Is intuitive eating the wrong path to weight loss? On this episode of "Tea with Tina," we challenge the status quo by breaking down the often misunderstood world of intuitive eating. Through candid discussions, we reveal why relying solely on dietitians and nutritionists might be holding you back, sharing real-life stories and personal insights that expose the gaps between academic advice and practical success. We critique outdated dietary guidelines like the food pyramid and "my plate" model, making a strong case for a more personalized approach to health and fitness that takes individual lifestyle factors into account.
We also spotlight Stephanie, a dedicated lab professional with a history of eating disorders, who embarked on the precarious journey of resetting her hunger cues through unrestricted eating. Despite initial challenges, Stephanie's experience offers valuable lessons on the necessity of moderation and the potential dangers of ignoring cravings. We emphasize the importance of food tracking as a transitional tool to intuitive eating, providing practical advice on how to balance cravings, portion sizes, and nutritional content for a healthier lifestyle. Don't miss this eye-opening episode filled with tough love and actionable insights that could redefine your approach to eating and wellness.
Is intuitive eating the wrong path to weight loss? On this episode of "Tea with Tina," we challenge the status quo by breaking down the often misunderstood world of intuitive eating. Through candid discussions, we reveal why relying solely on dietitians and nutritionists might be holding you back, sharing real-life stories and personal insights that expose the gaps between academic advice and practical success. We critique outdated dietary guidelines like the food pyramid and "my plate" model, making a strong case for a more personalized approach to health and fitness that takes individual lifestyle factors into account.
We also spotlight Stephanie, a dedicated lab professional with a history of eating disorders, who embarked on the precarious journey of resetting her hunger cues through unrestricted eating. Despite initial challenges, Stephanie's experience offers valuable lessons on the necessity of moderation and the potential dangers of ignoring cravings. We emphasize the importance of food tracking as a transitional tool to intuitive eating, providing practical advice on how to balance cravings, portion sizes, and nutritional content for a healthier lifestyle. Don't miss this eye-opening episode filled with tough love and actionable insights that could redefine your approach to eating and wellness.
Welcome to the Tea with Tina, your favorite podcast, where we talk all things health, fitness, lifestyle and maybe a little bit of tea gets spilled. We chat all about this in a super casual environment. So grab your beverage of choice, sit back, relax and enjoy. Relax and enjoy. Hello friends, I have a little bit of a tea episode today. Get out your tea, start sipping it like Kermit. Okay, is that even trendy anymore? I don't know.
Speaker 1:
I feel like the tea became like a thing around COVID, like when COVID first started, maybe 2019, 2020. And it's like it's funny because that's when I started my podcast 2020. And it's like it's funny because that's when I started my podcast 2020. And I was like, oh, I want to do the tea with Tina. You know it has a nice ring to it and the Kermit sipping the tea and like people sipping the tea like that's none of my business was really popular and I feel like it's something that just like has been ingrained into our culture now and hopefully it's not going to go away. It's just like one of those things now that was trendy, but people accept it. I love it kind of. Okay, so we have that.
Speaker 1:
Anyways, the tea today is about why intuitive eating doesn't make you lose weight. This is going to be some tough love, but it's a reality check. For those of you who want to listen to your body, that's the biggest thing I hear with intuitive eating. I've actually seen a dietician talk about this. Guys, that could also be a whole another podcast episode. I'm going to give you a little mini story about this to get your gears turning, okay.
Speaker 1:
So obviously I'm an online health and fitness coach. I do in-person coaching as well, but obviously my range is limited if you're not near me. But when I talk with clients, a lot of them are like well, you know, my insurance improves, approves a nutritionist or a dietitian, so I'm gonna go with that and listen. Listen, just be careful. I'm not saying all dietitians are bad. They do go to school but I'm also saying that just because they go to school does not make them good at their job.
Speaker 1:
Okay, I feel like it's a repeat of what we see in kind of crappy doctors you know, it's very textbook and I see it in trainers too, personal trainers. There's this chunk of them that are very textbook, and here's the problem with textbooks. I love that. They train you know and teach you things and science and you follow things. But humans rarely, rarely ever, follow textbook.
