In my workshop last week, one of the participants shared that she sometimes doesn’t like to eat salad because it reminds her too much of her dieting days.  Whenever she eats salad, she feels what she used to feel while dieting—restricted and annoyed, and with a vague feeling of perpetual hunger.

How many of you can relate to that feeling?  I know I can!  When I first started working with the concept of intuitive eating, I felt like I was fighting a never-ending battle with a variety of food rules, even food rules that conflicted with one another.  I had spent significant portions of my life as an Atkins dieter, an Overeaters’ Anonymous member, a low carbohydrate vegetarian and a Weight Watchers’ points aficionado.  As you can imagine the Atkins part of me and the low carb vegetarian part of me had some things in common but highly disagreed with the Weight Watchers’ point keeper and the O.A. dieter!  Did I believe in low carb or low fat?  Was a scooped out bagel a good choice or a terrible one?  Was I overdoing the olive oil or should I slather it on?

And while I have come to terms with my diet rule demons, as a counselor who often talks about intuitive eating, I can run into some problems.  In my class last week, I started to talk about what foods were good to consider when you’re suffering from low energy, but whenever I talk about food in this way, I often have to work my way around my own fears of sounding like a Weight Watchers or O.A. leader.  Whenever I talk about leafy greens and added fiber and drinking adequate water, I get a creepy feeling that I’m imposing food rules on my clients, even though I have no intention of doing so.  To me, I care more about how my clients actually feel when they eat certain foods than how they should feel or what they should be eating.

Diet rules impede intuitive eating because they stop you from connecting with your body’s wisdom.  Whether you’re confining your eating habits to old diet rules or avoiding food that reminds you of your dieting days, you end up being a slave to diets.  I’m sure that wasn’t (or isn’t) your intention if you’re breaking away from diets!

So here’s how to lose those diet rules…

1) Call Them Out!—Take a moment to write down all of the diet rules that still haunt you.  They may be conflicting, nonsensical, or sometimes sort of sensible.  Whatever they are, get them all out on paper.  Then, decide if any are worth keeping.  Only keep the ones that really honor your body and its changeability —such as getting adequate water, eating some leafy greens here and there and other stuff like that.  Throw out any rules that limit the types of foods you can eat (unless you have allergies or other health concerns) and definitely toss the calorie and carb counting.

2) Listen To Yourself—We all have a voice within us that tells us what foods nourish us and that advises us about our hunger and fullness.  Note, we ALL have this voice.  Sometimes this voice has been stifled by pushy parents or diet rules or our emotional torment, but trust me, it is there.  Take steps to actively listen for this voice.  Honor it no matter how quietly it speaks.  If you think you heard it and turned out to be wrong, listen for it again tomorrow.  Trust me that it is safe to trust yourself.

3) Pay Attention—Notice which foods feel best to you.  Do you like a muffin and coffee in the morning or an apple and almond butter and tea?  Does it depend on how much sleep you got, how much stress you’re under?  Are comfort foods comforting sometimes and sometimes not so much?  Notice the effects on your energy levels.  Notice comfort and discomfort.

The only rule is that there are no rules.  You make the rules.  It’s okay to be heady with that power as long as you let your body lead the way.  And if you live in NYC and want some more support on intuitive eating, please join me for my next workshop: Heal & Transform Your Relationship With Food, Tuesday, March 23rd! I would love to see you there!

To learn more about intuitive eating and trusting your body, check out this week’s other great blogs and tips.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness. She counsels women and men throughout the country on how to get off the dieting roller coaster, give their bodies what they really crave, and love their bodies and themselves. Golda's counseling and activism work have been featured on CBS's The Early Show, ABC's Nightline and Time Out New York. For more support with healing your relationship with food and your body, sign up for the Body Love Wellness Newsletter and receive your free download — Golda’s Top Ten Tips For Divine Dining.