ThriveHer Ep18 What Intuitive Eating Really Means—And Why It’s a Game-Changer.

Voice Over: 00:00:05

Where we empower women to take control of their unique health conditions and wellness journey during perimenopause and beyond. Our goal is to help you dream big and reach your fullest potential in every part of your life.

Each week, the podcast dives into expert insights, natural solutions and inspiring stories to support you on your journey. And now, here's your host, your no nonsense naturopath, Richelle Wade.

Rochelle Waite: 00:00:36

Have you ever had one of those days where you just can't stop snacking? You ate a full meal, but an hour later you're standing in front of the fridge looking for something, anything to satisfy you.

And the craziest part is, even after you eat something, you're still not satisfied. Then come the thoughts, why can't I just eat normally? Why am I always craving sugar? What is wrong with me?

This is why so many women feel like intuitive eating doesn't work for them. They're told to just listen to your body. But what if your body is sending mixed signals?

And what if every time you listen to your cravings, it just leads you back to sugar, carbs and overeating? That's what we're tackling today.

Why intuitive eating feels impossible for so many women, especially during perimenopause, and more importantly, how to fix it. So my hope is by the end of this episode, you'll understand exactly what intuitive eating is, why your body signals might be broken, and how to stay.

Start rebuilding trust with your hunger cues so the food feels easy again. Okay, let's start with the big question. What even is intuitive eating?

Because I know this term gets thrown around a lot and it can feel a little vague. Some people hear intuitive eating and they think it means eating whatever they want whenever they like.

Like, okay, I feel like ice cream for dinner, so I'll have that. Others assume it's about mindful eating, chewing slowly, putting your fork down between bites, stopping at exactly 80% full.

And while those ideas sort of touch on intuitive eating, they don't actually get to the heart of what it actually is. At its core, intuitive eating is about rebuilding trust with your body.

It's about getting back to the place where eating feels natural again, where you're not overthinking every bite, not obsessing over what's good or bad, and not constantly swinging between restriction and losing control. Imagine waking up in the morning and just knowing what to eat without overanalyzing it.

Imagine going to a restaurant and ordering something because it sounds good and makes you feel good. Without guilt, without counting calories, without stress. That's intuitive eating. And here's the thing. We were all born intuitive eaters.

Just think about babies. They cry when they're hungry. They stop eating when they're full. They don't care about portion sizes or good versus bad foods.

Their body tells them exactly what they need. But over time, we lose that connection. Diet culture, food rules, and emotional eating pull us further and further from our natural instincts.

If intuitive eating is supposed to be natural, then why does it feel so impossible for so many of us? Why do we feel like we can't trust our own hunger? Here's why. Dieting and food rules have taught us to ignore hunger.

We've been conditioned to see food as good or bad. Emotional eating confuses real hunger with comfort cravings.

And then if you're in perimenopause, your hormones are making everything even more complicated. So it's no wonder that when people try intuitive eating, they feel like it doesn't work.

Because if your hunger signals are being distorted by blood sugar crashes, stress eating, and years of restriction, then just listening to your body isn't that simple. But here's why intuitive eating is so powerful. When you reset your body's signals, food stops being exhausting. You stop obsessing over it.

You stop feeling out of control. You stop kneading food rules. Because your body is finally sending you clear, reliable signals again. And best of all, you get your mental energy back.

All that time used to spend stressing about what to eat, you can finally put that towards your work, your family, your passions, your life. But here's the thing. Intuitive eating only works if your body signals are trustworthy. And for most women, especially in perimenopause, they aren't.

So before we can get to just listening to our bodies, we need to figure out why our hunger and and fullness cues have been so hijacked and how to fix that. And that's what we're getting into next. So now we know what intuitive eating actually is.

It's about rebuilding trust with your body so eating feels effortless again. But here's the catch. Most of us don't actually trust our hunger and fullness signals. And that's not our fault.

I hear all the time women saying, I tried intuitive eating, but I listened to my body and it just led me back to carbs all day. Or if I stopped controlling what I eat, I'd never stop eating. And look, I get it. Because your body signals are out of whack.