Speaker 1:
And why is that? Because there's so many factors that come into play of why a human is the way they are, and I believe that's why doctors fail, and I believe that's why dieticiansians fail, and that's where I try to close the gap in my coaching, because, let's say, you go into the doctors and your heart rate was 200 and you felt like you were having a panic attack and you go into the ER and then they're just like oh yeah, we ran blood work, everything's fine, you know you can leave bye, okay, why didn't they ask you about your lifestyle? Why didn't they ask you about your lifestyle? Why didn't they ask you have you been stressed out lately? Do you have any underlying conditions? They're not asking the right questions. They don't ask deep-rooted questions because it all comes into play.
Speaker 1:
I realized that our stress and our daily lives are the root that branches out and affects our health and fitness, and a lot of it we aren't aware of until we kind of peel back the layers right, and that's kind of what brought this episode about. So I see it with dietitians. I've heard so many horror stories. You know they give them the food pyramid as a guide. Like okay, you're paying this person money to say, follow the food pyramid, which is still kind of like BS, the food pyramid or whatever. It's not even a food pyramid anymore. It's a plate right, my plate, or whatever it's based off of, like a sedentary person who doesn't work out. Even then, the requirements aren't that great. I think like 60 grams of protein is a goal. Like no, we need more than 60 grams of protein. It's like 2000 calories. Not everybody needs to eat 2000 calories. Depends on your height, your age, your weight, your activity level. So again, a lot of factors that are coming into play that are just being dismissed like very blanket terms.
Speaker 1:
I heard another person. They said that their dietician told them throw everything in a wrap. That's how you'll hit your goals. You know, whatever you want to eat, just throw it into a wrap, make a wrap. And I'm like what? What kind of garbage advice is this? And then the other one told me that, yeah, 50 grams of protein max. Like if you do any more more, your kidneys are gonna shut down.
Speaker 1:
I'm like this person went to college for at least four years and had to test an exam. What so? Yeah, no, there's. I again can get really into this guys, but just beware, beware, I will stand by. I mean, obviously there's a spectrum. I've met plenty of trainers who have like masters, even doctorates, and they kind of suck right, like they don't know, like they're really good with the data and the numbers and maybe running like a research study, but they suck when it comes to like one-to-one people, the people skills really getting to the nitty gritty, like they can you know, run off some facts in a book. I've met some really smart and great people who've gone to college, right, and they know their shit. And then I've seen people who have no certifications but are amazing trainers. And of course I've seen people with no certifications that are terrible trainers. So there is a spectrum, but just you know, know that just because they have a college degree does not necessarily mean that they know what they're talking about, just from the horror stories I've heard from my clients.
Speaker 1:
Okay, but I wanted to talk about this intuitive eating because, again, one of the dietitians that I knew that came into one of the gyms I used to work at. She gave a presentation about intuitive eating. Her backstory, I believe, was that she came from. I don't know if it was an eating disorder, because this was a couple years ago. She might have had diabetes, like type 1 diabetes or something, and she just wanted to do intuitive eating. But she was thin, okay, and a lot of people who praise intuitive eating are thin right.
Speaker 1:
And intuitive eating is listening to your body's natural hunger cues, to know when to eat right. Because I know a lot of people that are like oh well, I'm just not hungry in the morning, I don't want to force food down my throat and I'm just not hungry, but I have to force myself to eat. And here's my problem with that. Okay, remember how I was talking about that. Health and fitness is deeper than surface level, right, right, there's other things that happen. I believe intuitive eating is flawed. Now there's going to be a way to do intuitive eating, but I'll tell you what that is later.
Speaker 1:
I believe it's flawed in the fact that when we listen to our hunger cues, if we just jump into it from like a chaotic lifestyle, we're stressed, we're running with the kids, we get crappy sleep, we're eating all this food at 7 pm or 8 pm and then we wake up and we're not hungry. That's weird. You just ate like a thousand calories last night in potato chips and Ben and Jerry's. I wonder why you wake up not hungry, right? So it's because the natural hunger cues we're feeling, if we listen to our bodies, it's not going to be accurate. Okay, it's not going to be accurate, which is why most people should not do intuitive eating right off the bat.
Speaker 1:
Our hunger cues are not reliable. They are wonky for many reasons. It could be our blood sugar levels are dysregulated because we get that blood sugar crash, because maybe we're eating way too many carbs and sugars and not enough protein and healthy fats. Stress could be a component. We could be on certain medications that mess with our hunger cues. Again, there's a lot of different factors that come into play.
