4 Common Barriers Preventing You from Becoming an Intuitive Eater

Hi Welcome to How to love your body. I'm Lauren McAulay and this is Jenna Free and we are intuitive eating counsellors from The Body Love Society and the app The UnDiet Collective.

This podcast is for you if you are working to take action in becoming an intuitive eater and undieter instead of just constantly learning about it and listening to 100652 interviews.

This podcast is brought to you by our NEW intuitive eating quiz that you can take at bit.ly/undietquiz

Take the quick quiz to know what your barrier is in the way that you’re tackling this journey.

Lets dive in to todays episode.

We are talking about 4 barriers that can hold people up from finding food and body freedom. We are talking about the WAY that you’re going about it.

UnDieting is SO different than dieting that we really need to tackle it in a different way and this might not even occur to a dieter because its just the way we think!

1. The first barrier is:

Consistency and Longevity

This is the #1 thing that gets people stuck in limbo, not dieting but not getting to where they want to go (feeling like food is easy and theyre at peace in their bodies).

Where dieters get stuck:

We’ve been used to hard sprints and then falling off the wagon. Think 30 day challenges, having a personal trainer for 3 months or starting weight watchers with all your efforts just to quit a month later.

This is NOT the energy that will work in becoming an intuitive eater.

The way you need to tackle this work is to truly understand that this is the rest of your life - don’t obsess over this thinking you’re going to crack the code in 2 months, everything will be perfect and you can then stop thinking about it at all.

It’s a slow burn.

It’s about daily, small steps forward. 

You NEED the time to explore what works for you, to dive deep into the mindset work and to let time reveal to you where your struggles are and what you still need to work on.

If you go too hard too fast you will burn out, think - this doesn’t work and move on, probably back to another diet and that is the last thing we want for you.

So the next time you’re freaking out about this not happening fast enough remember - I’ve got the rest of my life to continue to work on this (of course it gets easier with time and you’ll master certain things but there will always be something you’re working on especially when it comes to mindset). 

Also reflect, am I doing something daily to get me to where I want to go? THIS is a key component of this work.

2. The second barrier is:

Community

This is a lonely road to take. I’m sure you’ve noticed that, everyone around you is counting their points and talking about how they need to be good today --- and you’re pulling your hair out. 

Here’s why this might be holding up your progress.

When no one around you gets it, and might be actively pushing against or disagreeing with what you’re doing it’s difficult to be confident enough in what you’re doing to move forward. If you keep thinking - am I crazy? Is this not the right thing? Maybe I should be doing that program with my friend, look how good she looks?

It keeps you in limbo. You need a group that GETS IT. People who can reassure you when it’s tough and celebrate your wins because we KNOW what a win it is to be able to have cookies in the house and not eat them all the first day.

Community will give you the time and space to build up your conviction enough to be able to set and hold your boundaries with the dieters around you.

So if you are feeling in limbo or are often questioning what you’re doing look around you - do you have community to reach out to and get support from?

3. The third barrier is:

Action (or lack there of)

Information overload is a HUGE trap that UnDieters can get stuck in. Dieting taught us just learn all the things, know the foods to eat that are good and bad and you will master your body!

This is not how Intuitive Eatin