It's going to feel like your cravings, hunger and fullness cues are all over the place. So let's talk about why that happens. Think of how many times you you've ignored your hunger because a diet told you to.

Maybe you've skipped breakfast because intermittent fasting is good for fat loss. Or maybe you've eaten a tiny lunch, telling yourself, I'll push through.

Or maybe you've had those moments at night when you're starving, but you think I shouldn't eat after 7pm every time you do that, you're teaching your body that hunger isn't something to be trusted. It's something to be managed, controlled, or ignored. Guess what happens? Your metabolism adapts.

Your body stops sending clear hunger signals because it doesn't trust that your food will be available when it actually needs it. And then what do you do? You eat.

Your body overcompensates, making you feel like you're overeating, when really it's just trying to make up for lost time. Now let's talk about another big reason intuitive eating can feel impossible. Processed foods are designed to make you eat more. Think about this.

When was the last time you overate grilled salmon and roasted vegetables? Probably never, right? But have you ever demolished a whole bag of chips without even thinking about it? Yep. Me too.

Processed foods are literally engineered to override your body's natural I'm full signals. They're loaded with just the right combination of salt, sugar, and fat to keep you coming back for more.

They trigger dopamine, the brain's reward chemical, making you crave another bite. And another. And another. And it's not just about willpower. These foods actually mess with your hunger hormones. Leptin and ghrelin.

Ghrelin tells you when you're hungry, and leptin tells you when you're full. But processed foods disrupt that balance, making it harder to feel satisfied. This is why eating a high protein breakfast keeps you full for hours.

But eating a pastry and a coffee in the morning has you starving by 10am the first meal works for your hunger hormones. The second one hijacks them.

If you're in perimenopause, things get even trickier because your hormones are changing the way your body processes hunger, cravings, and satisfaction. I'd like to break this down. Estrogen fluctuations that happen during perimenopause mess with leptin.

Now, leptin is the hormone that tells you you're full. But when your estrogen is fluctuating, like it does in perimenopause, your body becomes less sensitive to leptin, meaning you might not feel as full.

Even after eating enough now, your body becomes naturally more insulin resistance in perimenopause too, which means your blood sugar highs and lows more extreme. And when that happens, your blood sugar crashes and your body panics and sends out cravings for quick energy, usually sugar and carbs.

Now, if you've been feeling more on edge lately, it's not just that life is being stressful. Cortisol levels naturally increase during perimenopause. And when cortisol's high, it triggers cravings for comfort foods.

This is why you might feel you need chocolate or wine after a stressful day. It's your body actively trying to calm itself down.

So if during perimenopause you're feeling more irritable and low energy than usual, your serotonin and dopamine levels might be dipping. The two brain chemicals that help regulate appetite and satisfaction. And guess what? One of the fastest ways to boost serotonin is eating carbs.

This is why carb cravings can feel so intense during perimenopause. Your body is literally asking for a serotonin hit.

So when you put all of this together, years of dieting processed foods, hijacking your hunger and hormonal shifts, you end up in a place where your body signals certainly aren't reliable. You're not getting true hunger and fullness cues. You're getting distorted signals based on stress, blood sugar crashes, and years of restriction.

So if you've ever felt like intuitive eating doesn't work for you, this is why. But the good news, you can fix this. You can retrain your body to send the right signals again.

So hunger actually feels normal, fullness feels satisfying, and cravings don't control you anymore. And that's exactly what we're getting into next. What you need to do before intuitive eating can actually work for you.

So step one, balance your blood sugar first. You cannot listen to your body if it's screaming for sugar. Think about it.

How many times have you felt felt totally fine one minute and then suddenly starving and cranky the next? That's not just normal hunger. That's a blood sugar crash.

And you know that mid afternoon craving for something sweet that's seen in every workplace around the world at about 2 or 3pm Blood sugar crash. That hangry feeling when you're ready to snap at your partner over nothing? Blood sugar crash.

Waking up starving even after a big dinner the night before? Yep. Blood sugar crash. Even waking up during the night to go to the toilet? Likely a blood sugar crash.

