Chapter 10

Principle Ten

Honor Your Health: Gentle Nutrition

Make food choices that honor your health and taste buds while making you feel well. Remember that you don’t have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It’s what you eat consistently over time that matters. Progress, not perfection, is what counts.

Getting to the last chapter in this workbook is quite a feat! You’ve spent many hours challenging old beliefs, assumptions, and fantasies. You’ve observed your behaviors and thoughts and feelings. You’ve made peace with food, committed to never going on another diet, learned to figure out what you really feel like eating and what you really need when you want to eat but aren’t hungry. You’ve practiced honoring your hunger and feeling your fullness. You’ve tolerated feelings of sadness when it’s time to stop eating a delicious meal and have strengthened your emotional muscles in order to sit with your feelings. You’ve grown in respect and appreciation for your body and all that it can do for you. You’ve found a way to bring movement back into your life in a joyous and healthy way. We hope you feel proud of all the work you have done!

Now you’re left with one last task—figuring out whether you’re ready to face the ever-changing world of nutrition and how to make it work in your life. There was a reason for making Honor Your Health with Gentle Nutrition, the tenth and last principle. A focus on nutrition in the beginning might have sabotaged your ability to challenge the notion of “good” and “bad” foods. It was important that you learned to view foods as emotionally equivalent in order to truly tune in to which foods give you the most satisfaction and feel good in your body. Hopefully, you’re now ready to extend that to which foods to include in your world in order to derive the benefit of good health.

Generally, the desire to include nutritious foods in your eating life naturally evolves from achieving competency in the other principles. When people first reject the diet mentality and make peace with food, they often comment that they can’t even look at the foods that they were required to eat when dieting. Salads, apples, cottage cheese, broccoli, and grilled skinless chicken breasts are the last things that seem appealing and satisfying to them. But as peace with food is established, along with the clear knowledge that you will never go on another diet, a strange phenomenon emerges. Instead of visions of cotton candy or potato chips or candy bars, people start to truly crave the salad or apple that had been anathema to them only months before!

Why is this? It’s the paradox of Intuitive Eating. As a result of full permission, habituation, and sensory specific satiety, the excitement that comes with eating something that is forbidden or restricted vanishes. Foods that you previously ate guiltily and mindlessly never reached that point of habituation, and your taste buds never noticed that the food just didn’t taste as good as it did at the start. But once you have full permission, these forbidden foods are no big deal, and they are no longer the golden ring at the merry-go-round that continually calls out to be grabbed. Consequently, the door opens to desiring foods that had been left behind or rebelliously rejected.

In this chapter, you will practice exercises that will

Body-Food Choice Congruence

This piece of Intuitive Eating emerges after someone embraces the first nine principles of Intuitive Eating. Body-food choice congruence reflects the principle of gentle nutrition, with an important distinction: it is also a form of interoceptive awareness. It’s such an important component that it was added to the updated Intuitive Eating Scale (Tylka and Kroon Van Diest 2013). It represents how foods feel in your body—that is, how eating a particular food or meal makes you feel. This internal awareness causes a shift in how you decide what to eat, going beyond what your taste buds may crave. It means that the tongue is not the only part of the body that we honor when making food choices.

This sets the stage for increased self-care through nutrition, which Gentle Nutrition offers. It is about making food choices based on health and body functioning as well as pleasure. This includes making food choices in order to feel better and to increase energy and body performance. This is not about ignoring the taste buds. Satisfaction is always the engine that leads the Intuitive Eating train. Satisfaction and pleasure in eating can arrive at the station only when you choose foods that tickle your palate and give you joy. It’s simply that this isn’t the only consideration anymore. How your body feels and works becomes equally important in your food choices, and, in fact, when you feel good, you get even more satisfaction from eating. It doesn’t matter how good a food tastes, if you feel lousy after eating it, your entire experience is tainted, and you have diminished satisfaction.

Body-food choice congruence is reflected in many kinds of comments:

Below are questions you can ask when you’re ready to find body and food congruence. Do this practice when you’re mildly hungry and are thinking about what you would like to eat. As you consider each food option that is appealing to you, work through the following questions.

In the past, how has this food made my body feel while I was eating it?

Did I like this feeling?

How did I feel after I ate?

Would I choose to feel that way again?

