Intuitive Eating - Does It Work

With new diet schemes being introduced to the market constantly, there is a new approach to eating and losing weight that is quietly gaining a following. And, it seems that this approach has much less to do with lose weight diet fads and more to do with lasting principles. It is called intuitive eating. Eating spontaneously is all about getting in touch with the food and nutrition that your body truly needs.

Although this type of diet has yet to break into the worlds Top 10 Diets as monitored by the industry guide at www.top-10-diets.com it might well be worth keeping an eye on to see if it makes it into the top 10.

Rather than setting up a "battlefield" of you against your body, which typically takes the form of hating how your body looks, counting calories, restricting food choices and basically punishing yourself day in and day out, the intuitive approach to eating encourages you to "leave the battlefield." This is accomplished by stopping, listening and paying attention to your inner voice.

Anyone who has battled with weight gain over the years has, no doubt, become frustrated and confused by the many fad diets, the constant new approaches, and the conflicting advice that they receive about which diet is best. Intuitive eating essentially gives you permission to slam the doors on the myriad of external voices and factors and look within for the answers.

The main premise of eating intuitively is acknowledging and accepting that we are highly intelligent "machines" with an innate ability to perceive what out bodies need for health and vitality. It follows then that we should know how to achieve proper weight, if we can learn to tap into this intuitive wisdom and knowledge. Since this approach is so fundamental, and so simple, some have even called it dieting for dummies.

Through an intuitive approach to eating, you are allowed to eat when, what and how much you deem appropriate. Instead of manipulating your meal plans according to a lose weight diet and judging everything in terms of calories, fat grams, grams of carbs and other such measurements, the idea is to listen to the internal cues and recognize just what the body wants and needs.

As a result, daily food choices are based on real hunger and real satiety, as determined by you rather than some external set of standards that may have no relation at all to the status and function of your body. Stepping back and looking at this approach, it is easy to see that a typical lose weight diet and even a diet detox can easily be working against the inherent, intelligent, natural programming of your body.

One of the foremost researchers in the field of intuitive eating is Steven Hawks of Brigham Young University. Hawks has concluded that the "normal" approach to dieting in America does not result in any significant weight loss in the long term. In addition he states that the typical lose weight diet strategies contributes to unhealthy eating habits, food anxiety, and can even encourage the development of eating disorders.

In one of the studies that Hawks and his team conducted, they found that those who followed the principles of intuitive eating showed evidence of improved levels of lipoproteins, had a lowered body mass index score, and had reduced their risk of developing cardiovascular conditions. Hawks summarized the study by reporting that the results clearly showed that eating intuitively had significant positive benefits and was a viable way to mange weight.