The fastest way to stabilise blood sugar is to make sure that every meal or snack has protein and healthy fats and fibre.

Because when you eat carbs on their own, like toast and coffee for breakfast or a muffin in the afternoon, your blood sugar spikes fast and crashes even faster. But when you pair those carbs with protein and fat. Now we're talking.

This slows digestion while keeping your blood sugar stable and stops those energy crashes before they happen. So imagine two different breakfasts. One is a bowl of cereal with skim milk. The other is eggs with avocado and maybe some whole grain toast.

The cereal, it gives you a quick energy hit. Then an hour later, you're already thinking about your next snack, the eggs and avocado. That keeps you full, steady and focused for hours.

That's blood sugar balance in action. Now, that doesn't even take into account the extra nutrients you get as well. So that's a bonus, too.

Now, the step two is to crowd out processed foods so your hunger cues become reliable again. Now, look, I'm not going to tell you to cut out all processed foods forever, because that's just another restrictive rule.

But what I'm saying is that the more you eat real whole foods, the less your body will crave the ultra processed stuff that hijacks your hunger cues. And here's the cool part. Your taste buds actually change when you start eating more real food. Your body starts craving what makes you feel good.

I'd like to tell you about A Kleida had gentlemen. She used to rely on takeout and packaged snacks because she was too busy to cook. She told me she didn't even like vegetables.

But after four weeks of focusing on real simple foods, things like roasted veggies, quality proteins and healthy fat, she came back and said, I had no idea real food actually tasted this good. It's like I got my taste buds. Now, if cutting out processed foods feels overwhelming, don't overthink it.

Just start by adding one more real food first. Instead of focusing on what you can't have, focus on crowding out processed foods by eating more nutrient dense meals.

Say you always reach for chips in the afternoon. Try swapping them for something like almonds and cheese.

Or if you love desserts after dinner, try some dark chocolate with nuts instead of something loaded with refined sugar. Every small shift adds up.

Once your blood sugar is stable and your body isn't running on processed foods, the next step is relearning what real hunger and satisfaction actually feel like. Because if you've been following food rules and emotional eating for years.

It can actually be really hard to tell the difference between true hunger and just wanting food out of habit. So some of the things you can do are check in before eating. Ask yourself, am I actually hungry? Or am I bored, stressed, or craving something?

Eat when you're on a 3 to 4 on the hunger scale. Not starving, not just nibbling because it's time to eat and stop when you're at a six and a seven. Satisfied but not stuffed.

If you're used to eating until you're stuffed, stopping at satisfied will feel weird at first. That's okay. Just pause halfway through a meal and check in.

Do I actually need more food right now or am I just eating because it's in front of me now? The more practice you have at this, the easier it gets.

Over time, your body will start giving you clearer signals and intuitive eating will start to feel, well, intuitive again. So now we know what needs to happen before intuitive eating can work.

We have to balance blood sugar, eat more real food, connect with real hunger and satisfaction. But now let's talk about what happens next. How do you actually practice intuitive eating every day?

All right, so we know what intuitive eating you know. We know that it only works when your body's hunger and fullness signals are actually reliable.

And we now know that balancing blood sugar, eating more real food, and retraining your body to recognize real hunger will help. Because I know what you might be thinking. Okay, I get it. But what do I actually know?

How do I go from obsessing over food to eating intuitively without spiraling into chaos? So let's break it down. I'm going to walk you through three simple steps to start practicing intuitive eating today.

Step number one, Using that hunger scale, learn the difference between real hunger and just wanting food. This is one of the biggest challenges with intuitive eating. It's knowing whether you're actually hungry or are you just wanting food. And I get it.

Sometimes it's real hunger. Your body actually needs fuel. Other times, you're bored, you're stressed. You saw someone eating cake on Instagram and now you're thinking about cake.

So how do you tell the difference? And that's where the hunger scale comes in. Before you eat, take a breath. Take five seconds to check in with yourself.

Where am I on the hunger scale now? What does this scale look like? 1 to 2 is absolutely starving. You're shaky, light headed, even a little nauseous. This is too hungry.

