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Food & Fitness

Understanding EDs

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(Diet) Culture & Society

The term “intuitive eating” has entered the mainstream, and it’s easy to find influencers and self-proclaimed experts on social media touting its benefits. As explained on, say, TikTok, the idea is pretty straightforward: you eat exactly what and how much you feel like eating, listening to your body’s 

 as well as its cravings. But in reality, intuitive eating is much more complex—especially for those who have struggled with an eating disorder. Read on to learn the definition of intuitive eating, its risks and benefits, how it relates to eating disorder recovery, and more.

Often when people learn about intuitive eating for the first time, their response is something like this: “But if I allow myself to eat whatever I want, I’ll just eat donuts and French fries all day.” Indeed, there’s a common fear that without the structure of a diet plan or food rules, eating will start to feel out of control, and you’ll only choose “

.” But while intuitive eating does emphasize giving yourself permission to eat a wide variety of foods, including the fun foods you love, this doesn’t mean saying “screw it” and never eating a fruit or veggie again.

“Intuitive eating is a framework that helps people improve their relationship with food,” says registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor Jen Baswick. “Intuitive eating is all about unlearning and letting go of the external ‘rules’ taught to us by diet culture and re-learning your natural internal cues to let them guide your eating habits.”

Listening to and honoring your body’s cues instead of a diet (or eating disorder voice) is a foundational aspect of intuitive eating, but it’s not simply about eating when you’re hungry and stopping when you’re full—it’s a lot more nuanced than that. “Intuitive eating includes how and why we eat what we eat—preferences, nutrition, access, nervous system and health function—as well as our emotional relationship to food and even how we view physical activity,” shares eating disorder dietitian Tracy Brown, RD.

Developed in the 1990s by dietitians Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, intuitive eating includes 

Giving yourself unconditional permission to eat

Developing healthy coping strategies for emotions

Balancing eating for health and pleasure (AKA “gentle nutrition”)

The risks and benefits of intuitive eating

Intuitive eating is a practice that can have a powerful and positive domino effect in your relationships with food as well as life beyond the plate. In my own practice as a dietitian, I observe clients of all genders, ages, body sizes and diagnoses reaping numerous benefits of intuitive eating, and my colleagues in the space report seeing similar changes.

“Some of the benefits of intuitive eating include fostering more self-compassion, higher self-esteem, and more optimism,” Baswick says. “It’s also associated with a decrease in 

, preoccupation with food, food-related anxiety, and 

.” Research shows associations between intuitive eating and better 

However, intuitive eating can be a risk for people who struggle with eating disorders and try to go all in before they’re ready, or for those who don’t have the right support (like a dietitian and therapist) in place.

“Sometimes, people can jump right into intuitive eating without understanding that as soon as the container of their ‘diet’ is lifted, often big emotions can arise that they aren't prepared for, and a ‘whack-o-mole’ situation can happen,” explains Brown. “Like ‘if I’m not restricting, then I over-exercise.’” There are a number of different ways this might show up, but people should be on alert for compensatory behaviors—like compulsively working out—that arise once the 

For this reason and others, it’s critical that those in eating disorder recovery take baby steps toward intuitive eating. Doing this allows time for organ systems to heal, for the eating disorder voice to quiet, and for a person to become reconnected with their body.

There’s one more risk that merits a mention: the risk of intuitive eating getting warped by the forces of diet culture. I often catch this in my own practice, when intuitive eating starts to morph into a perfectionistic hunger-fullness diet. “The 

 and diet industry has now co-opted the term intuitive eating and uses it in a restrictive way surrounding weight loss, which it is not meant for,” Baswick says.

Who is intuitive eating for (and not for)?

Generally, intuitive eating is meant for every human, since we come out of the womb connected to our hunger and fullness cues. However, diet culture, disordered eating, or eating disorders can often sever our connections to our bodies and require us to re-learn how to get in touch with them through professional support.