Speaker 1:
We need to deduce this so we know, right, there's many times that you have to kind of eat past your hunger and retrain your body to experience natural hunger cues. So, pretty much going against what intuitive eating says, you know in a deficit you might have to push past hunger and then your body kind of adjusts and sometimes we have to eat when we're not hungry to retrain our body to want food at certain times. I see this with breakfast. All the time, people who don't eat breakfast I said can we put a protein shake in your coffee? Can we eat some berries like something light? Let's get this going right. So we have that. Here's another thing Intuitive eating actually isn't intended for weight loss. It's intended to again kind of tune into your body's natural hunger cues. So I'm not saying that it's never going to work, you know, but here's what happens.
Speaker 1:
If you want an example of exactly what happens when you intuitively eat which I guarantee you 99% of you would not be willing to do because it's rough look up Stephanie Buttermore on YouTube. She's a little wonky right now, she's a little strange, but I think a couple years ago she did this like this intuitive eating journey, because she was very, very lean and she was hungry all the time and I think she has a history of eating disorders. So proceed with caution. Um, she is, um, married to Jeff Nippard, who is a very highly respected man in the community, the fitness community, the science-based community. You know they do actually have I believe both of them have PhDs, so they're both doctors.
Speaker 1:
Stephanie works more in like a lab setting, but, you know, well respected, but I think she kind of had an underlying history of eating disorders that she doesn't really talk about or maybe doesn't want to face. Necessarily. I don't know if she's ever been open about it. From what I've seen with her she hasn't been. But she did this thing when she was, like, I said, very skinny, and she would do these like funny YouTube videos where she's like I'm going to eat 10,000 calories in one sitting and she could like no issues and she's like so I'm kind of sick of living like this, so what if I just literally ate what my body wanted? And then would it like level out? Right, and she did. Apparently, I think she worked with a professional in this and she shared her journey. It was very interesting, but this is what happened and it does make sense. But again, I don't think any of you guys would be willing to do this.
Speaker 1:
Okay, she gained a shit ton of weight, okay, again, which is not bad, but like so this is kind of what happens, right, our hunger cues are thrown off, so she was able to eat whatever she wanted. She's like I was eating like 5,000 calories a day and she did. She let her body do it. She got very bloated, inflamed, she had to buy bigger clothes. Again, I don't think at any point she was like super overweight, but she put on a considerable amount of weight for her frame and again she was that puffy, bloated, but eventually her hunger levels kind of leveled out and they, they're like okay, like we, we had enough food, we know what like real hunger is now. So, like you know, they're kind of out of whack. It's like give me everything and then you give it everything at once, and then it balances out and and this was over months, right, this didn't happen in a couple weeks, this was months, and it was rough for her. She struggled with the body image, the weight gain, but she did it and she documented it. It's very interesting and it did level out.
Speaker 1:
Now, however, towards the end, when she started to lean out again, I think she went back to her possible eating disorder tendencies. That's where the fine line, that's where it's a little murky, a little bit of gray water. I don't know if she just was like screw this, this isn't working, and she went back to dieting, um, or it actually did work and maybe her hunger cues were better. It's hard to say, but you know, up until a certain point it did work for her, okay, and that's pretty much what would happen if you do have messed up hunger cues and you're just like I just want to eat a cheesecake right now, like that's what would happen.
Speaker 1:
That's why I encourage people when you want to eat something if we regularly include it in our diet in small intervals. So, basically this on a much smaller scale. Um, we won't crave it as much, right? Like if you eat ice cream a couple times, you know, in a month or whatever, instead of being like I could never have ice cream ever again, your mind around it is going to be so much better. Your cravings are going to go down. If you regularly incorporate sweet and salty things throughout your day in little portions where it allows you to still stay on track with your goals, you will not face those weird cravings. You won't be late night snacking, so you eat so much that you don't feel hungry in the morning. So, on a smaller scale, that helps us kind of balance it out. But here's the catch we still have to be able to track what we're eating, right, because how are we going to know if we're overeating or undereating? We need control, okay, and this takes so my next part about this, I believe, to be able to intuitively eat, for most of us Okay, especially if you're somebody who struggles with hunger cues and you don't know how much you should be eating and you feel like you binge eat and late night snack like if that's you.
