Are you trying to lose weight and think intuitive eating is the solution? Read on to learn more about how your weight may change or stay the same with intuitive eating and what factors really impact your weight (Hint: many are out of your control!).
Are you wondering if you will lose weight if you tried intuitive eating? The short answer is that your body weight may increase, decrease, or stay the same. If you are coming from a diet culture background, you may be hoping that intuitive eating will cause weight loss, but intuitive eating is neither the hunger & fullness diet nor the next trendy diet, and it is not guaranteed that you will lose weight.
Why won’t I automatically lose weight if I intuitively eat?
You will not automatically lose weight eating intuitively (or dieting) because of your set point weight. Set point weight or “happy weight” is a range of ~10-15 lbs that your body likes to stay within. This sort of range is similar to how the body typically functions via homeostasis or balance (I.e. blood sugar range), and weight is no exception. Set point weight ranges can increase, but they rarely will decrease after a certain amount of time at a higher weight as your brain will have established that higher weight as its new set point weight to maintain hemeostasis.
Diet culture says you cannot be at that higher weight, but your body does not comprehend that message. The message your body receives when dieting is more like alarm bells going off since evolution has programmed us for “survival of the fittest,” and so weight loss is perceived as a threat to life. Cravings, appetite, and primal hunger are ramped up to restore the energy (fat stores) that is lost during the deprivation period (dieting) since your body cannot tell the difference between a self-inflicted famine (a diet) and real famine- This occurrence helps to explain rebound weight gain after dieting. This phenomemon is not to be feared- it's a vital process needed for our survival if we were to experience a real famine!
A good analogy neuroscientist, Sandra Aamodt, uses in her famous Ted Talk is to imagine your thermostat is set to 70 degrees (your set point weight) and it's the middle of winter. You open a window (go on a diet) and the house's hot air escapes into the cold night (weight loss). Eventually, your thermostat (brain) will pick up on the fact the temperature is below the set point of 70 degrees, and so it kicks up the heater (craving & primal hunger) to warm the house back up to the set point (rebound weight gain).
Factors That Can Impact Your Weight:
Just as genetics mostly determines our height, genetics also heavily determines our set point weight.
There are environmental factors that affect both height and weight genetics. For example, if your mother was not meeting her needs while you were in the womb or if you did not meet your needs as a young child, your height likely would have been stunted shorter than genetics had planned for you.
Food insecurity can cause people to eat more than they usually would when food is available than if they had consistent access to food. It also causes those same people to eat less at other times when food is not available.
Food insecurity fosters a scarcity mindset, which makes sense as food is frequently scarce. Dieting causes the same scarcity mindset as you purposely inflict a food-scarce environment during periods of dieting.
Diet cycling (on and off dieting) as it can lead to weight cycling (weight loss and regain), which can change the way the body stores fat.
Weight cycling has been shown to change the distribution of fat storage to store fat viscerally around the abdomen creating a more "apple-shaped" figure- This is body fat associated with heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and other health conditions.
Environment
The frequency of advertisements for certain foods compared to all other types of foods on the market.
Access and affordability of *all* the food groups on the markets, especially nutrient-dense foods like fruits and vegetables.
Access, affordability, and safety to move your body in ways you enjoy
Interoceptive ability (ability to listen to hunger and fullness cues) and honoring cravings timely and the subsequent ability to provide yourself (and others) with food when hungry.
The ability to provide food when hungry could include means of financial, social support, time, flexibility, and health.
Dieting and disordered eating affect your ability to listen to your hunger and fullness cues.
Health conditions and medications
Stress, especially economic stress
Sleep quality
Many of these factors are out of a person's control, even starting to diet as dieting may have been put on you as a child or normalized in your life’s experience (i.e. You are more likely to diet if a parent has dieted).
Why might I gain, lose, or stay the same weight intuitively eating?
You may gain weight intuitively eating as being underfed for so long and finally allowing your body to reach its set point weight is a common phenomenon food-deprived people experience.
You may lose weight intuitively eating as weight loss may be an unintentional side effect of less frequent binge eating, out-of-control overeating, and/or distracted/boredom eating.
You may stay the same weight as intuitive eating helps you find and/or stay within your set point weight (weight maintenance) as you listen to your body for energy and satisfaction needs most of the time.
Side point: I want to underline the point that just because someone is in a larger body does not mean that they are not eating intuitively. You cannot predict what weight change outcome (gain, lose, or stay the same) will happen by just looking at someone.
Unlike diet culture, intuitive eating does not base your health status on something as superficial as an outward appearance or weight. Instead, intuitive eating helps to find your set point weight or “happy weight" at which your body settles and can maintain while eating enough, not dieting, enjoying life, moving your body enough, caring for yourself (physically and mentally), and other health-promoting behavior changes. My call to action for you is to ditch diet culture and reclaim the life it stole from you with intuitive eating!
Ready to find food freedom? Apply to my nutrition coaching program, Nutrition Intuition, for professional guidance to heal your relationship with food.
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