“Some people will need guidance as anyone who has struggled with emotional under- or overeating has been disembodied for months or years,” Brown says, “and they’ll likely progress more efficiently and with less guessing and stress with someone offering feedback and a safe relationship.”.

According to Baswick, there are a few populations that may have a harder time practicing intuitive eating, such as those who are food insecure or have food allergies. “Using intuitive eating with populations who may have a more complicated relationship with food is not impossible, but should always be approached on a case-by-case individualized basis.”

Intuitive eating could also be a risk for someone with a metabolic condition, like diabetes or hypertension. “If someone who has diabetes wants to practice intuitive eating, they should get the support of a dietitian to help them understand how to use the principles of intuitive eating while also understanding how to keep their blood sugar managed well,” says Baswick.

Can intuitive eating fit into eating disorder recovery?

 shows a link between using intuitive eating principles on college campuses and improved eating disorder symptoms among students, versus using self-weighing and calorie counting. 

 evaluated an intuitive eating program in an eating disorder treatment center, finding an association with intuitive eating abilities and positive treatment outcomes.

In my clinical opinion, intuitive eating can be successfully and effectively used at any part of the eating disorder recovery process, as long as it's done so consciously and carefully. For example, I’ve had clients who are still 

, disconnected from internal cues, and still need to mechanically eat and follow meal plans closely; however, they can start to learn to practice permission with food (a foundational part of intuitive eating), within the structure of their plans. I’ve also had clients simply start to notice hunger and fullness cues (another critical step in intuitive eating) before and after meals without necessarily letting these cues guide eating habits yet. For clients further along in recovery, we work to move them away from meal plans and into alignment with their bodies.

“I believe that aspects of intuitive eating can be very complementary to eating disorder recovery, especially rejecting the diet mentality, making peace with food, and body respect, to name a few,” adds Baswick.

However, Brown, Baswick and I all agree that honoring hunger and fullness are two of the trickier intuitive treatment principles to follow early on in recovery. “It takes time to develop accurate interoception, or feeling hunger and fullness separated from emotions or trauma body memories,” Brown says. “People can and do get signals back, but accuracy builds as physical, emotional, and mental healing occurs.”

Baswick adds that gastroparesis (slowed stomach motility) and feelings of early fullness despite needing more food (which is common in anorexia) can complicate things. She also points out that the rigid thinking common in eating disorders can make the looser framework of intuitive eating tricky. “One danger is if a patient turns following their hunger and fullness cues into another restrictive pattern to follow,” she says. “This is why it's so important to work with a dietitian that specializes in eating disorder recovery and knows intuitive eating well to support people along their recovery journey.”

Whether you are in eating disorder recovery or are simply working on your relationship to food and body, intuitive eating offers a liberating alternative to the rigid, black-and-white thinking of diet culture and eating disorders. A departure from eating and living with self-control, judgment, and punishment, intuitive eating provides a nuanced, compassionate way of nourishing yourself from an embodied place of self-care, self-trust, and self-respect.

Linardon, Jake et al. “Intuitive eating and its psychological correlates: A meta-analysis.” The International journal of eating disorders vol. 54,7 (2021): 1073-1098. doi:10.1002/eat.23509

Hayashi, Lauren C et al. “Intuitive and mindful eating to improve physiological health parameters: a short narrative review of intervention studies.” Journal of complementary & integrative medicine, 10.1515/jcim-2021-0294. 16 Dec. 2021, doi:10.1515/jcim-2021-0294

Tylka, Tracy L et al. “Intuitive eating is connected to self-reported weight stability in community women and men.” Eating disorders vol. 28,3 (2020): 256-264. doi:10.1080/10640266.2019.1580126

Romano, Kelly A et al. “Helpful or harmful? The comparative value of self-weighing and calorie counting versus intuitive eating on the eating disorder symptomology of college students.” Eating and weight disorders : EWD vol. 23,6 (2018): 841-848. doi:10.1007/s40519-018-0562-6

Richards, P Scott et al. “Can patients with eating disorders learn to eat intuitively? A 2-year pilot study.” Eating disorders vol. 25,2 (2017): 99-113. doi:10.1080/10640266.2017.1279907

What Is Intuitive Eating? (And Can It Fit into Eating Disorder Recovery?)

