Tag: nutrition counseling

My Approach Part Two: Intuitive Eating

This is my second post in my series on my approach as a nutrition counselor. To see my first one on my Health At Every Size (HAES) approach, go here.

Intuitive Eating: the concept and principles

Much of the work I do with my clients is based around intuitive eating, an increasing well-known framework for creating a nourishing relationship with food and movement. I think intuitive eating comes across as being quite simple – it’s just about paying attention to hunger and fullness cues, right?  Well, that is a piece of it – but it’s actually quite complex and can take a long time to rediscover and implement. (Rediscover because we are all born intuitive eaters!) Intuitive eating is a comprehensive and dynamic concept that involves not only instinct, but also our emotions and our thoughts. In short, intuitive eating is all about reconnecting to your body’s wisdom by listening to your bodily cues, paying attention to your emotions, and thinking rationally about food, eating, and movement.

Intuitive eating is broken down into ten principles; I won’t list them out here, but if you’d like to read through them head over to the intuitive eating website. The purpose of the ten principles is two-fold: first, to cultivate attunement to bodily cues and inner wisdom, and secondly, to remove obstacles getting in the way of that attunement. For example, the first principle is “reject the diet mentality.” Dieting is one of the main disrupters to our ability to listen to our bodies. By learning to reject dieting in its many forms, we are working to remove a huge obstacle getting in the way. The second principle, “honor your hunger,” is about cultivating one’s ability to tune into the bodily cue of feeling hungry. The rest of the principles work in similar fashion by removing obstacles and cultivating attunement.

Intuitive eating in practice

In my practice, intuitive eating is a framework I always come back to. If my practice were a batch of cookies, Intuitive eating would be the sugar. No sugar, no cookies, though sugar of course isn’t the only component. (HAES, which I talked about in a previous post, would be the flour! A random analogy but I think I’ll keep running with it in future posts 🙂 )

I’m a huge fan of practical, hands on work – and Intuitive eating has so many practical applications. I jump around the ten intuitive eating principles as fits the flow of my client sessions and the values of my client. Through the intuitive eating lens, we may explore emotional eating, lingering dieting tools, or what fullness feels like, for a few examples. Intuitive eating pretty much shows up in all my sessions in some form or another. This is due largely to the fact that Intuitive eating is well supported in the research as not only improving one’s relationship with food, but also leading to improved health outcomes (it is very much tied to HAES in that way).

The end goal of all this work is increased satisfaction with one’s eating experience. Dieting takes things away, food rules set the stage for guilt, but the purpose of intuitive eating is to create that sense of wholeness around your eating experience. In short, to have a relationship with food that brings joy and nourishment, which is what Mentha Nutrition Counseling is all about!

Resources

-Are you an intuitive eater? Take the Intuitive Eating Assessment Scale quiz, adapted from research studies, to find out.

-Want to see the research? Intuitive Eating has been picked up by many researchers, with at least 100 (very positive) studies looking at the topic. Here is an updated compilation of all the studies from the intuitive eating website.

-Read the book! It goes through each of the ten steps and has loads of case studies and tips.

–This workbook came out recently, and I actually really enjoyed reading through it. It is super practical, which I love, and it asks some really good questions. It would take a while to work through all the content!

My approach part 1: HAES

“So what’s your approach?” This is a question I get asked frequently as a nutrition therapist. I always give a brief overview – I pull from many different frameworks and modalities to provide individualized care.  This blog series will serve as a much lengthier version of my answer to this question. I’ll take a look at each of the nutrition concepts and counseling modalities I subscribe to, starting with Health At Every Size (HAES). HAES is actually more of a movement, a paradigm shift, and a way of thinking about healthcare that has served as a foundation for my work, which is why I’m starting here.

My introduction to HAES (took way too long)

Like many other dietitians, when I graduated from my dietetic internship I had never heard of HAES. I was trained under traditional dietetic principles, which were grounded in a weight focused health care paradigm. The focus was on how to change people’s body size to make them healthier – a message that we are all familiar with thanks to the diet culture we live in.

