First and foremost, intuitive eating is the default mode—the way we’re all born knowing how to eat. Generally speaking, eating in a way that is easy, effortless, and, well, intuitive. It doesn’t require much thought or create much drama in our lives; it’s just instinctual, like breathing and sleeping and going to the bathroom. 

But because we live in diet culture, that default mode of relating to food and our bodies gets overwritten with a lot of harmful thoughts and beliefs, and this often happens before we’re even old enough to know what’s happening and give consent. We’re indoctrinated into our culture’s toxic belief system about food and bodies from a young age, and it takes us away from those simple, innate cues that tell us when to eat, what we’re in the mood for, and when we’re all done. 

So intuitive eating in the sense of this course is a practice and a process to help you make peace with food and your body. This process has 10 principles to help guide you on that path to peace and freedom. 

It will take time, practice, self-reflection, and support in order to get back to the peaceful relationship with food and your body that you so understandably want and deserve, so don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t all happen right away. And you never have to worry that you’re “doing it wrong,” because intuitive eating is a learning process. It’s all about having ups and downs as you go along, and both learning from those down moments and having compassion for yourself while you’re experiencing them. 

Now here’s what intuitive eating is NOT: It’s not a diet, or a “lifestyle change,” “plan,” “program,” “protocol,” or any of the other things you’re probably used to in diet culture.

The goal really is to get you to loosen your grip on diet culture’s rules so that you can grab onto the new paradigm that is intuitive eating, and thus be more at peace with your body and food. 

I want to invite you to speak to yourself as you would to a loved one while you go through this survey, and don’t judge yourself for your answers. This is just about taking an honest and self-compassionate look at where you are right now, and then we’ll talk about where you’re headed and how to get the most out of this course. 

The following statements are meant to assess basic characteristics of intuitive eaters. Answer “yes” or “no” for each statement. If you’re unsure of how to respond, consider if the description usually applies to you—is it mostly “yes” or mostly “no”? 

Before we discuss your results, I want to highlight that this is just an assessment of where you’re at right now, and you’re NOT actually going to change anything you’re doing just yet, even in light of these results. 

Instead, this week you’re just going reflect on these things, and we’ll work on them in a systematic way… Right now your ONLY job is to let these ideas simmer and reflect on your habits with self-compassion. 

Remember, you don’t have to do everything at once. 

In Class 1 there’s absolutely NO expectation or reason why you should be “eating intuitively” yet—all you need to do right now is nonjudgmentally observe yourself, and then in Module 2 work on noticing and rejecting the diet mentality. That’s it! No need to even change how you’re eating yet—you’re just building the mindset right now. So take it slow and be kind to yourself.