Did this food or meal give me lasting, sustainable energy?

The Messages from Your Body

Listen to how you feel physically after eating the foods you choose. Your body will tell you what works for you and what doesn’t. Something might look great but make you sleepy or hurt your stomach or cause your blood sugar to drop quickly. It’s important to weigh all of these things and not just go simply for the needs of your taste buds.

After you’ve eaten, consider the following questions:

How did my body feel after eating this food or meal? Did I like this feeling?

Were there any ill effects from my meal—for example, excessive gas or bloating, stomachache, headache, or tiredness? Do I want to repeat this distress?

Did I feel more energy after eating?

Did I feel sufficient satiety from my meal? Did my meal or snack hold me long enough, or did I get hungry too quickly?

In general, are my eating patterns working well for me, or are there some adjustments I need to make?

Remember that Intuitive Eating is a dynamic interplay of instinct, emotion, and thought. If necessary, from time to time, use your rational thinking to help you overcome any glitches in your eating, such as changes in hunger signals or your food choices due to illness or emotions. But also remember to approach this goal with a for the most part mentality. Changes in your hunger cues, desires, and other body signals may sometimes happen, and you may choose to act on these changes without overriding them. That’s all part of being an Intuitive Eater!

Play Food Versus Nutritious Food

People frequently use the term junk food when referring to foods they deem to have inferior value. But when you think about junk, what comes to your mind? Perhaps you think about it meaning something that needs to be thrown in the garbage can or something worthless, without value. As an Intuitive Eater, consider replacing the term play food for junk food. What comes to mind when thinking about the word play? And how does that word make you feel?

Why do kids get weekends off from school? Why do you take vacations or go to the beach on Sunday? If all we ever did were study or work, we would surely burn out. We need rest time, an occasional time-out; we need playtime to give us balance in our lives. You can apply the same principle to your eating. If all you ever eat is rigidly healthy food, you risk becoming disordered. There is a recognized disorder called orthorexia, the pursuit of and obsession with foods you consider healthy. Doesn’t sound very balanced, does it? This is why we propose replacing the term junk food with play food. Play food is simply food that you crave whose main nutritional value is as an energy source, that is, calories. It usually lacks much in the way of vitamins, minerals, protein, or fiber.

Enjoy yourself—have that cookie or chip. Be assured that having made full peace with food, play food is not all that you’ll desire. Plenty of nutritious food will also find its way into your eating world.

Are You Ready to Consider Nutrition in Your Food Choices?

In this section, you will assess your readiness to bring body-food choice congruence into your relationship with food. This will help you know whether your choice for healthy food is coming from a place of true healing and trust or whether you still need to do some more work in making peace with food.

What Motivates Your Food Choice?

The first step in determining your motivation for your food choice is to look at your intention. Are you making your choice for a highly nutritious food based on a true desire for it, to consciously add more nutrients to your food intake, or is it based on a previous food rule? Answer the following questions when you are actually hungry and about to make a food choice. And be sure to answer them spontaneously. Come from your gut when you search for the answer, rather than thinking about what the “right” answer might be.

  1. Is the nutritional value of a food the only thing you consider when you find that you’re noticing hunger and need to make a decision as to what to eat?
  2. Examine your emotional relationship with play food. What feelings arise when you choose to eat play food?
    • How often do you crave play food? Daily? Several times a day? Weekly? Rarely?
    • How much play food can you eat and still feel well physically? Very little? A medium amount? A lot? (This is subjective—remember to give a gut reaction answer.)
    • How often do you eat more play food in a sitting or in a day than you know your body can handle—that is, you eat an amount of play food that you know might make you feel queasy, a little sick, bloated, tired, and so forth? Daily? Several times a day? Weekly? Rarely?

Reflect upon your answers to the previous questions to determine your overall approach to the nutritional content of food. Which of the following statements do you agree with (choose as many as apply to you)?

