Empowering Your Mind and Body: Intuitive Eating for Those with Paralysis
Intuitive eating is a powerful approach that nourishes your body and supports your mental health. Spinal cord injuries can cause changes in mobility, muscle function, and sensory perception, which can impact appetite, digestion, and weight management.
Essentially, intuitive eating is a non-diet approach that encourages people to trust themselves and their bodies rather than external rules or regulations. The 10 principles of Intuitive Eating, introduced in 1995 by two dieticians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, are designed to be a tool to help understand and reset the person’s relationship with food and enable them to reclaim control. Intuitive Eating is based on the concept that everyone has the internal wisdom to make food choices that are best for their health and well-being if they are given the opportunity to really listen to their bodies.
Think about how you can begin to adopt these principles in your own life!
Principle 1: Reject the diet mentality. Instead, establish positive relationships with food and put away any feelings of guilt associated with eating.
Principle 2: Honor your hunger. Pay attention to your physical hunger and fullness cues as the primary regulators of food intake instead of relying on external or arbitrary rules to guide your eating habits.
Principle 3: Make peace with food. Separate emotions from food and make food choices without guilt. Eating should be seen as enjoyable and pleasurable, rather than as something to be judged or restricted.
Principle 4: Challenge the “food police.” This involves getting rid of any “good” or “bad” food labels and stop internalizing the “rules” of diet culture.
Principle 5: Discover the satisfaction factor. Honor cravings and avoid feelings of deprivation. If you completely ignore cravings, you may feel frustrated and resentful.
Principle 6: Feel your fullness. Become more attuned to your body signals that indicate you are full, such as distention of the stomach or an overall feeling of fullness.
Principle 7: Cope with your emotions. Listen to your feelings, allowing yourself to experience them and process them without using food as a form of distraction or comfort. Begin by discovering new ways to cope with your feelings, such as talking to a therapist, keeping a journal, engaging in more self-care activities, practicing meditation, or using your support system.
Join Our Movement
What started as an idea has become a national movement. With your support, we can influence policy and inspire lasting change.
Become an Advocate
Principle 8: Respect your body. Resist the desire to “fix” any part of your physical appearance, and lean into self-compassion and personal pride instead.
Principle 9: Embrace positive movement. This means doing physical activities (however that looks for you, adapting creatively however needed for your body) that bring you pleasure rather than those that bring dread or exhaustion. No matter your level of paralysis, there is always a way for you to embrace movement, whether that means using the assistance of others to help you with range of motion stretches or using a swimming pool for greater freedom in the water.
Principle 10: Honor your health with gentle nutrition. Make a commitment to health, not perfection, by making gentle choices to nourish your body. Learn to trust your own inner wisdom.
Above all, by embracing intuitive eating, you can tune into your body's signals, honor your needs, and develop a positive relationship with food and your body. It promotes self-acceptance, flexibility, and empowerment, which are all things that can help those with spinal cord injuries live a fulfilling life. By embracing intuitive eating, individuals with spinal cord injuries or paralysis related to any other medical condition can embark on a transformative journey toward self-care, healing, and living life to the fullest.