And this leads to overeating. Three to four is ready to eat. You feel Hungry, but you're not desperate. This is the best time to eat. Five to six is satisfied.

You could eat more, but you don't need to. This is actually where I want you to stop. Seven to eight is full. You're feeling stuffed, even a little uncomfortable. A little too much food here.

Nine to ten is overstuffed. Now we're thinking about Christmas dinners or Thanksgiving dinners. That level of regrets. And look, we've all been there.

So let's say you're scrolling on your phone and you suddenly get the urge for a snack. Instead of just grabbing something, pause and ask yourself, am I actually hungry or is this a craving? Now, if you're at a 3 to 4, go eat.

If you're at a 5 or higher, maybe what you actually need is water, movement or just a mental break. Now here's something that might surprise you. It takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register fullness.

But these days, most people finish eating in under 10 minutes. That means if you're eating too fast, your brain doesn't even get the chance to recognise that you're satisfied until you've already overeaten.

So how do we practise this? We put our fork down between bites. Look, I know this sounds simple, but it actually makes a huge difference.

You actually taste your food, chew slower, notice the texture and pay attention to how it feels. We also want to avoid distractions while eating. No mindlessly scrolling TikTok or answering emails during meals.

Think about the last time you ate something on autopilot. Maybe snacking in front of the TV or eating lunch at your desk. Did you actually enjoy it? Did you look down and think, wait, where did my food go?

Now compare that to when you've had a really good meal, the one where you slowed down, took your time and actually enjoyed it. Huge difference, right?

The more you slowed down, the more your brain can register satisfaction and the easier it is to stop eating when you've actually had enough. Now, step three is to drop the all or nothing thinking, there are no good or bad foods. Now, this is a big one.

If you've spent years dieting, you've probably had a long list of good foods and bad foods in your head. Intuitive eating means you can let go of those food rules.

Now, look, this doesn't mean eating donuts all day, but what it does mean is taking the guilt and morality out of food. Because the moment you tell yourself, I can't have that, what happens? You want it even more. Let's say you're at a party and there's cake?

You think I shouldn't have cake? Cake is bad. And you sit there watching everyone else eat it, trying to resist.

Eventually you give in, but now you feel so guilty you think, screw it, I've already ruined my diet. I might as well eat everything in sight. But what if instead you just said, I can have cake if I want it? Let me check in. Do I actually want it now?

If the answer is yes, enjoy the damn cake without guilt, without restriction, and without the urge to binge later. Food is just food. And when we let go of good versus bad mindset, food loses its power over you. And that's when intuitive eating actually clicks.

Okay, I want to wrap this up. If you take one thing from this episode, let it be Intuitive eating isn't about eating whatever you want, whenever you want.

It's about rebuilding that trust with your body.

So we've covered blood sugar balance, crowding out processed foods, reconnecting with your hunger, and then finally starting to practice those intuitive eating steps by slowing down, listening to your hunger, and dropping the good versus bad mindset. If this episode hit home for you, here's what I want you to do.

Tell a friend Share this episode with someone that you think needs to hear it, because we need to change the way women think about food, hunger and health. Now. If you'd actually like to go deeper into this, why not sign up for a Thrive Her Ignite membership?

It's free and it actually gives you everything you need to balance blood sugar, reset cravings, and start eating in a way that actually feels good. Just head to ThriveHer VIP to check it out. Now.

I hope this episode gave you a fresh perspective on intuitive eating, one that actually works with your body and not against it. Remember, this isn't about following more rules. It's about learning to trust yourself again, one small step at a time.

Now, before you go, be sure to hit subscribe because next week we are unpacking something that a lot of women struggle with, and that's thyroid health and your metabolism. Could some of the healthy foods actually be slowing things down? And what should you eat to truly support your energy?

So we'll be breaking all of that down so you won't want to miss it. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a friend who needs to hear it.

Until next time, keep believing in yourself, keep striving for more, and keep thriving, because your best life is just ahead.

Voice Over: 00:23:42

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