.png)
Many diet plans follow a restrictive eating model with specific 'good' vs. 'bad' foods. This type of restrained eating demands rigid control.
Food is an essential requirement for survival. When you diet and feel hunger, this isn't a lack of willpower, it's a biological drive to protect you. Interestingly, there is no drive for eating too much but rather, if the body senses extreme weight loss, it will kick in physiological mechanisms to slow down your metabolism (and energy) or the brain will send signals to get you to eat as soon as possible. Stomach growing, irritability, inability to focus, lightheadedness, headache, fatigue, and sugar cravings are all signs that your body is asking for food.
Although stress, trauma history, certain medications, extreme exercise (especially in the heat) and life chaos can supress your appetite, dieting makes it difficult to understand your hunger cues. Diets require that you ignore your hunger cues as most diets require you to limit or control the foods that you eat, often sticking to a strict schedule of eating.
Intuitive eating goes back to the basics. Learning to eat when hungry and stopping when full. It focuses on body cues like hunger and fullness and also recognizing cues caused by emotions or external triggers. Diet culture sees hunger as a symptom that you should learn how to overcome through willpower and discipline. But hunger is your body's way of communicating a basic survival need. Eating is necessary to live.
Keeping your body biologically fed with adequate nutrients and energy is the best way to reduce the primal drive to overeat but it's also imperative for athletes to keep the body (and brain) fueled and nourished to support intentional training stress and sport demands.
Although intuitive eating is a great approach for most people, it can be very difficult for athletes to meet their body's increased energy needs simply by respecting physical hunger.
As examples:
Food is an essential requirement for survival. When you diet and feel hunger, this isn't a lack of willpower, it's a biological drive to protect you. Interestingly, there is no drive for eating too much but rather, if the body senses extreme weight loss, it will kick in physiological mechanisms to slow down your metabolism (and energy) or the brain will send signals to get you to eat as soon as possible. Stomach growing, irritability, inability to focus, lightheadedness, headache, fatigue, and sugar cravings are all signs that your body is asking for food.
Although stress, trauma history, certain medications, extreme exercise (especially in the heat) and life chaos can supress your appetite, dieting makes it difficult to understand your hunger cues. Diets require that you ignore your hunger cues as most diets require you to limit or control the foods that you eat, often sticking to a strict schedule of eating.
Intuitive eating goes back to the basics. Learning to eat when hungry and stopping when full. It focuses on body cues like hunger and fullness and also recognizing cues caused by emotions or external triggers. Diet culture sees hunger as a symptom that you should learn how to overcome through willpower and discipline. But hunger is your body's way of communicating a basic survival need. Eating is necessary to live.
Keeping your body biologically fed with adequate nutrients and energy is the best way to reduce the primal drive to overeat but it's also imperative for athletes to keep the body (and brain) fueled and nourished to support intentional training stress and sport demands.
Although intuitive eating is a great approach for most people, it can be very difficult for athletes to meet their body's increased energy needs simply by respecting physical hunger.
As examples:
- Eating too close to a workout may increase the risk for GI distress during the workout and may negatively impact how your body uses fuels during exercise.
- You may not have acess to food before, during and after workouts.
- Learning to supress hunger cues during workouts in order to not overeat/fuel.
- You may crave certain foods after workouts but sport nutrition guidelines may advise different foods to optimize recovery
- You may not have an appetite after an intense or high volume workout.
- Heat stress may impact your ability to eat.
- Busy schedules may remove the drive to eat.
Eating enough to support your training and timing food appropriately with workouts is how you will perform at your best. This means you will often need to eat even if you don't feel hunger signals at that moment.
Simply put, if you are an athlete and you are only eating when you feel hungry, you are likely undereating. Therefore, the intuitive eating principle of "honor your hunger" doesn't fully apply to athletes. However, you can use the principle of "gentle nutrition" to remind yourself that "even though I'm not hungry, I need to support my body with proper nutrition before or after my workout."
Athletes have specific sport nutrition recommendations, guidelines and strategies that are designed to protect health, optimize performance and increase race readiness. Intuitive eating provides a useful set of tools for athletes as it can help you remove the diet mentality and improve your relationship with food and the body.
I was interviewed for an article on Intuitive Eating by Angie Dye with Today's Dietitian.
Here's the article if you'd like to check it out.
Simply put, if you are an athlete and you are only eating when you feel hungry, you are likely undereating. Therefore, the intuitive eating principle of "honor your hunger" doesn't fully apply to athletes. However, you can use the principle of "gentle nutrition" to remind yourself that "even though I'm not hungry, I need to support my body with proper nutrition before or after my workout."
Athletes have specific sport nutrition recommendations, guidelines and strategies that are designed to protect health, optimize performance and increase race readiness. Intuitive eating provides a useful set of tools for athletes as it can help you remove the diet mentality and improve your relationship with food and the body.
I was interviewed for an article on Intuitive Eating by Angie Dye with Today's Dietitian.
Here's the article if you'd like to check it out.