Eating disorder recovery can be difficult any time of year, but navigating the holiday season—a time filled with food-centered celebrations—can be especially thorny. Thanksgiving in particular tends to be a challenging day for those struggling to improve their relationship to food or their bodies. In addition to the big meal and any distress that might cause, those working toward recovery might also have to interact with family members or friends who don’t fully understand or know about their recovery journey. Bracing for unsolicited and potentially hurtful comments 

 of an atypical meal can be tough—but there are things you can do to make the day more manageable and continue thriving in recovery.

“Thanksgiving is one of those holidays where disordered eating and thoughts are both prevalent and popular,” says Ally Duvall, Senior Program Development Lead at Equip

When comments around dieting, eating behaviors, or bodies come up, it can be hard to know what to say in the moment, especially when it comes from family members or friends.”

Here are some of the tried-and-true tips that Equip team members have for addressing 

 messaging and triggering comments during Thanksgiving:

“One thing you can do is practice making some boundary statements ahead of time, so that if those topics come up, you're prepared,” Duvall says. “Some of my favorites are: ‘I'm not comfortable talking about my body like this, please change the topic’; ‘I don't have to earn or compensate for the food I am eating’; ‘I'm trying to not talk about 

 or bodies this year. Would you like to try that with me?’”

Equip’s Director of Program Development, Tana Luo, PhD, says boundaries are an integral part of preparing for the holiday. “It can be helpful to cope ahead and role play with a trusted loved one about how you might respond if someone brings up weight or dieting at Thanksgiving,” she says. “Assert and honor your boundaries. Come up with a list of safe topics ahead of time that you can fall back on if the conversation turns to weight or dieting.”

Megan Hellner, DrPH, MPH, RD, CEDRD-S agrees that an important part of planning for the holidays includes setting boundaries with family members around appropriate and preferred discussion topics. “Engaging in talk about weight or body shape may be part of the family culture, but that doesn't mean we need to participate. If it's difficult to have those conversations directly, or you're afraid you may not be heard, ask a safe person to help you reach the family member in question,” she says. “Acknowledge that loved ones may be in a very different place as far as their relationship with food goes. This is not an excuse for engaging in diet talk, but it may be an explanation.”

Practice expressing your feelings in a positive way

One strategy Hellner recommends is implementing “I statements,” a style of communication that involves using the first person pronoun to convey emotions or address relationship issues.

One example Duvall suggests is: "I have a hard time staying present and enjoying the meal when the conversation goes toward weight loss. If it's important to talk about weight loss, can we agree to have those conversations when I'm not around? I would really appreciate the support with my recovery."

Additionally, if there are concerns about family members inquiring about your struggles with food or weight, Hellner says it’s perfectly fine to specifically ask that those topics also be avoided on the holiday or in the company of others. “Family can help with this as well,” she says. “Think of a respectful and direct one-liner you can use during dinner to move the conversation away from food and weight. For example, ‘Talking about food and weight is a pain point for me. Is it alright if I change the subject?’”

For those who feel comfortable being a little more straightforward, Hellner recommends this: "It really is concerning that we're spending this special time we have together talking about weight and calories, and it's harmful for my recovery. Let's focus on something more energizing or fun."

Make an effort to be your own best advocate

Holiday challenges offer a great opportunity to really practice our skills in an environment that would otherwise be overwhelming for pro-recovery behaviors.

“Expect to have to advocate for your recovery, and think about what this may look like for you in practical terms,” suggests Hellner. “Does this mean creating a new holiday tradition that's less food-centric? Or finding a new group to enjoy the meal with? Or a smaller-than-usual family gathering? Ask for help from your treatment team on how to make the holidays feel a bit more safe.”

