No Diet Day

By Michelle Guerrero, RDN

Registered Dietitian

May 6th is the International No Diet Day. No Diet Day is a worldwide celebration promoting body acceptance, positivity, and a step away from diet culture. But how does celebrating No Diet Day promote body acceptance? Isn’t dieting good? This is a very tricky question. Let me start by saying there’s a time and place for everything, including diets. Bodybuilders, for example, follow a diet to achieve a certain type of physique. This may include high protein diets or calorie deficits. On the other hand, some people diet due to health reasons. For example, people struggling with heart disease or diabetes may benefit from following a Mediterranean or DASH (Dietary Approach to Stop Hypertension) diet. Starting our wellness journey can also seem overwhelming, and sometimes a step-by-step action plan can propel us in the right direction by giving us confidence. In this sense, a diet can be what we need.

Although certain diets can be beneficial for some people, overly restrictive diets can undermine one's relationship with food and body image. This restrictiveness can make it hard for people to sustain these eating habits long-term. Additionally, many diets do not necessarily teach healthy eating habits or talk about the nutritional value of foods. In these cases, it can become challenging for people to know how to make healthy food choices when they’re out of routine or when traveling.

Intuitive eating is an approach to nutrition that guides us into making food choices without guilt and self-judgment. This approach also encourages to tune into your body, break the cycle of yo-yo dieting and establish a healthy relationship to food. Intuitive eating is based on these 10 core principles:

Reject the Diet Mentality

No matter where we look, diet culture is all around us. Perhaps your coworker just started cutting back on carbs. Maybe your aunt is attempting intermittent fasting. You see influencers on social media promoting the benefits of the Whole 30 Diet. No wonder why one-third of Americans are dieting. So, to reject the diet mentality, we need to become aware of how it is presented in our lives. We can start by cleansing our social media feed to remove anything that promotes diet behaviors that don’t serve you. Become aware of your autonomy by making your own choices based on your needs as an individual rather than trying to fit into a one-size-fits-all mold. Additionally, analyze your language, thoughts, and behaviors related to wellness activities and food.

Honor Your Hunger

Hunger is a natural signal from our body that guides us into the act of eating. It is important to keep our body fed with adequate energy coming from carbohydrates, fats, and protein when we feel hungry. Otherwise, the body can produce the carbohydrate craver, a neurotransmitter, that can cause a high-carb binge. Pay attention to physical hunger cues like light-headedness, growling noises, headaches, stomach pain, irritability, and dizziness.

Make Peace with Food

This principle is about allowing ALL foods into your lifestyle without fear. When you lose the fear of the “bad” foods, you emotionally perceive eating a cookie in the same way as eating an apple. In many instances, this can be very challenging to take to practice, especially when we have categorized food in this binary way of either “good” or “bad”. This black-and-white thinking can lead to food deprivation, guilt, and frustration, however, allowing these foods into your diet and making them less restricted can help to remove some of the cravings associated with a food that is “not allowed”.

Challenge the Food Police

The food police is that inner voice persuading you to follow diet rules, rules that you have internalized from an external diet culture. These thoughts make you feel ashamed and guilty with some examples being, “Don’t eat after 6 pm” or “I won’t eat that cake, it’ll make me fat”. The food police could also be people who have body-shamed you in the past. Maybe their comments made you feel embarrassed or in the wrong. Within these cases, learning how to communicate politely can be beneficial to setting healthy boundaries.

Feel Your Fullness

“Just eat until you're full”, easier said than done, right? This can be quite challenging for many. Diet culture can sometimes teach us to eat past our fullness, especially when we have been taught to clean up our plates or told that we shouldn’t waste food when others may not be fortunate to have enough. In other instances, we may also overeat when we’re constantly food-deprived. We can sometimes internalize the fact that we have to eat as much as we can at any given moment before we deprive ourselves of food again. You can practice mindful eating by making some pauses while eating and checking for food taste and physical signs of fullness.

Discover the Satisfaction Factor

Sometimes we forget that eating should be a pleasurable experience. We get so wrapped up in counting calories, and macros that we lose that ability to identify what we are in the mood for. Discovering the satisfaction factor is becoming aware of what we crave and honoring those cravings. While eating until we feel satiated is vital in intuitive eating, so is finding foods that will help us feel satisfied. Becoming satiated is more of a physical component. Making sure that we include carbs, protein and fat is a great way to prolong the feeling of being satiated. You can assess your satiety by asking yourself if you feel the need to eat more food. Feeling satisfied is not just about nourishing your body, it's more of an emotional cue. Are you eating something that you want? Is that meal really hitting the spot? It’s all about making the experience enjoyable and positive. Create the right environment by choosing your perfect meal, with tasty food, good company, and a nice atmosphere.

Cope with Your Emotions with Kindness

In moments of distress, food can be a comfort, but when we use it as a coping mechanism it turns into emotional eating. Emotional eating can bring more distress, anxiety, and depression due to the guilt that may come after over or undereating. The good news is that there are many alternatives to channel our emotions in more effective ways. You can release some of the emotional tension through to journaling, going for a walk, talking to a counselor or a friend, meditating, or listening to music.

Respect Your Body

Respecting our bodies is about moving from a place of dissatisfaction to acceptance. Diet culture can sometimes teach us that we need to look a particular way to be beautiful and successful. While, there’s nothing wrong with exercising to develop a certain type of physique, we should avoid having unrealistic expectations of how our bodies are supposed to look like to prevent feelings of frustration. Maybe try to focus on features of your body that make you feel confident and accentuate those traits.

Exercise – Feel the Difference

This principle is about limiting obsession over counting burnt calories and rather shifting the focus to enjoying movement. Engage in physical exercise that feels natural to you, a motivating activity that makes you feel good.

Honor Your Health – Gentle Nutrition

Intuitive eating is about trusting your body to make the right food choices. Honoring your taste buds is a crucial component of this nutrition approach. Yet, having knowledge about nutrition holds the same value. Knowing the basics of nutrition can help us to make the best food choices to achieve optimal health. Pay more attention to the quality of your food rather than the weight. Focus on whole foods, and limit ultra-processed foods as well. Remember that there’s no perfect way of eating, we are all different and what may work for one person, may not work for you.

I hope this No Diet Day you build confidence in making choices that feel good to you and celebrate eating what you love!

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