Vanessa: 0:08

hi, I'm Vanessa. I'm a registered dietician. Today we're going to talk to Emily of Emily Rae Wellness about intuitive eating. Emily is a registered dietician who specializes in intuitive eating and health at every size. Emily is also a yoga teacher and ethical vegan. Emand I were roommates in college where we studied dietetics at Michigan State University and spent literally every waking moment together for two years. We're still, somehow not sick of each other. Em, now lives in Portland, Oregon I reside in Michigan, but don't worry. We're in almost constant contact. And we decided that our conversations were just too juicy to only be shared between us. So we're going to share some of our conversations with you today. So let's get after it. Hey, Em.

Emily: 0:54

Hi.

Vanessa: 0:55

So let's start with the basics of intuitive eating. What does intuitive eating mean?

Emily: 1:01

Okay. So the foundations of intuitive eating center, mainly right around the idea of rejecting the diet mentality. So there's 10 guiding principles technically, but they're really similar and all work together. The basics are, we use our intellect when we're looking at gentle nutrition, health definitely matters and intuitive eating, which we're going to talk about a lot today. We look at our instinct, so what are we craving that day for food different groups of food, or if we want dessert, if we don't want dessert, et cetera, and then desires to guide her food choices. So usually the first thing that we kind of work on is establishing hunger and fullness cues just to connect with the body. And then we'll go from there based on what each person needs on their journey.

Vanessa: 1:42

So when you say gentle nutrition, what do you mean by that?

Emily: 1:46

Yeah, so gentle nutrition is basically. We really need gentle nutrition because we're getting like aggressive nutrition right now. The theme, like nobody needs to be told, like you should eat more vegetables or you should eat more fruit. And people have a lot of guilt about that. Yeah. In intuitive eating, when you first start it, you might have different food rules and different kind of binge restrict cycles that were moving past. So eventually once we heal that relationship with food, we bring in gentle nutrition. If you, for example, see that options are white rice or Brown rice, and you use your intellect to think, okay, Brown rice probably is a little more nutritious than white rice, but do I really want that today? And you let that interplay with your cravings and what you're actually wanting mentally from your food. Some days Brown rice, no big deal. It's a little bit healthier. Why not pick it apply some gentle nutrition some days you're like, no, I want rice white rice. And then, we go with that and you pick something else nutritious later to eat. So it's really just like a less aggressive form of nutrition.

Vanessa: 2:52

Yeah, versus kind of the standard, or maybe even what we would have learned in school. That's like always pick the Brown rice, like never white rice is the devil it's gonna spike your blood sugar brown only.

Emily: 3:05

Yeah, totally. It's just basically like more of the gray area of Nutrition. And it's not we're not vilifying one specific food or the other, because we know that a very diet is what's the most important part. Totally.

Vanessa: 3:21

So do you think that everybody like intuitive eating is for everybody?

Emily: 3:29

Yeah. So one quick disclaimer, is that if you're currently struggling with an eating disorder, it's probably not going to be your first step in treatment, just because you lose hunger and fullness cues, and it's, we're trying to trust the body so if you have something going on where your, a little bit out of your body and you're learning those cues again it's not indicated, but for basically every other person, everyone can. Can benefit from some kind of intuitive eating journey. And you might start off where you're like, Oh, I already know hunger and fullness cues, and I already have this and this. And we go right to making peace with food or working on emotional eating or something like that. But yeah, I think everybody can benefit from it a little bit. Cause we all have some sort of disorder thought around food at the end of the day.

Vanessa: 4:14

And so you mentioned instinct as a big guiding principle, too. What would you say to someone because, and I'm sure this comes up for you, people that are like, I don't have good instincts. If I'm left to my own devices, I'm just going to pick the wrong, I'm doing air quotes, wrong thing.

Emily: 4:34

Yeah. Yeah. So at that point, You are saying that you don't really have trust in yourself of your food choices. And usually it's from a lifetime of restricting and being like, okay, I can't have cookies because if I'm around them, I'll eat all of them. Of course you will because you never let yourself eat any. So wouldn't anyone want to eat like a million cookies when they finally get their hands on them. So there's a lot of different like nuanced things and. It's very complex, which is why you should work with someone individually. But that's yeah, normally it's people just don't have their self-trust built up enough to know that they won't always make that choice.

