well the wonderful thing about IE is that there's no way to inherently do it right or wrong. While that can be liberating, it can also be confusing to navigate.

A more helpful way though may be to think: am I making this decision from a place of self-care or self-control? Choosing the option that allows you self-care would then be the more "right" choice.

An example of this may be asking yourself if you want a vegetable with your dinner. If you were doing it to exert control or because you felt that you "should" have a vegetable with dinner, it may be a good idea to challenge that thought and not incorporate a veggie!

However, if you are thinking about it through a self-care lens and it sounds more along the lines of "adding a vegetable would make this meal more satisfying, colorful, and help to add fiber", then by all means go for it!

Another example as it applies to movement could sound like "Am I choosing to move my body right now because it will feel good or because I feel like I have to due to XYZ reasons?" The latter would then be due to self-control, and it could again be a great time to challenge those external cues and pressures and do something differently until you are more in a place to move your body because it would genuinely feel good!