5 Reasons Intuitive
Eating Doesn’t Work
For Everyone
by Megan Alena
O
ne of the big schools of
thought in the nutrition
world is Intuitive Eat-
ing. As someone who has gone
through recovery from an eating
disorder, the doctrine of intuitive
eating was drilled into my brain
from day 1 of the recovery jour-
ney.
At the beginning, I loved the idea
of complete freedom with food
and exercise. It was like the big-
gest and most promising green
light that I had ever received. I
trusted the dietitians completely
when they told me that intuitive
eating would be amazing, freeing
and would lead to the healthiest
relationship with food possible.
to achieve the total food freedom
that intuitive eating promises.
Finally, after one too many times
of feeling like an intuitive eating
failure, I decided that there must
be a better way.
I couldn’t ignore the gaps and
holes that I saw in the program
and I decided to do things my
own way for a while. Ironically,
when I gave up trying to follow
the intuitive eating guidelines to
a T, food freedom had never been
easier.
Throughout the years since
embarking on my own, I have
witnessed countless others strug-
gle and wonder why the intuitive
However, as I moved through my eating program isn’t working
journey and gained more and
for them. I get questions like
more knowledge of nutrition, I
“Why won’t this work for me?”
began to have some issues with
or “Is there something wrong
the intuitive eating philosophy.
with me?” or “Why do I always
With each new life experience
fail at this program?” I’ve seen
that involved my “failing” at in-
too many people get fed up with
tuitive eating, I wondered if there intuitive eating and give up on
was something wrong with me or the idea of food freedom.
if I just didn’t have what it takes
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I’ve seen too many people feeling
disheartened and like there is
something wrong with them be-
cause they can’t seem to achieve
the goals set out in the intuitive
eating guidelines.
I’ve officially reached the point
where I can no longer hold my
thoughts to myself for fear of
offending others. So here you
go. These are five reasons why
intuitive eating doesn’t work for
everyone.
1. IT DOESN’T TAKE INTO
ACCOUNT MEDICAL ISSUES
OR MEDICAL HISTORY.
The idea that we can eat what-
ever we want when we want (as
long as we are honoring hunger
and fullness) is great in theory,
but what happens when some-
one following the intuitive eating
guidelines has food allergies or
sensitivities? As someone with
Celiac disease and a dairy aller-
gy, a healthy relationship with
food does not include eating
whatever gluten and/or dairy