Prioritize proper nutrition before, during, and after the holiday

While it might feel tempting to stray from your meal plan in an effort to “make room” for an impending Thanksgiving dinner, Hellner emphasizes that 

 of any kind almost always backfires in a big way.

“As far as the meal itself, let's reject this idea of 'saving your appetite' for Thanksgiving dinner,” Hellner says. “It's neither helpful nor necessary. Try maintaining normalcy around meals and snacks leading up to the holiday meal. This helps us by allowing us to approach the meal with a subtle—vs urgent—feeling of hunger, which in turn makes the meal feel more manageable and less 'scary.’”

Eating adequate portions in the days leading up to the event can also help prevent some of the more challenging emotions that often arise after larger-than-average meals. “It can help with post-meal fatigue and feelings of distress and fear that some folks experience in the days after the holiday,” Hellner explains. “Give yourself grace. This meal is different—more dense, and perhaps scarier than meals you'll encounter throughout the year.”

To Hellner’s point about grace, a tip all experts endorse is to practice continued patience, self-compassion, and gentleness toward yourself. Holidays can be a challenge for anyone, and they can be particularly tough to navigate during recovery. Approaching potential obstacles with an attitude of unconditional acceptance can go a long way toward helping you manage difficult situations.

“Be kind to yourself!” Luo says. “This holiday can be a difficult day for many people recovering from eating disorders. Do your best, and be gentle with yourself. You can always reset and get back on track with the next meal or snack.”

5 Ways to Shut Down Diet Culture Commentary During Thanksgiving

Eating disorders are often thought about in terms of behaviors around food: eating too much, not eating enough, purging after eating. But 

 are an equally significant, if less discussed, part of these illnesses. While food-related thoughts look different from person to person, it’s quite common for those struggling with eating disorders to be abnormally preoccupied with food and eating. In this article, we’ll take a close look at food obsession in eating disorders, including why it occurs, what conditions it’s associated with, how it’s addressed, and more.

In the most general terms, food obsession is just what it sounds like—when a person can’t stop thinking about food—but it can manifest in a number of different ways.

On a psychological level, food obsession can mean that thoughts about food or eating take over a person’s 

 that it’s common for people with eating disorders to become preoccupied with food, experiencing constant and excessive thoughts to the extent that it impairs daily functioning. Food obsession can also affect memory and cognition, with 

 are more likely to remember food-related words than those without anorexia.

Constantly thinking about food can also have behavioral ramifications. People with eating disorders tend to want to be around food, even if they’re not eating it. 

 making food for others without having any, reading cookbooks, watching food shows on TV, or being excessively interested in what other people are eating.

“The experience of food obsession can be nuanced and vary from person to person,” says Jonathan Levine, LCSW, therapy lead at Equip. “But constant thoughts of food, such as: what (not) to eat, when (not) to eat, where (not) to eat and around whom, and what’s ‘safe’ to eat are all examples of how obsessive thinking can show up. These obsessive thoughts can also lead to obsessive behaviors, like only eating certain foods, in certain places, around certain people, at certain times of day.”

What causes food obsession in eating disorders?

So why is it so common for people with eating disorders to become preoccupied with food? There are a few possible explanations, but at its core, food obsession is a result of the eating disorder hijacking a person’s mind. “Food becomes the focal point of one’s life when an eating disorder is loud and in control,” explains Levine.

To dive deeper into how this works, let’s unpack two of the main drivers of food obsession in eating disorders: 

The role of restriction in food obsession

It’s a simple fact that restricting food makes you think about food more. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes sense: when you don’t let yourself eat, your body believes you’re starving and kicks into survival mode. It will do whatever it takes to get the energy it needs—and one way it does this is by sounding an alarm bell in the form of constant thoughts about food. These thoughts are a survival mechanism, meant to motivate you to find the fuel necessary to stay alive.

