Why The Goal Isn’t to Become an “Intuitive Eater”

Episode #2 of my podcast is live today! In this episode, I talk about why the goal in gaining food freedom is actually not to become an “intuitive eater”. 

I want to ask you — what is it that attracted you first to becoming an intuitive eater? What made you want that? For me, it was the idea of just being able to eat, and listen to my body. No rules. Just eating what I wanted.

If you haven’t read my story yet, click here to read it, where I explain what caused me to first start dieting, and what lead me to eventually stop dieting and start eating intuitively. I talk about my journey in the podcast as well — how I transitioned from the binge-restrict cycle to complete food freedom. 

To give you just a glimpse, when I first began dieting (around the age of 14), I got a lot of praise from my friends and family about my body, and a lot of “I’m so proud of you”. It made me feel so good about myself, and my confidence greatly increased. But then it turned into an obsession for about five years, because I believed if I gained weight, I would lose my identity and nobody would like me. Being in high school, this was especially important, since we start forming our identity at around that age.

Then, after high school, I started going to church and developing a relationship with God, and my identify began to shift completely. I began to feel whole and fulfilled, without food. It wasn’t overnight by any means, but I slowly began to release my need to obsess over food. 

I also began working with a counselor, and she told me that if I didn’t start working on the negative thoughts I had about myself now, I would still be coming to her in my 60’s with the same problems. I didn’t want that. So I knew I had to make these changes right then. 

Over time, food became something I appreciated. It became something that nourished my body. And when I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t thinking about food. I had so much more time to focus on other things that I loved, that made me filled with joy.

After eleven years of living in food freedom, my views have evolved on intuitive eating, and what purpose it serves in our “end goal”. It’s not necessarily Intuitive Eating that makes the difference, it’s the way we think about our body, and the food we eat, that makes the difference. It’s being free from all of the rules we created for ourself around food. The goal isn’t to become an “intuitive eater” and follow all of those principles completely. It’s to be free from those all consuming thoughts that we have around food.

The goal is to listen to your body, and know that you are taking care of her.

The goal is to reduce how often you think about food. You want to be able to just relax. To not have your thoughts consumed with food, rules, or diets. What could you be thinking about with all of the energy that goes toward thinking about food?

The goal isn’t to become an “intuitive eater”. Instead, it is to feel exactly how you want to feel around food-calm, pleasurable, appreciative, intentional, nourished-however you want to feel.

Give this podcast a listen if you want to take the steps to stop thinking about food, and discover how you can be calm, and feel fully present and intentional. I’ll take you through some questions so you can journal or visualize how you want to feel around food, and then how you can begin the journey to getting to that version of yourself you know you can be.

Subscribe to Aligned with Paige Schmidt on any major platform, and let me know what you would like to hear in future episodes! They will go live each Tuesday!

Click to listen on Apple, Spotify, or Google.

For those of you who would like to think about food less so that you can have the mental capacity to focus on other things that matter to you, I encourage you to sign-up for my free upcoming class called Stop Thinking About Food. This class is taking place next Wednesday, February 17th!

Invite your girlfriends! If you know someone who would like this send a text sharing the link.

I can’t wait to talk with you more about this. If this topic is resonating with you, let me know. You can leave a comment here.