I’ve noticed something about the intuitive eating space: the majority of intuitive eating coaches, nutritionists and dietitians I see working in this space are thin people. I just don’t see very many plus-size people doing this work.
And it got me thinking about the message that sends.
It can almost make it seem like intuitive eating is reserved for thin people. Like if you’re plus-size, or you naturally live in a bigger body, you can’t really be an intuitive eater, and you certainly can’t be an intuitive eating coach.
There’s another message underneath that too: if you’ve really healed your relationship with food, found food freedom and become a fully intuitive eater, then eventually you’ll be thin.
But that’s just not true.
I’m plus size. I’ve been an intuitive eater for quite a number of years now. I haven’t dieted in a very long time. I’m in a really good place with my relationship with food and my body, and I eat mainly in a way that feels good and leaves me feeling good and energized.
And I’m still plus size.
I also think there are parts of intuitive eating that can be significantly more difficult when you live in a bigger body — especially rejecting the diet mentality and giving up the pursuit of weight loss.
Because there is an immense amount of pressure put on plus-size people to lose weight.
Constantly.
It comes from society at large, social media, health and fitness messaging, and sometimes from people in our actual lives. If your body looks a certain way or you have a certain amount of body fat, the message is that you should be doing something about it. You should be losing weight. You should be “recomping.” You should be burning body fat.
Naturally thin people simply don’t experience that particular pressure in the same way. So yes, I think rejecting the diet mentality can look very different when you’re doing it in a body that the world is constantly telling you should be smaller.
There’s another part of my experience with intuitive eating that I don’t think gets talked about enough either.
For me, intuitive eating still requires intention and mindfulness around food.
I used to think that eventually I would get to this magical place where I wouldn’t really have to think about what I ate at all. I’d just eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted it, and somehow everything would naturally balance itself out.
That’s kind of what I thought I was being sold when I first found intuitive eating.
But that hasn’t been my experience.
If I walk into a restaurant and look at a salad and a burger, let’s be real: I’m probably going to want the burger. I naturally gravitate toward highly palatable foods — burgers, pizza, chips, popcorn, cookies, fries. I like those foods. A lot.
That doesn’t mean I can’t be an intuitive eater.
It means that sometimes I bring a little more intention into the decision. I might ask myself: How is this meal going to make me feel later? How have I eaten today? Have I had many vegetables? Would adding some vegetables to dinner help me feel better? What actually sounds satisfying, and what is going to leave me feeling good afterward?
That isn’t dieting. It isn’t food rules. And it isn’t trying to force myself to always choose the salad.
It’s part of taking care of myself.
Because if I give absolutely no thought to how I’m eating for a while, I know myself. I’m probably going to gravitate toward those highly palatable foods more often, and eventually I don’t feel very good physically.
And I don’t think I’m the only person like this.
I’m also not saying this is true of every plus-size person, just like I’m not saying every thin person naturally prefers salads and vegetables. Body size doesn’t tell us what somebody eats, what foods they prefer or what their relationship with food looks like.
I’m talking about people like me… people who have a healthy appetite, genuinely love highly palatable foods, and don’t naturally find that every food decision magically “balances out” without any thought at all.
Those people belong in intuitive eating too.
Because intuitive eating is so often reduced to: “Eat when you’re hungry and stop when you’re full.”
But those are basically two pieces of a ten-principle framework.
There’s also satisfaction. There’s respecting your body. There’s movement. There’s gentle nutrition. There’s learning how different foods actually make you feel. There’s paying attention. There’s intention.
And for me, that last part matters.
The biggest difference since becoming an intuitive eater isn’t that I suddenly stopped loving pizza, burgers, chips or cookies. I didn’t.
The difference is that I don’t tend to binge on them anymore.
Do I occasionally eat past comfortable fullness because something is delicious and I want more of it? Absolutely. Sometimes highly palatable food is genuinely hard to stop eating.
But I don’t have those out-of-body binge experiences I used to have when I was deep in dieting. Food doesn’t have that same power over me anymore.
So maybe this is the part of intuitive eating we need to talk about more.
You can have food freedom and still think about nutrition. You can eat intuitively and still be intentional about your choices. You can love burgers more than salads and still learn to eat in a way that makes your body feel good.
And most importantly, you can become an intuitive eater, heal your relationship with food, reject dieting, and still be plus size.
Thinness is not proof that intuitive eating “worked.” And being plus size is not proof that it didn’t.