“If you spend all of your time thinking of what to eat without letting yourself eat and receive adequate nutrition and pleasure, your brain will enter a state of vigilance around food and continue that mindset of avoidance and restriction while the body fights back to get the energy it needs,” says Levine. “Indeed, your body will fight to get the nutrients it needs by increasing thoughts of food to maintain homeostasis and safety.”

There’s a significant body of research backing up this idea. Perhaps most well-known is the 

, a study in the 1940s in which hundreds of healthy men were put on a semi-starvation diet in order to measure and monitor how it affected their physical and psychological health. One key takeaway was that their restrictive diet led to extreme preoccupation with food. The men talked about food with one another, dreamt about food, began reading cookbooks and collecting recipes, and reported excessive thoughts about food and eating.

Since then, there have been multiple other studies confirming these findings. 

 that both starvation and self-imposed diets result in preoccupation with food and eating and that 

 increased responsiveness to food signals and a heightened desire for food. 

 looking at both dieters and binge eaters found that among both groups, higher levels of dietary restraint were associated with greater preoccupation with food and eating.

But food obsession can be a symptom even for those who aren’t in a state of restriction. For many people with eating disorders, food is a coping mechanism, a means of escape or control or both. Thoughts about food—whether it’s planning a binge hours in advance, obsessing over what they just ate, or painstakingly tracking macros—can be a way to escape distressing emotions, or to feel a sense of control over a chaotic situation.

What eating disorders are associated with food obsession?

While people with any eating disorder diagnosis could have excessive thoughts about food, Levine says that food obsession tends to be associated with 

, those with anorexia and bulimia had higher levels of food preoccupation than those with BED, but people with all three eating disorders had more thoughts about food than people without eating disorders.

Could food obsession be a sign of something besides an eating disorder?

Constantly thinking about food isn’t always a sign of an eating disorder. People could also experience food obsession for other reasons, such as:

 or restrictive eating habits that fall outside of a diagnosable eating disorder

Negative consequences and risks of food obsession

Excessive food-related thoughts can have a significant negative impact on your daily functioning, ability to think clearly, and overall well-being.

In the Minnesota Starvation experiment, for example, the subjects showed impaired cognitive abilities and depressed mood across the board. In fact, several subjects were forced to withdraw from university because they became unable to concentrate and lacked the motivation to attend class. 

 found that “successful” dieters (i.e., people who restricted their eating in the presence of food) performed badly on a simple task, whereas “unsuccessful” dieters (those who ate their fill) performed very well. When the “successful” dieters let go of their diets, they did a good job on the task, suggesting that thoughts about dieting and food were taking up too much space to allow them to function to the best of their ability.

And according to still more research, if you have restrictive rules around eating, it can lead to worse cognitive performance even after you’ve eaten: 

, dieters performed worse on a memory task than non-dieters both before and after eating. The researchers theorize that this is because before eating food they were experiencing obsession due to food restriction, and after eating, they were distracted by guilt and stress about what they’d eaten.

Beyond the toll it takes on mental performance, constantly thinking about food can have other negative impacts on your life. “If you’re cutting out activities, people, or plans, or changing your lifestyle to ensure you’re able to meet the eating disorder’s desires related to food obsession, then you’re losing parts of yourself and parts of your life to that obsession,” says Levine. “We want to make sure we have balance in our life to get all of our needs met, and maintaining an obsession makes that extremely difficult, if not impossible.”

Free your mind to live the life you deserve.


Are thoughts of food disrupting your life?

How is food obsession addressed in eating disorder treatment?

“It depends on the diagnosis, a person’s age, and if they need to 

 to nourish their brain,” says Levine. “But generally speaking, we challenge avoidance by normalizing what has become abnormal. For example, if someone is obsessed with either never eating cake or eating cake in what feels like an uncontrollable manner, we’ll work to normalize the food by asking them to eat cake regularly. It’s hard to obsess over normal, the routine, the baseline, so if we make something feel normal by experiencing it regularly, that will decrease the obsession in time.”

