Intuitive Eating Associated Benefits:
Reduced risk of depressive symptoms
Increased self-esteem
Lower risk of extreme weight control measures or binge eating
Better relationship with food and lower body dissatisfaction
Principle 1: Reject the diet mentality (foundational)
How to apply
Rejecting glorification of thinness and stigmatization of fat bodies
Reject moralizing of food or viewing nutrition on a pedestal or promoting weight loss
How to Apply:
Build trust and explore how diet/diet culture has interfered in client’s life
Recognize one’s own privileges
Use MI and be curious and open and compassionate
Ask for permission often and give the right to refuse
Recognize ambivalence: clients wants to reject rules and lose weight
Track health markers unrelated to weight loss
Celebrate what the body can do now
Principle 2: Honor your hunger
Interoception
Interoception = perception of sensations from inside the body including physical
Can be affected by depression, ED, substance abuse, trauma, anxiety, neurodivergence, fibromyalgia or chronic pain
The hungry brain obsesses over food, decreases metabolism to preserve, increased neuropeptide Y (carb cravings) and ghrelin, decreased leptin
Principle 3: Make peace with food
Unconditional permission to eat whatever you want, whenever you want just because you exist
Rarely occurs early in process
How to Apply:
Question what motivates the desire and how it will make you feel
Explore why the forbidden is attractive, and explore cognitive restrictions
Habituation exercise: list forbidden/restricted foods and choose which foods to start with and then reflect on the experience
Principle 4: Challenge the food police
Identify and question the inner all-or-nothing/catastrophizing voice
Must be thin to be loved/accepted voice
Disconnects from autonomy and trust
How to Apply:
When clients make binary/pessimistic or restrictive statements rephrase using facts and the client’s experience to demystify
With dietary restrictions such as veganism question whether this stems from rules or moral values
Principle 5: Discover satisfaction factor
Reconnection with culture, act of eating, food preferences, presence while eating
Identifying what would be satisfying in a meal: taste, texture, aroma, temperature, appearance and volume
How to Apply:
Sensory Satiation Exercise (SSE): eat a single food while moderately hungry and reflect on how the flavor, smell, texture or appearance changed/diminished → to identify the end of the meal/comfortable satiation
Principle 6: Feel your fullness
Requires trust that you will give yourself the foods you desire
Rarely discussed early on d/t signal interference
How to Apply:
Water test to help understand what full feels like
Use a hunger-satiation scale and pause to assess while eating
Teach factors that influence satiation like frequency/type, environment, conditions, trauma, medicines, stress, sleep
Principle 7: Cope with your feelings with kindness
Eating is emotional
Eating emotions can stem from: primal hunger, food rules, self-soothing, lacking self-care
We avoid feeling our bodies with dieting
How to Apply:
Ensure basic needs are met
Guide them through observation of emotions and self-compassion
Use distractions - neurodivergent population who struggle with interoception
Grounding exercises
Principle 8: Respect your body
Treat body with respect through honoring needs
Recognize the additional challenge present with illness, disability or marginalized groups experiencing oppression
How to Apply:
Explore gratitude
Meet basic needs, comfortable clothes, experiences of being in one’s body
Demystify BMI and relationship to weight scale
Discuss body diversity, genetics, the body as more than its appearance
Body image spectrum
NEVER make it about the practitioner !
Principle 9: Movement - feel the difference
Many benefits of movement beyond weight
How to Apply:
Recognize barriers to movement and bias
Explore benefits separate from weight
Emphasize rest and recovery in conjunction
Connect with body sensations during movement and how it feels
Principle 10: Honor your health - gentle nutrition
Aiming for better health is a personal choice and not an obligation
How to Apply:
Explore connection between food choices and body sensations
Explore values/motivations
Integrate variety with SSE and aim for moderation based on internal cues
Counseling definition
The Counseling Process:
Counseling: time-limited relationship in which counselors help clients increase their ability to deal with the demands of life.
The Counseling Process:
Establishing relationship
Assessment
Setting goals
Interventions
Termination & follow-up
10 Common Counseling Errors
Rigidity & one size fits all approach
Insufficient attention to the counselor-client relationship
Advice giving
Absence of core conditions (empathy, attending, genuineness)
Missing opportunities from non-verbal communication
Loss of objectivity and judgemental responses
Pacing problems (too fast, too slow)
Inappropriate use of self-disclosure
Rescuing, false reassurance, minimizing problems
Cultural insensitivity
Counseling response definitions:
Active listening
Reflection (empathizing)
Affirmation
Active listening = creating ambiance for meaningful communication, giving individual attention to clients, most behaviors of active listening are non-verbal
Reflection (empathizing) = rephrasing the affective (feelings) part of a message.
Affirmation = type of reflection, positive statement regarding one’s character or values that acknowledges strengths and efforts. Essentially points out a job well done.
Directing definitions
Advice definitions
Allowing silence definitions
Self-disclosing definitions
Directing = telling a client exactly what needs to be done
Advice = providing possible solutions to problems when there is a clear understanding.
Allowing silence = allows to gather thoughts, used when client needs space for internal reflection and self-analysis.
Self-disclosing = sharing information about self to reveal current feelings, concerns, ideas, etc. Should not shift the focus from the client to the counselor.
Mirroring definition
Paraphrasing (summarizing) definition
Clarifying/Probing definition
Confrontation/Noting discrepancies definition
Mirroring = repeating what is heard with a few words changed (important to not overdo).
Paraphrasing (summarizing) = reflective skill on content and thoughts, involves rephrasing the content (not a word-for-word repetition), can state thoughts from a different angle.
Clarifying/Probing = to encourage more elaboration from the client, clear up vague and confusing messages. Why? etc
Confrontation/Noting discrepancies = addressing inconsistencies that come with resistance to making lifestyle changes.