Then, like many dietitians, I started seeing clients for nutrition counseling, and began to get a sense of how damaging weight loss messages can be. Many of my clients were eating very little and felt frustrated that they continued to gain weight. Some felt like they couldn’t have the foods they loved for fear they would eat too much. Many clients were switching from one diet to the next and experiencing weight cycling, usually ending up at a higher weight than when they started. The list went on. Two things most of my clients had in common were 1) they were trying to change their body size but couldn’t, and 2) they were experiencing some level of disordered eating.

No surprise that my training had done little to help me come alongside these clients. Fortunately, during this time, I came across HAES principles and immersed myself in it, eventually choosing to go back to school to study disordered eating. I wish it hadn’t taken over five years of studying nutrition for me to discover it! I know I speak for many dietitians when I say that the discovery of HAES has completely transformed my nutrition counseling practice and is the reason I am still a dietitian.

HAES Principles

HAES is a weight neutral approach that has come about due to considerable concerns and evidence that a traditional weight focused approach is not only ineffective, but harmful. If you’d like to take a look at the growing body of evidence supporting HAES, check out this paper as well this post on some of my favorite HAES studies.  I can also recommend Bacon and Aphramor’s book Body Respect for a deeper look into the science behind weight and the HAES approach – including great insights on the social determinants of health.

The main thrust of HAES is to support people of all shapes and sizes in having peace with their bodies and moving toward compassionate self-care. HAES is grounded in respect – for our own selves, others, and for body diversity. HAES also has a key emphasis on bringing critical awareness to people’s own body knowledge and lived experience, while challenging scientific and cultural assumptions. (Bacon & Aphramor, 2014).

HAES In Practice

HAES shifts the focus from weight onto behavior change.  In my practice, what that means is that instead of looking at weight loss as a measure of health, we focus directly on adopting positive behavior changes. Instead of diets, counting calories, or weight checks, we do the important work of body acceptance, rediscovering how to eat intuitively, and building the skills needed to move toward a healthy relationship with food and movement. As a nutrition counselor I come alongside my clients – the experts on their body – and support them in taking care of their nutrition and self-care needs in a compassionate way.

Approaching health from a HAES perspective can be a really big shift in thinking – it was for me too!  I find it necessary to discuss these concepts early on and to come back to them often, as it can take time to explore questions and grapple with the information. Feelings of anger and frustration may come up when considering the reality of weight stigma and the damage of diet culture. At the same time, talking about health from a HAES perspective can feel so obvious, and like such a relief. Having these important discussions about a weight neutral approach lays the groundwork for disordered eating treatment.

Meaning behind the name: Mentha

Mentha Nutrition Counseling, LLC is named after plants in the mint family. These herbs are known for their healing properties, resilient growing patterns, and delicious flavors.  In my practice, I take inspiration from mentha and strive to help my clients cultivate a way of eating that brings nourishment and joy.  

Mentha is the genus name of the various kinds of mint plants, including peppermint, spearmint, chocolate mint, pineapple mint, etc. In all, mentha includes about 600 kinds of mint! I’ve barely scratched the surface of mint flavors, but it is amazing how different they can taste from one another. I named my nutrition business after mentha for several reasons, not least of which because I simply love mint in its many forms. It has such a fun flavor, especially paired with chocolate -mint chocolate chip ice-cream, anyone?? As a nutrition therapist, I strive to help others find joy in preparing, eating, and sharing food. For me, mentha is a simple reminder that food can bring joy.

Mint is also a symbol for me, one of strength and perseverance, new life and hope. I lived in New Hampshire for several years, and the snow would pile high every winter, on top of my small garden containing several kinds of mint.  Every year after the snow finally melted away, the mint would be the first green thing to come back to life, amazing me with its resilience. Sure, some consider mint to be a weed, but I love the tenacious things.

And finally, mint has a special place in my heart as a nutrition therapist because of its healing properties. Like many others, I have benefited from drinking peppermint tea to soothe stomach discomfort, nausea, and pain. I was naturally drawn toward this healing herb for inspiration for my own nutrition practice. Just as mint is a balm for discomfort, it is my hope that this practice will facilitate healing for clients around their relationship with food and their body.