In a lot of cases, food obsession goes away on its own during the course of eating disorder treatment. That’s because as you become renourished and adopt regular eating habits, the restriction and other disordered eating patterns that were fueling the food obsession go away. Patients also learn healthy coping strategies that they can use rather than turning to thoughts about food to manage emotions.

What to do if you or a loved one is struggling with food obsession

If you find that you can’t stop thinking about food, or are worried that a loved one is experiencing food obsession, it could signal an eating disorder. And even if an eating disorder isn’t the underlying cause, food obsession can have a very real negative impact on your mental and physical health, as well as your life. Either way, it’s important to reach out to a professional for support. Talk with your doctor or a trusted mental health professional, or consider making an appointment with an eating disorder-informed dietitian. You can also 

 with the Equip team to talk through your concerns and what treatment options are available.

Lydecker, Janet A et al. “Preoccupation in bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, and higher weight.” The International journal of eating disorders vol. 55,1 (2022): 76-84. 

Pietrowsky, Reinhard et al. “Food deprivation fails to affect preoccupation with thoughts of food in anorectic patients.” The British journal of clinical psychology vol. 41,Pt 3 (2002): 321-6. 

Polivy, J. “Psychological consequences of food restriction.” Journal of the American Dietetic Association vol. 96,6 (1996): 589-92; quiz 593-4. 

Timmerman, Gayle M, and Elizabeth K Gregg. “Dieting, perceived deprivation, and preoccupation with food.” Western journal of nursing research vol. 25,4 (2003): 405-18. 

Mitchell, Gemma L, and Jeffrey M Brunstrom. “Everyday dietary behaviour and the relationship between attention and meal size.” Appetite vol. 45,3 (2005): 344-55. 

Can’t Stop Thinking About Food? Understanding Food Obsession in Eating Disorders

Once a woman gets that positive pregnancy test, she’s almost immediately inundated with information, including the shoulds and shouldn'ts of everything she consumes. It can feel incredibly overwhelming during a time that’s already full of intense emotion. For people with a history of an eating disorder, this can be even more pronounced. That’s why, when I became pregnant, I was relieved to know that I could lean on my intuitive eating practice and keep trusting my body, even during those special nine months.

The thing is, though eating intuitively when you’re pregnant can look and feel different than eating intuitively when you’re 

—they just need to be adjusted to help you healthfully grow a human. Read on to learn everything you need to know about intuitive eating in pregnancy, including all its benefits, challenges, and strategies to help you confidently adapt to a new season.

Benefits of intuitive eating in pregnancy

Honestly, I would’ve been lost in my pregnancy without my intuitive eating practice. It benefited me in more ways than I can properly capture in this article, but I’ll highlight some of its most significant benefits:

I can’t think of a more important time to trust and honor your body’s communication—the essence of intuitive eating—than when you’re pregnant. Instead of constantly looking outside of yourself for the rules and lists of what to eat or not eat, eating intuitively encourages you to rely on 

, or your body’s internal cues. It helps you to feel empowered instead of helpless during a pivotal time in your life. According to Equip lead dietitian Dani Castellano, RD, CEDS, it also gives you “self-permission to honor your cravings without judgment.”

 If you’re like me and developed an intuitive eating practice in recovery, you know it takes conscious effort to protect yourself from harmful food and weight messaging in the media, which is unfortunately loud in the prenatal world. Pregnancy also brings some food and drink limitations (more on that later), which can feel triggering for those in recovery. Staying rooted in your intuitive eating practice is one of your best tools to avoid any slippery slopes brought on by 

 and help keep your recovery going strong. Castellano also points out that intuitive eating in pregnancy helps lessen the pressure of doing things perfectly, another recovery-supporting benefit.

Part of intuitive eating is about releasing the desire to control your body and instead letting your body do its thing—which can come in particularly handy when your body is rapidly and drastically changing. In fact, 

 shows an association between intuitive eating in pregnancy and healthy weight gain, while 

 shows a link between intuitive eating in pregnancy and a more positive attitude about gestational weight gain.