  1. You eat nutritious food simply because you think that it’s something you should do. Yes No
  2. You actually enjoy nutritious food because of its taste. Yes No
  3. You also appreciate its value in your good health. Yes No
  4. You eat play food when you crave it as long as it doesn’t make you feel physically uncomfortable afterward. Yes No
  5. You eat play food in preference to more nutritious food without regard to its lower nutritional value or how your body reacts to this choice. Yes No

If you answered yes to questions 2 through 4, it’s likely that your motivation for your food choices comes from a combination of a desire to provide nutritious food for your physical well-being and to have the option of eating something just for its taste. You care about how you feel, as well as wanting to have a satisfying eating experience. You hold no judgment when you choose to eat the foods with the lesser nutritional value, and you’re also aware of how your body reacts to the amount of these foods that you eat. You are ready for gentle nutrition!

Authentic Health

Figure 10.1. Authentic Health. Reprinted with permission from Tribole and Resch 2012 / St. Martin’s Press.

A healthy eater is one who not only strives for a healthy balance of foods but also has a healthy relationship with food. Your food choices do not elicit a sense of moral superiority or inferiority. In fact, you make no connection between your eating and the essence of who you are as an individual. You simply take a neutral approach to receiving messages from all appropriate sources and integrating them to feel a healthy balance in your life. This process brings you to authentic health.

Authentic health is achieved by integrating the messages from your inner world of body and mind with the health guidelines concerning nutrition and movement that come from legitimate sources in the external world, such as the USDA, National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and the US Department of Health and Human Services, among others. Your inner world provides a dynamic interplay of instinct, emotion, and thought. Instinct is ruled by the primitive, survival part of your brain. It provides you with the instinct to eat because you’re hungry and to stop because you’re full. Unfortunately, instinct can’t always help you. Sometimes illness can disconnect you from your hunger signals. Sometimes your emotions can interfere with your hunger and fullness signals. For some people, being anxious or upset blocks their hunger signals. For others, emotions and thoughts can trigger them to eat beyond fullness in order to comfort or numb their emotions. Fortunately, our highest level of brain functioning, which involves the neocortex, is capable of using rational thought to override any potential physical or emotional interference. Working together in this dynamic interplay, your inner world helps you stay attuned to your physical and emotional needs.

Authentic health is achieved by staying attuned to the messages from your body while maintaining sensitivity to external health guidelines prescribed by nutrition experts, based on scientific research and consensus. Your external guidelines can also include philosophical preferences, such as attention to ecology and the environment. You might be concerned with sustainable agriculture, the production of food, fiber, or other plant or animal products using farming techniques that protect the environment, public health, human communities, and animal welfare. You may have a focus on organic food—food produced by farming methods designed to encourage soil and water conservation, reduce pollution, and eliminate the need for artificial pesticides. You may choose to pursue vegetarianism or veganism, whether for their potential health benefits or for personal reasons.

If any of these philosophical or health policy issues speaks to you, it is most important that you are clearly ready to put your attention to the external world while also honoring the messages from your inner world. Any sense that you may be forming a rigid mind-set to any of these new points of views will alert you to the necessity of reevaluating your relationship with food. If that is the case, repeating the exercises dispersed throughout this workbook is the appropriate choice at that time.

You can evaluate whether you are achieving authentic health by answering the following questions:

How do you critically evaluate the source and scientific merit of the nutrition information you receive from the outer world: social media, magazines, friends, family, and so forth? That is, do you look for scientific rationale to support it, do you simply absorb the notions that circulate among your family or friends, or do you just have a gut reaction to what you hear?

If you receive information that seems scientifically valid, do you evaluate how you will feel, physically and emotionally, if you integrate it into your eating life? Might you feel deprived or controlled by it? Will you feel grateful that you’ve been informed and are willing to make certain sacrifices to change your eating style? Might you feel superior to others who don’t eat this way?

If you integrate the information and become anxious as a result, do you reevaluate whether these changes are in your best interest? Usually Sometimes Never

When you hear about the latest nutritional craze, such as avoidance of gluten, GMOs (genetically modified foods), or added sugar, do you consider its potential ill effects to your relationship with food, mind, and body? Usually Sometimes Never

If you reject the craze, do you feel left out when you hear others tout its value?

Usually Sometimes Never

When you are feeling stressed out and vulnerable, do you turn to the latest nutrition fad to gain a false sense of power and control over your life?

Usually Sometimes Never

Are you able to honor your philosophical preferences (such as considering environmental issues) without becoming rigid about your food choices?