Speaker 1:
You need to take some time to learn to track your macros and calories. Why? Because it is a tool, is not a diet. I'm going to bash this into your macros and calories. Why? Because it is a tool. It is not a diet. I'm going to bash this into your head until it sticks. It gives you information on what you're eating, literally. If you just tracked what you ate right now, it would give you so much data you could see oh, this is how much protein I'm eating. Wow, I'm really like missing the mark. Oh, this is how many carbs. This is how many fats.
Speaker 1:
Tracking macros has been so eye-opening for me, especially when I weigh out things, because it gives me a visual of like oh, so this is what I need to eat to hit my goals. Like if I hit my calorie goals, this is the amount of food I need to eat. This is what you know. 30 grams of protein looks like. This is what, how many calories. Like I can have more bang for my buck. Like if I eat 200 calories I can get all this food volume and then maybe this little you know chicken nugget meal is going to be like way more and it doesn't keep me full. So there's a lot of patterns that happen that you learn from tracking. I would say, take at least a good six months, even a year, to track, and it doesn't have to be every day perfectly but pretty consistently, because then you're going to learn, you're going to see and you're going to, like I said, know what a portion is, learn more about the food you're putting into your body. That way, the transition point would be to intuitively eat, because now that you have the knowledge of to intuitively eat Because now that you have the knowledge of you know a serving size and balancing your meals and what foods make a balanced diet you know when you intuitively eat. Now you have that knowledge and then your hunger cues will be a lot more regulated and 99% of the time you'll be intuitively eating. That's kind of where I'm at. I will just loosely track, especially if I have new foods.
Speaker 1:
Like I'm in a weird mood. I don't know if any of you girls can relate, but like right before my period, I get really weird cravings, like certain food does not taste good to me, right, and this could be another barrier with the intuitive eating right, like certain foods. Like last week, I was just craving straight carbs, carbs, carbs, carbs. And sometimes this could be because you're not eating right. You need to check in. Like I think I wasn't getting enough protein because, like my meals were just all over the place. It was just from lack of planning and it was just a disaster. I wanted, like I was just snacking and I was like, oh my god, and I try to eat like a healthy meal. I was like this is disgusting and I'd throw it away, but I'm like I just loved this meal last week.
Speaker 1:
What's going on? So that can be a challenge. I know a lot of girls that face that. I still have no idea why that is. I know it's some sort of hormonal component. It's almost like when you're pregnant you have food aversions, right, so it's something to do with that. But, um, pretty much intuitively eat most of the time.
Speaker 1:
But then I loosely track for instances like that because I'm trying out different foods. Like I actually just made, um, a cookies and cream. Uh, overnight oat recipe. I found one on the internet, the protein profile sucked so I was like, let me make some adjustments. I don't want protein powder in my oats. And it came out really good and it was 38 grams protein instead of 20. So I did a really good job with that.
Speaker 1:
And that's the skills you can have when you track macros long enough. You get to know and you can build your own foods based off of recipes that you find on the internet. Excuse me, you can, um, just create more balanced meals. You can have fun with it and, like to me, it felt like I was curbing that craving that I've been having, not feeling disgusted about it, and I was still hitting my goals at the same time. So that's why I'm going to be loosely tracking just to make sure that I'm staying within my calorie range, hitting my protein goals, like I'm not too far under and I'm not going crazy over calories, right, but but yeah, I think that's gonna kind of wrap up my thoughts on intuitive eating.
Speaker 1:
So intuitive eating is not bad, but in the traditional sense. If you were to just hop onto this magic diet and like start eating, it would eventually work if you stuck with it. But you know, I would probably expect a lot of weight gain and then a level off, which I think most people aren't committed to do. So you're much better either just trying to incorporate more food you like in smaller doses throughout the day. Even then, you're still probably better off tracking calories and macros to make sure that you're eating the right amounts so you don't gain a ton of weight, or so you're not underfed and like lacking energy, wondering why you have all these crazy cravings and you're tired and hungry all the time. Right, we just gotta know. If you don't track it, you're never going to know. So numbers and data are power. All right, guys. So thanks for tuning into this episode. I hope you found it helpful, hopes it makes you think twice when you think about listening to your body and what to eat, and I will see you in the next one. Bye.