It could help manage gestational diabetes. 

While gestational diabetes is largely unpreventable, a 

 of women with the condition found that intuitive eating could help them manage their blood sugars successfully throughout their pregnancies. The same study also showed that intuitive eating could help prevent the same group from developing postpartum diabetes. And it makes sense, because applying intuitive eating concepts—like eating and drinking regularly, striking a relative balance with all food groups, moving your body joyfully, managing stress and difficult emotions healthfully, and eating to honor your health—all support stable blood sugar levels.

Many aspects of pregnancy can make you more vulnerable to anxiety or depression: drastically shifting hormones, preparing for a new baby, managing various physiological symptoms (like insomnia), and dealing with pregnancy after loss, to name a few. According to 

, lowered anxiety is one benefit of intuitive eating in pregnancy, and a 

 links the practice to helping pregnant women with depressive tendencies to better manage their symptoms.

Challenges of intuitive eating in pregnancy

While I can’t imagine approaching food and eating in pregnancy any other way (and would never recommend anything else, as a registered dietitian), intuitive eating while expecting can feel tricky for many people. Here are some of the challenges you might come up against:

Intuitive eating is all about releasing food rules and letting your body lead, which is mostly still possible in pregnancy, but there are some necessary limitations (like excluding raw fish and unpasteurized cheeses). It can feel difficult and hypocritical to follow food rules within an intuitive eating practice, especially when you’ve spent ample time setting yourself free from them. However, through an intuitive eating lens, avoiding sashimi, for example, is in fact a form of gentle nutrition (one of the principles of intuitive eating that encourages eating to honor your health, and, in this case, your baby’s health).

 Another foundational part of intuitive eating is honoring your hunger, which will likely increase as your pregnancy progresses. While the notion of eating for two is kind of an overused exaggeration, your energy (calorie) needs increase significantly throughout pregnancy, especially in the second and third trimesters, to support your baby’s growth and health. Especially in eating disorder recovery, honoring heightened hunger can feel scary, and if your body isn’t clearly communicating its increased need for food through bodily cues, you’ll need to mechanically eat (or as I like to call it, “eat out of self-care”) more than before pregnancy. Eating this way may feel confusing, but your body still needs adequate fuel regardless of its signals.

Pregnancy symptoms can throw a wrench in your eating. 

Every woman has different experiences with pregnancy symptoms, but some of the most common ones, like nausea, can make your typical intuitive eating practice more challenging. “In the first trimester, many women are nauseous and extremely tired, and this makes it very difficult to be mindful and check in on cues,” explains dietitian 

. She says you need to push harder to support your body with adequate nourishment, regardless of how you physically feel. While it may be difficult to eat when you’re not feeling it, you can make it more intuitive by checking in with what your body can tolerate. In my first trimester, I could only tolerate a relatively small variety of foods from each food group, and I let that be enough (along with my prenatal vitamins) until I felt like I could expand my palate again.

Unfortunately, we live in a world largely dominated by the dieting mentality, and so intuitive eating can feel hard to follow with all of diet culture’s noise in such a vulnerable time. Bloom says societal expectations about what you should eat and how much you should move your body during pregnancy can make being intuitive more difficult. Plus, harmful messaging about pregnancy weight gain (mostly saying, “don’t gain too much”) can make trusting your body even more difficult.

Strategies for intuitive eating during pregnancy

While you can practice intuitive eating throughout pregnancy, there are some differences between doing so while pregnant versus not pregnant. For one thing, pregnancy cravings or aversions may change your typical eating habits or preferences, while your hunger cues can also change drastically from trimester to trimester—and not necessarily reflect your intake needs, requiring you to eat mechanically.