Vanessa: 5:08

Yeah. And Something else in this kind of goes along with the instinct is when people say they feel out of control, so they feel out of control with a certain food, or maybe they feel out of control in certain settings. So they feel like they have to either eliminate things completely from their diet or maybe exclude themselves from certain activities, because they're afraid that activity is going to lead to them being out of control. How do you talk to clients that feel out of control and also what what kind of things do you most often hear people are out of control with? Like what food that's

Emily: 5:47

That's a good one. So okay. To answer the first question out of control is something that people say so often with food and, I try to really dig a little deeper. This is why it's great to like also work with a mental health professional to when you're starting intuitive eating because. A lot of the times people are feeling out of control in general and food is something they can control. So sometimes, that's what it is. Or people just feel like they have like less faith in themselves. And they're like, of course I'm gonna like freak out around food. Like my whole life is falling apart. That kind of thing. So sometimes it's that, it's the restrict and the binge cycle. So you might feel out of control about the food, just because it's always been a rule that you can't have it. Another thing is. We call it primal hunger and intuitive eating. Everyone's been there when, like you get home for a really long day and you're like, I could eat like anything in this kitchen. Like I'm gonna eat this whole bag of chips before you even eat dinner. So if you're hungry, if you're meal level hungry and you pull out a bag of chips or carton of ice cream, you're going to want 500 calories worth of ice cream or chips. It's just. You're gonna you're hungry. So sometimes that can lead to people feeling out of control when they're just like choosing maybe not the most nourishing things to eat when they're super, super hungry. And then when we have food rules, everything's it's all this food is on a pedestal and it has power over us. That's why we start to use like exposure therapy and. Re-introduce the food back to people. And hopefully that can help them feel a little bit more in control and a little bit more like not even control, but just aware of what's actually happening with the food. Yeah. And then also the foods that people tend to feel like that about cake is a huge one, or like donuts at the office food is like a number one, especially because people feel a lot of judgment with that. And all your office workers, your coworkers are like, Oh my God, I'm can't eat that. I'm going to be good today. Or wow. I can't believe you're eating three donuts.

Vanessa: 7:40

I'm going to be good today. Oh, I would love to get rid of that statement

Emily: 7:46

And it's harmful. People like don't realize that it really, it hurts people. I've had these conversations with people where they're like, this has contributed to me having all these disordered thoughts about food because I'm around it. So constantly and people are perpetuating it. So even if like you're not having that problem. And you're just offhandedly saying that you're causing harm.

Vanessa: 8:06

For sure. And I can relate even like when people in the past, now I'm working from home, but in the office when people would bring donuts in or some kind of treat, especially as a dietician, if you would say no, no, I don't feel like that today. People jump on you and then they immediately take cues from you. Oh, you're not having it. You're being like, Oh, you're just so healthy. And it would be like, no, I like donuts. I just. Don't want one right now, but thank you. So there's even pressure, like from the other direction, if you don't take it too,

Emily: 8:40

I think, and I think that's honestly like the reason why we picked this topic for our episode, because people really think, and we talk a lot about it because. Usually people don't have quite as fraught a relationship with vegetables as they do with like sugar or white flour and stuff. So there really typically isn't like a restricted binge cycle for kale. That's just not really happening. So which would also be really bad for you. Honestly don't even want to know what happened.

Vanessa: 9:09

I'm actually interested. So maybe you can tell me and

Emily: 9:12

we'll talk about that later that's for sure. Yeah. People are constantly like like all you care about is just making people eat whatever they want. Yeah, but you don't really realize that what you want. Isn't going to always be like donuts and cake. It's just not, if you ate that for every meal, you probably wouldn't want to see another donut for the rest of your life.

Vanessa: 9:34

It was like me and rice cakes. My sophomore year,

Emily: 9:38

I eat rice,

Vanessa: 9:41

many rice cakes. I literally, I have no interest. I almost think I'll never want a rice cake again. I don't know. Maybe they'll grow on me, but. It's done with them for many years. It's already many years.

Emily: 9:55

That's it's, that's really food habituation where it's like, when you have it. So many times that shine loses it because a lot of the times it's not even to do with tastes like. I have people who weren't allowed ice cream, except for special occasions growing up and guess what food they struggle with today, ice cream, because they're still in that mindset that they learned. And like formative years when they were young that they can't have it. So then it just it's setting them up for. Kind of a negative relationship with food.

Vanessa: 10:24

And I think it makes it so much harder for so many people, since a lot of us in our formative years, we, those food rules were set for us. So we don't necessarily have a choice thinking back. I'm really thankful. Our, my mom was very liberal about food. She, you know, have whatever, if you want that piece of cake, you can have it. And her thought process was like, if they have too many, they're not going to feel good and they're not going to do that again. And I'm super thankful for that. But that definitely, wasn't the message in a lot of households, I think.