Usually Sometimes Never

You have likely achieved authentic health if you

Food Wisdom

If you are ready to bring more nutrition into your eating life, now is the time to learn and practice the tenets of the food wisdom that Intuitive Eating has to offer you. If reading this information triggers a sense of deprivation, fear, or anxiety, you may not be ready to read this section. You can always come back to it in the future, when you feel more settled into the world of Intuitive Eating.

Starting with the Basics: Variety, Moderation, and Balance

Let’s begin with some questions for you to ponder about some basic but very important concepts for healthy eating. (If you begin to roll your eyes, it may be a sign that you’re not yet ready to answer these questions.)

When you hear the word variety, what comes to your mind? Does it sound like a health care mantra that might be difficult to achieve? Or might the idea of eating a variety of foods make sense to you?

Now think about moderation. A boring concept? Or perhaps something that describes the way you eat right now?

How about balance? When you hear that word, do you have concerns that each meal needs to be perfectly balanced? Or do you think about balance in broader terms?

Let’s begin with variety. Generally, we tend to seek variety in our foods so we can get the most enjoyment out of our meals (recall that the pleasantness of a particular food diminishes after a couple of minutes, thanks to sensory specific satiety). Also, the more variety in your daily intake, the more opportunity you have of receiving the abundance of nutrients—protein, fats, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and so forth—that foods can offer. If you eat the same food day after day, you limit your exposure to the wide spectrum of these nutrients. Dieting limits the variety of foods and sometimes eliminates entire food groups. There have been eras when low-carb, high-protein diets were popular, followed by periods that favored high carbs and low protein, followed by extremely low fat eras, and on and on.

How can you increase the variety of your foods if you’ve had a habit of only eating certain allowed foods or if you have become unquestioningly routine in your eating?

In the question of moderation, you may have already found that as an Intuitive Eater, you are regularly eating more moderately, because you are honoring hunger and fullness and have made peace with all foods. You have completed the exercises in chapter 7, Cope with Your Feelings Without Using Food, on emotional eating and no longer eat in excess. Some readers, however, might feel that they are not yet consistently eating moderately. On some days, this might be easier, but on other days, they might have problems.

If you’re not eating moderately right now, which principles of Intuitive Eating might need some more practice?

Finally, let’s look at balance. Some people might interpret the concept of eating in a balanced way to mean that each meal must have a complete balance of nutrients. This is not realistic or even necessary. In studies in which toddlers are given free rein to eat a wide variety of foods, without restriction, it is found that over a week’s time, they receive everything they need for nutritional health. They end up with enough protein, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, minerals, and fiber in just the distribution and proportion needed to maintain health (Birch et al. 1991). Adults often become disconnected from their intuitive wisdom due to powerful influences from the media, from friends, and certainly from dieting, but that wisdom can be regained.

Think about a typical week. In that week, do you believe that you get the balance you need? Are there any areas that might need some attention in order to balance out the week?

Nutrition Recommendations

The US Dietary Guidelines are updated and published every five years as a joint effort between the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Agriculture. (USDHHS and USDA 2015). These guidelines reflect the findings from the current body of nutrition science and are the foundation for nutrition policies and programs throughout the United States. When considering these guidelines, remember that it’s important to keep in mind that science evolves, and there are bound to be changes as new research findings emerge. This is why some recommendations seem to conflict with the previous guidelines, which can be confusing to the public—and to nutritionists as well. It’s another good reason to strive for variety, moderation, and balance, as that will help you bridge the gaps among the ever-changing recommendations.

In this section, the five overarching 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines will be highlighted. But as you read them, it’s important to remember that your wisdom and gut sense are a vital component. Even the executive summary of the guidelines urges the reader to keep in mind that: “These Guidelines embody the idea that a healthy eating pattern is not a rigid prescription, but rather, an adaptable framework in which individuals can enjoy foods that meet their personal, cultural, and traditional preferences” (USDHHS and USDA 2015, xi). This is a wonderful shift and evolution from previous guidelines.

Before looking at these guidelines, a little nutritional information will explain the basis for some of the recommendations. Our energy intake comes from carbohydrates, protein, and fat. We receive much of our vitamins, minerals, and fiber from fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and nuts.