Plus, you may be applying the gentle nutrition principle more than typical, depending on your symptoms and metabolic health during pregnancy. Since prenatal constipation is common, “you may need to incorporate foods and hydration differently to support bowel movements,” Castellano adds. During my pregnancy, my iron levels were slightly low (a common occurrence in pregnancy), so I applied gentle nutrition by increasing heme iron sources, like red meat, and adding a daily iron supplement.

Here are some strategies to help you practice intuitive eating during pregnancy:

I'd suggest looking back on the 10 principles of intuitive eating and developing a plan of how to integrate this throughout the pregnancy,” Goldsmith says. Remember, they won’t be the exact same as when you’re not pregnant, so consider how each principle may support you during this finite period and write it down to revisit when necessary. Feel free to tweak your intuitive eating plan throughout pregnancy, since symptoms typically shift from stage to stage.

If you’re in eating disorder recovery and unsure or struggling to find your footing with intuitive eating in pregnancy, working with an eating disorder dietitian who teaches intuitive eating and has prenatal experience will go a long way. They will help you learn or relearn how to use intuitive eating practices to help keep you and your baby healthy, as well as help to manage symptoms like nausea and heartburn or conditions like anemia or gestational diabetes. If you don’t have any eating disorder history but are new to intuitive eating or uncertain in how to apply it to your pregnancy, working with an intuitive eating and prenatal dietitian is a great idea.

Remember that part of eating intuitively is using your ‘brain knowledge’ and not just hunger and fullness cues,” Castellano says. As mentioned earlier, some pregnancy symptoms can throw off hunger cues, making it critical to feed yourself often—even if your body isn’t directly asking for it. “Lean into regular eating and focus on consuming meals and snacks every two to four hours throughout the day,” Castellano suggests. Additionally, if you have any nutrient deficiencies, be sure to inform yourself (perhaps with the help of a dietitian) on how to properly supplement and use gentle nutrition to adjust your food intake.

From social media accounts to books and podcasts, there are many resources that can help support a prenatal intuitive eating practice. My favorite workbook and book are 

, to learn the ins and outs of intuitive eating and 

, to understand the scientific truth behind food and drink consumption in pregnancy. Fellow dietitian Christy Harrison has a 

 on intuitive eating in pregnancy, and another intuitive eating dietitian McKenzie Caldwell (

) has an informative Instagram account for expecting mothers and those trying to conceive.

“Continue to trust yourself and the process,” Bloom encourages, which could look like honoring your cravings and aversions throughout pregnancy even if they feel foreign (I couldn’t look at sweet potatoes but loved white potatoes during the first trimester, and craved breakfast sausages throughout the second and orange juice throughout the third, which were all out of the ordinary for me). If you’re medically cleared to exercise, it could also look like approaching 

 (another intuitive eating principle) on a day-to-day basis and letting your body tell you how much and what type of movement feels right.

Consider how an adapted intuitive eating practice will help support your pregnancy values, you and your baby’s health, and eating disorder recovery (if applicable) for the nine months ahead. Perhaps it’s greater flexibility and enjoyment, or maybe it’s overall health and well-being—whatever your “why” is, name it (and perhaps jot it down), in case self-doubt or diet culture trickles in. Remember, your job is to show up and offer your body stability through intuitive eating and other forms of self-care—like adequate rest and hydration, and prenatal medical visits—and it will take care of the rest.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/04/sensations-eating-disorders-suicidal-behavior#:~:text=Interoception%20is%20the%20ability%20to

Plante, A.-S., Savard, C., Lemieux, S., Carbonneau, É., Robitaille, J., Provencher, V., & Morisset, A.-S. (2019). Trimester-Specific Intuitive Eating in Association With Gestational Weight Gain and Diet Quality. 

Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2019.01.011

Savard, C., Yan, E., Plante, A.-S., Bégin, C., Robitaille, J., Michaud, A., Lemieux, S., Provencher, V., & Morisset, A.-S. (2020). Positive attitudes toward weight gain in late pregnancy are associated with healthy eating behaviours. 

Eating and Weight Disorders - Studies on Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40519-020-01057-5