Emily: 11:01

Yeah. I think the most common thing I hear and I think everyone can really resonate with is the like, Oh, you've got to eat all your food. You have to clean your plate. That's like such a huge one. My husband I know had that growing up and it's like the best of intentions, something to really make sure to mention because parents are just trying to help their children. They're thinking that they're doing the right thing by restricting certain foods. And it's not a normal practice to be like, no trust your kid. Like they know what's going on. And they know when they're going to be done with the food, when they're full, when they're hungry it's just usually not convenient for parents or sometimes again, you want to control something, maybe you struggle with your relationship with food. So you want to make sure that your kids, or maybe you struggle with your weight and you want to make sure your kids don't gain a bunch of weight or something. That's something that we see a lot too.

Vanessa: 11:51

Yeah. And that makes sense from the parents' perspective and I'm sure they just don't realize how much harm them pausing.

Emily: 11:58

Yeah. 100%. It's always, almost always has good intentions.

Vanessa: 12:03

So do you think so people are probably wondering too, as they listened to this, should I just listen to every craving that I have?

Emily: 12:13

Yeah, so this kind of it's, so it's so different and nuanced for everyone. But, so it's a hard question, but ultimately yes. Especially at the beginning of your intuitive eating journey, it really means breaking those food rolls and allowing previously forbidden foods back in you're going to have a compensatory reaction where. If you haven't allowed yourself to have white rice, the first time you get your hands on it, you're gonna be like, Oh my God, this is amazing. And I always tell people when you are allowing those forbidden foods back in, do it, and as time and place, when you're feeling like moderately hungry, you're not going to attack whatever's in front of you and you can be mindful about it. I've had some people who are like, Oh my God, I restricted cake for 20 years. And then now I actually found out I don't even like it. I've had that with a few different foods. Like you don't even realize that you don't like something that you've been like afraid of eating this whole time. So yeah, people should listen to their cravings and eventually you're going to strike a balance. And this is where if you're struggling with it and can't strike a balance and can't figure it out, that's when you need to see someone a practitioner like an anti dietician that can help you with it. But eventually I think the most important piece of this is. And intuitive eating the framework is we have work food and we have play food. So play food is if we say junk food, it's like a taboo thing and intuitive eating because nothing is like just leaving your body and getting, nutrients, if you eat a candy bar that has peanut butter. Like you're still getting peanut butter. No, one's saying that's the most nutritious theory eat all day, but it's not like your body's just Oh, throw that away or open there's 10 pounds for every candy bar you eat. So when we have like your work food, which is like, The main basis of your growth, you want to make sure you have enough calcium. So you have strong bones. You want to make sure that you have enough protein, so you can build muscle. All of those things are a huge piece of the puzzle. But if we were to try to make ourselves eat like that all the time, it would be like working, A hundred hours a week. So if we can invite some of that play food in, then it keeps things exciting and we're able to honor the cravings and you might be eating a lot more play food in the beginning of your intuitive eating journey, but it will level off once you Start to get used to it and release some food rules.

Vanessa: 14:19

Yeah. I was going to ask about that too. Like going in with self-trust and things. It's so interesting. How so many people automatically think if they listened to all of their cravings that's going to be, all cake and ice cream versus, I guess maybe we just think of cravings as craving those kinds of things versus more nutrient dense foods.

Emily: 14:41

And you have to ask yourself, like at every step and then to the eating journey, why like, why do you immediately think you're going to eat so much of that food? Why do you feel out of control around that food? And then even, like, why are you worried that this is going to be this way? Cause there's usually some kind of like underlying thing. And that's why people Seek therapy alongside their intuitive eating journey a lot too, because things can come up. I usually I've had a lot of clients who we leave sessions feeling really empowered towards every choice. They start like making drawing boundaries in their personal relationships and realizing like, Hey, I get to decide when I'm hungry, when I'm full and what my sister-in-law's allowed to say to me. And stuff like that. That's like a cool side effect or like I've had some people who are like, I just feel so much. Renewed energy towards a social justice. Cause I really care about because you start to feel like counter culture, like anti-establishment with it, which I love that obviously.

Vanessa: 15:36

Well, and so empowering to versus like just going through your head in a cycle of, I can't eat this, I can't eat that. I need to do this. I need to do that. Versus just trusting what you're feeling in that moment.

Emily: 15:49

Yeah. And don't get me wrong. Men struggle with eating issues too, for sure. But, for women it's like how much brain space is that taking up? And what could you do if you didn't have to think for 20 hours a day about your body and what you're going to eat next?

Vanessa: 16:03

Or having conversations about that.

