Episode 22: IFS and Our Eating Parts: How IFS and Intuitive Eating Work Together.

Last week, we talked about diet culture being a legacy burden that we can give back to those who gave it to us.  I hope that that episode inspired you to think about the role of dieting in your life, and I hope that you're at least starting to think about letting some or all of it go. 

Maybe you've already done that!  

Or, maybe you're thinking, "Ok Kim, I get that diet culture is toxic and damaging and I'd love to leave it, but I have no idea how!"  I hear that allllllll the time.  Which makes sense! 

For one thing, most of us have been dieting to some degree for most of our lives.  Dieting is like a safety net that we can't let go of.  It feels terrifying to not be following a "plan" or a "program."  

Diet culture has convinced us that we need them.  Without them, we would have no idea what to eat, when to eat, how much to eat, etc.  

We've also learned from diet culture that we can't trust ourselves with food. We can't trust our bodies to know what type of food is "best" for us, or how much to eat.  We can't trust our own hunger cues because if we let them take over, they'll lead us to binge. 

You want to leave diet culture, but how do you DO that? 

The answer to that is twofold: 

  1. You use IFS to keep getting to know the parts of you that use food for emotional reasons or that somehow contribute to your eating patterns as well as the parts of you that don’t feel that your body is good enough; and

  2. You adopt an Intuitive Eating (IE) approach to food.

The combination of IFS and IE is the gold standard, in my opinion, and we're talking about why that is and how they blend together on this week's podcast.

Intuitive Eating is definitely getting a lot more attention these days. But if you haven't heard of it, head to episode 6 of my podcast for a full description.

In a nutshell, IE is an anti-diet approach to food that includes 10 principles that help you tune into your body and make peace with food. Now, if you've been on my email list for a bit, you know that I love IE and believe in it wholeheartedly. But nothing is perfect, and I do think that IE on its own can be downright impossible for many people. So if you've tried IE and have felt like it doesn't work for you, that actually makes a lot of sense to me.

Intuitive Eating on its own can feel terrifying. And it can cause a backlash from your dieting parts. Which is why combining it with IFS is so important.

Using IFS to work with the parts of you that are scared of no longer dieting or that are fearful of potential changes in your body is crucial. Without that, IE has less of a chance of working for you.

On this week's podcast, we're talking about what both models have in common and how they support each other.  Specifically, they both:

  1. Focus on the body. Because our parts live in our bodies, IFS strongly encourages us to tune into our bodies and notice where our parts are. Intuitive Eating also encourages us to tune into our bodies in terms of hunger and fullness cues, noticing what foods our bodies like, and moving in ways that feel good.

  2. Reject diet culture. Both IFS and IE see the damage that diet culture does to all of us, and both encourage exiting it as best we can.

  3. Encourage us to make peace with food. That means no longer assigning a moral value to food and giving ourselves permission to eat all of the foods that we enjoy. And using IFS helps us to work with those parts who have learned the lesson that some foods are "bad" and shouldn't be eaten, thereby paving the way for us to enjoy any and all foods.

Again, IFS and IE are the two most effective models that I've found in healing my clients'--and my own--relationships with food and their bodies.  And these two approaches can lead us to being "Self-led" eaters. 

Books to look for:

Fearing the Black Body, Sabrina Strings

Intuitive Eating and the Intuitive Eating Workbook, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch


Click below to listen!

Kimberly Daniels