  • Carbohydrates give us our main source of energy, especially for the brain, as carbohydrates are its exclusive energy source. This vital energy source is so important that if you don’t get enough of it, your body will cannibalize your muscle by dismantling its protein into amino acids and converting it to glucose (this process is called gluconeogenesis, which means “the creation of new sugar”).
  • Proteins are the building blocks of muscles, organs, hair, nails, enzymes, hormones, and more. Remember, if you don’t take in enough carbohydrates, your body will use your protein—both from what you eat and from your own body. This is a very expensive source of energy—both in dollars and in damage to the body!
  • Fats are necessary for many functions—for the absorption of our fat-soluble vitamins, for the creation of the myelin sheaths that protects our nerves, for the neurotransmitter receptor sites in our brains, for providing us with satiety and satisfaction in our food, for insulating us to keep us warm and protect our inner organs, and more.
  • Vitamins and minerals help to convert food into energy, repair cell damage, strengthen bones, heal wounds, and boost the immune system, and are involved in producing blood cells, hormones, and neurotransmitters associated with mood and cognition, among other functions.
  • Fiber helps digestion and is necessary for the healthy functioning of the gastro-intestinal tract.

The Five Overarching 2015–2020 Guidelines

Here is a look at the recommendations.

  1. “Follow a healthy eating pattern across the lifespan.” Eating patterns are the combination of foods and drinks that a person eats over time. This speaks to our recommendation for variety. A healthy pattern of eating includes
  2. “Focus on variety, nutrient density, and amount.” Every food offers its unique set of nutrients. You’ll have a better chance of covering all of the bases if you expand your selection of types of foods. Nutrient density simply means that you get more bang for your buck by choosing foods that contain more nutrients and energy per ounce. Nutrient-dense foods include nuts and seeds, beans, avocados, salmon, kale, blueberries, and egg yolks, among many others.
  3. “Limit…added sugars…and reduce sodium.” Added sugars refers to sugar and corn syrups (as well as most other sweeteners, like honey) that are added to foods in processing or when you prepare foods yourself (such as adding a spoonful of sugar to coffee or tea). It doesn’t refer to the naturally occurring sugars in such things as milk and fruits (and some vegetables). (Note—this does not imply that we encourage artificial sweeteners, as they are known to disconnect you from internal satiety and reward cues.) Many highly processed foods, from canned soups to crackers to sandwich meats, are especially high in sodium.
  4. “Shift to healthier food and beverage choices.” This recommendation speaks to choosing foods and drinks that offer more nutritional value. For example, choosing milk or fresh juice over soda; fresh fruits and vegetables over canned vegetables or fruits sitting in syrup; and whole foods over foods that are heavily processed.
  5. “Support healthy eating patterns for all.” The goal of this recommendation is to expand healthy lifestyle choices beyond the home into school, work, and the community through easy, accessible, culturally appropriate, and affordable means.

Eat Not Too Much—and Not Too Little

Issues of Eating Not Too Much

It is important to note that we have included no portion sizes in this book. Portion size is an issue if you’re a distracted, restrictive, or unconscious eater, but it is not a concern for Intuitive Eaters, because they are in touch with fullness and satisfaction. The 2015–2020 Dietary Guidelines stress the “importance of focusing not on individual nutrients or foods in isolation, but on the variety of what people eat and drink—healthy eating patterns as a whole.” Yet they do provide calorie targets, which reinforces the dieting mentality and thus is problematic.

Issues of Eating Too Little

As we discussed earlier, eating enough of a wide variety of foods is necessary for getting the nutrients important for overall health. Many people fall short of this goal. They lack essential vitamins, for instance, because they don’t eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables. So below are some suggestions to consider—for the most part. These are merely targets to average over a period of time. It is not a rigid recommendation! And, once again, if looking at these recommendations makes you feel uncomfortable, please skip this section.

Consume enough of these foods:

  • Fruits and vegetables—including plenty of dark green leafy vegetables and brightly colored fruits and vegetables, including red and orange varieties.
  • Fish—twice a week.
  • Carbohydrates—a minimum of 130 grams a day for most adults and teenagers, increased to 175 for women during pregnancy and 210 during lactation. These are emphasized here because they have become widely vilified and feared. Remember, carbohydrates are the exclusive fuel of the brain.
  • Nutrient-dense foods.
  • Protein-rich foods, including beans, fish, poultry, meat, eggs, dairy, and nuts. Many people get far more protein than they need, but there are some whose protein intake is insufficient.
  • Quality fats—omega-3 fats from seafood, fish oil, algae, and seaweed, as well as fats from olive oil, avocado, nuts, seeds, flaxseed oil, and canola oil.
  • Whole foods—those which are unprocessed and retain their fiber, vitamins, and minerals.

