As we make our way through week seven of stay-at-home orders, many of us may be finding that healthy eating habits have gone right out the window. One of my favorite non-diet resources for making peace with food is The Intuitive Eating Workbook by Evenly Tribole, MS, RDN, and Elyse Resch, MS, RDN.
The principles of intuitive eating are simple, yet often difficult. The idea is to let go of food rules and learn how to listen to your body’s cues for satiation and hunger. The book also discusses how to avoid eating your feelings and how to tune out unhelpful negative thoughts about your body.
The authors have a 300 page book called Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works, which I also recommend, but today I am showcasing the workbook version. I like the workbook because it contains a lot of the most useful information from the book while also including a lot of well-designed exercises that help the reader understand and apply the principles.
I must stress again that this is not a diet book and does not advocate eating any particular way beyond following general healthy principles of eating and exercise. Rather, it is a way to help you change your relationship with food. If you feel like food, eating, and unhappy thoughts about your body are a major stressor in your life, this book might help. Evelyn Resch also wrote The Intuitive Eating Workbook for Teens which might be a better fit for younger readers.
I use exercises from the workbooks frequently in therapy with clients who use food to cope with their feelings, and I also find that I am happier when I try to apply the eating principles to my own life and eating habits. If you are interested in a mentally and physically healthier relationship with food, check out this book.