Emily: 16:05

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Vanessa: 16:09

So I'm interested. Cause I actually don't really know this. Do you think you've always been an intuitive eater or was that something that you had to learn as you, got into our field and started specializing in intuitive eating?

Emily: 16:26

Yeah. So I think that there's definitely. No, I don't think I always was. I think that, college was not really like an introspective time of like self-growth, it was more like learning everything about dietetics and like a lot of Hard fun. So I think that once I left college and thought a little bit more deeply about things, but honestly, even it was after I like got my credential that I really started becoming interested in this. And I took Evelyn Triboli's intuitive eating training, but the first thing that. Really struck me about intuitive eating was I would eat a pint of ice cream, like no problem, like always. And I never was like feeling guilty about it. I've never really had like guilt around food or anything, but I wasn't really tasting it and intuitive eating. We talk a lot about mindful eating, slowing down and figuring out like, what's the texture of your food. What's the taste. And I was missing that. So the first time I started applying intuitive eating to like different foods, doing exercises, with myself, the ice cream thing was so huge because I realized, wait, like after a few bites, all I'm tasting is cold. Like I'm not even getting flavors anymore. Really. And so it doesn't mean that I like ice cream any less. It just means that one I'm actually paying attention. I don't want so much. And that's not the goal of intuitive eating. It's we're finding out different things. Sometimes I realize I want more so it's important to say that, you really just start to learn things about yourself, even if it's like a concept that you're familiar with doing the activities is really helpful.

Vanessa: 17:58

Yeah, for sure. I remember you calling me and telling me about some of those activities and then trying them myself too. And I would say that maybe I was, I'm more of a have been in not, not an expert for sure, but leaned more towards intuitive eating. Wouldn't feel guilty towards things or anything like that, but it's truly amazing how when you stop and you just become, even if you thought you were mindful before. If you just become very mindful of what's going on in your mouth and you know how you're feeling it's crazy the things you don't notice normally.

Emily: 18:37

Yeah. And I think like with a lot of patients, I'll do they'll do mindful meal exercises where they'll just, it's more of like it's, if you're just starting out with that, trying to keep it really like small and not overwhelming. So you're. Trying out at a good time when you can really sit, look at your food, notice different things about it. Like color smell, even like weird kind of things like, yoga teacher too. So it's like that, like mindfulness comes in pretty easily. And my practice as a dietician too, but. So when you're looking at all of those things, then you start to eat it. What are the tastes, textures all those different aspects of the food. And if you can really follow that, as you continue to take more bites and focus in on it, you'll get some information that you might not have gotten. If you were just like watching, Grey's anatomy and like zoning out. It's just totally different. Yeah. Those things will taste totally different. And you might not do that every time. No, one's asking you to sit there quietly and stare at your food. Like every time it's like a muscle, you're just working it out. Like I'll tell people, try to do it a few times this week and then let's see what you learn. And then we can apply it from there.

Vanessa: 19:43

So something people are also probably wondering is what if you gain weight while you're eating intuitively, does that mean you're doing something wrong? Are you doing something right?

Emily: 19:54

Yeah, so intuitive eating and weight loss. We're putting weight loss on the back burner because we're really trying to do is get to the internal cues of hunger and fullness. So if we start to stray away from that That's a no. And if a negative, like external cue would be your, my fitness pal or whatever trash calorie app that you might have downloaded. And you're going to see that and be like, Oh I've eaten all my calories for today. Can't eat anymore. Because of my weight loss goal that I have plugged in here that isn't fearing directly with intuitive eating, so important distinction. You can want to lose weight still. And. Try intuitive eating. Most people want to lose weight. It's very difficult to stop yourself from wanting to lose weight because we're so conditioned to this. I'm not asking that at anybody, we're just asking if you can put that on the back burner a little bit and focus, firstly, on your relationship with food and how you're feeling. So some people might gain weight while they're eating intuitively if they were far off from their set point if they were under eating a ton beforehand some people might stay the same. Some people might, may lose weight because it just depends where your metabolic set point is. And what your habits were before. So there's no guarantees in any direction. And. Even if you're on some weight loss plan, there's no guarantees with that either. No matter how much they try to convince you that.

Vanessa: 21:20

Yeah. We all know that there's there's always a quick weight loss plan. We haven't seen one that works terribly well yet. So still waiting.

Emily: 21:30

Yes. I mean, studies will show that like over 90% of people regain all the way, if they lose within five years. And also another thing, if your diet helps you lose weight, but then you put it all back on after the diets over it, then that means that it didn't work, quote unquote, because you just gained it all back and it's not your fault. People really it's so hard because you can't blame any individual. We're all just victims of the system. And they, people internalize that and say, Oh I was off the diet. I'm off keto. Look at me. I can't believe I did have no willpower. And I just went back to my old ways, no, it's just cause you're off of that. So they're meant to be like that.