If you would like more personalized information about your nutritional needs, please contact a registered dietitian nutritionist who is trained in Intuitive Eating. The list of resources at the end of this book contains information on how to locate one.

Take a moment to reflect on the spectrum of foods that you eat in a typical week to see if you are eating an insufficient amount of one or more of these foods. Are there any categories that you have neglected? If so, how might you find a way to bolster your nutrition?

  • Do you need to go grocery shopping more often?
  • Should you widen the types of restaurants at which you eat?
  • Do you need to do a bit more cooking at home?

Above all, remember that Intuitive Eating is the dynamic interplay of instinct, emotion, and thought. If necessary, from time to time, use your rational thinking to help you overcome any glitches you find in your eating—that is, changes in hunger signals or your food choices due to illness, stress or emotions. Also, if you have a medical condition, be sure to consult with a registered dietitian or nutritionist trained in Intuitive Eating for medical nutrition therapy. Making decisions about how to eat based on true medical needs and Intuitive Eating are not mutually exclusive.

For your day-to-day decisions about how to eat, always remember that you were born with the instinct to eat what you need to nourish your body. Intuitive Eating is about guiding you back to that place, stripping you of restrictive thinking and emotional eating. Be assured that you can take in nutrition guidelines without them becoming a new set of rules and restrictions; you can use the information they contain while knowing that your body will inform you of what you truly need to get variety, moderation, and balance in your eating.

Nutrition and Satisfaction

In chapter 6, Discover the Satisfaction Factor, you practiced many exercises to help you find the foods that are most satisfying to you. At this point, we’re adding one more consideration in your quest for eating satisfaction—nutrition. Be aware that for some people, this discussion on nutrition triggers old feelings about the foods they should choose or restrict—these thoughts are evidence of a lingering diet mentality. Take a moment to check in with yourself to see if this has happened and to immediately challenge those thoughts:

Remember that satisfaction is the driving force in Intuitive Eating. If you keep the goal of satisfaction regularly in your mind, you will be motivated not only to honor all the Intuitive Eating principles but also to find a way to include sufficient nutritious food in your weekly food choices to honor your health. If you feel more satisfied in your meal by including some highly nutritious food, by all means, include it. Maintaining a balance of nutritious food with some play food may be the best path to a lifetime of satisfying eating. Just be sure that you listen to the messages that your body gives you about your food choices and that you hold no judgment when you choose to eat the foods with lesser nutritional value.

Wrap-Up

It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

Sometimes you won’t have the option to get just what you want. Maybe you choose to eat at a friend’s or relative’s house for the joy of socializing, but this person is not a very good cook. Or you might travel to a country whose cuisine is not appealing to you or which doesn’t have the availability of the fresh and nutritious foods your prefer. Or you might unexpectedly find yourself stuck without the food you enjoy eating and have to make do with what’s available. It’s important to remember that there are many meals ahead of you—in fact, there’s one about every three or four hours. You will have many more opportunities for finding satisfaction and the types of foods that fit your nutritional preferences. No one meal—or even weeks of meals, if you’re on an extended trip—will affect your overall nutrition. Intuitive Eating is not about perfection—it’s simply about offering you guidelines for a comfortable relationship with food.

So, relax. Remember that the concept for the most part is central. For the most part, strive for variety, moderation, and balance in your eating. For the most part, enjoy both nutritious foods and some play foods. For the most part, eat satisfying meals. The calm and trust that you feel about food, based on your inner wisdom and refusal to strive for perfection, will carry you through a lifetime of freedom and joy in your eating!

You have now practiced many exercises connected to all ten principles of Intuitive Eating. As a result, we hope that you have found a deeper understanding of what Intuitive Eating means and a deep trust that if you listen carefully to all of the messages your body and inner wisdom provide for you, you will know just what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat. You may need to go back to some of the exercises in this workbook in order to hone your Intuitive Eating skills. The more you practice, the closer you will find yourself to a world free from dieting and full of pleasurable eating, self-respect, and self-esteem!