Vanessa: 22:10

So speaking of diets like keto and all of our other trendy diets, do you think intuitive eating is just another trend like those things?

Emily: 22:22

Yeah. So it's funny because intuitive eating has been around a while, but just gained more popularity recently. I think it was due to some celebrities doing it. I don't know. But anyways, I'm glad for that. I think that, yeah. It's definitely having a moment right now, but I think that, the creators Elise Ruch and Evolent Tripoli just gave a name to our natural way of eating. It's. These are things that we're born with. And like we mentioned a little bit before about kids, kids eat and they stop when they're full and they eat when they're hungry. and they don't naturally restrict foods. They look at a variety of foods and choose what they want to eat and go about their day. And there's not a lot of stress involved in it. And. Not a lot of like neurosis over the choices and everything else. So I think that, yeah, it's definitely a trend right now, but the process and the principles are not something that are new. maybe just the pieces about diet culture and how we're trying to stray away from that. Just because in an age with social media, it's a struggle to get away from that. So you know, they talk a little bit about that, but yeah, I think it's just really a return to your natural rhythm and a return to your body.

Vanessa: 23:39

And I'm curious too, what's your favorite trendy diet? Favorite? I mean the one you like the least,

Emily: 23:47

I really kind of there's just so many to pick from. I hate Noom. Noom is like horrible because it's super insidious. They're like, we're not a diet, but eat less food for weight loss. Okay. Like your diet, that one, like I really struggle with. But I think even though I feel as though it's less popular lately, but intermittent fasting is another rough one because It's so counter intuitive and it's so the opposite of what you're supposed to be doing for your body. Like not listening when you're hungry. And Eating all your food in between. It's just so unnatural that, that one, I think, takes the cake on like the harm. And there's like a lot of research out there. That's showing that it's not a great plan.

Vanessa: 24:29

I'm curious if you know this or not. Did you might. Did you know that I at one time in my life followed a paleo diet? And early college I was paleo. And I want to say I'm so surprised that you don't remember this because I want to say, I think I may have told you that when we first met and for some reason, I would just think you would have committed that to memory,

Emily: 24:54

God, I can't remember

Vanessa: 24:59

Any little secret exposed to everyone.

Emily: 25:02

How long did you do it for?

Vanessa: 25:04

I was probably doing it from maybe like my senior year of high school till sometime of early college.

Emily: 25:12

Why were you doing it?

Vanessa: 25:15

It was definitely weight loss motivated. Yeah. I just wanted my body to look a certain way and and I was still never happy with it. And I look back at pictures and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I was very, but I was like, always need to be thinner. Need to be one more ab.

Emily: 25:38

Yeah. Never happy. Mean that's the thing like with all of those kind of diets, it's it doesn't really fix like whatever's going on. So it's even if, you think all your problems are going to go away because you lose 10 pounds. They're like, they're just not.

Vanessa: 25:52

And I would have crazy cravings for bread. Who doesn't love bread? I think you asked me recently what like what my favorite food would be or something, and I said warm bread with butter

Emily: 26:05

I mean, yeah, how is that not your favorite food?

Vanessa: 26:08

Honestly, I'm probably scarred from those years that I was following a paleo diet. Oh, yeah.

Emily: 26:14

Totally. I don't really think, like I'm trying to, I never followed any kind of diet, but I do remember in high school I would eat those like on days when I didn't go to the gym, I would eat those like weight Watchers, like chocolate, like popsicles. And I remember thinking like if I eat this, like it's pretty low in calories, so it'll be better than If I were going to eat ice cream on a day, I didn't work out like, definitely linking that whole thing together.

Vanessa: 26:40

Yeah. It's so toxic. And especially, you think of those times, and you're so young, like my senior year of high school, I'm 17 or 18 years old. And to be that worried about my body at that point is crazy.

Emily: 26:55

Yeah. And imagine how much space that's taking up and it's. It's not doing you any favors, that's for sure.

Vanessa: 27:02

That is 100% for sure. Thank you. Em, is there any, are there any secrets that you'd like to divulge while we're still on?

Emily: 27:11

I think my Weight Watchers chocolate bar was no, I think that's it. I think that. That pretty much covers it.

Vanessa: 27:24

All right. Thank you for listening everyone. If you are interested in more content from Emily and I, you can follow Emily at @emilyraewellness . You can follow myself at @nutritionforgals. Thanks Em. Bye bye.