My friend Rachel Cole is an Intuitive Eating Counselor and Life Coach. There’s some text on her website that says "for many people, they buy into intuitive eating intellectually long before the practice sinks into their bones." That has certainly been the case for me. I first came across the concept of intuitive eating in the book Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life by Kelsey Miller (here's an article by Kelsey to get the short version). I immediately read the actual Intuitive Eating book and completely bought in. I mean, the idea that we’ve all been listening to others (who don’t even know us!) tell us what our bodies need, when we could be just listening to our bodies ourselves?

Hmm, sounds similar to something else I preach...🤔

BUT. Putting intuitive eating into practice can be really confusing. Learning to listen to your body, decipher hunger cues, learning the difference between fullness and satiety, the idea of removing restrictions from food - it’s all confusing. I’m also not someone who does well ruminating on these things alone. It causes more anxiety and leaves me less certain.

This summer, for the first time, I finally felt like I made progress with my relationship to my body and intuitive eating, because I joined one of Rachel’s Intuitive Eating Mentorship Circles. A small group of women met (almost) every week to be coached by Rachel about what we’d come up against in the previous week related to food, movement, and our bodies. Having the chance to check in weekly with someone who’s spent years on the process was invaluable.

Of course, finding the clothes to fit this new body that make me feel good has been a big focus for me. Recently, as I’ve been doing for much of the spring and summer, I shared some images on my Instagram stories of myself trying on clothes. I expressed sadness that my body had changed and discomfort with my new body. I’d like to think I wasn’t sharing in a whiny way, but in a way of "if you feel this way too, that’s normal and you’re not alone".

One person who saw those stories messaged me (after asking permission to bring up the subject, which was much appreciated) that since I don’t seem to be happy with my current body, why I wouldn’t attempt to change it to a body that I did feel more comfortable in, instead of working to accept this one.

Even though I’m still working through discomfort with my new body, there was no hesitation and no doubt as I wrote my response (this is a rephrased version of my in-the-moment response):


"I’m happy with how I’m eating and my level of movement and don’t want to change either of them, therefore I want to accept the body that results from them. Quite frankly, with two kids, a business, and the state of the world, I just don’t have the mental bandwidth or energy to focus on changing my body. It’s been proven that 90+% of diets fail, so If I tried, it would only be something else that I would probably fail at and make me feel worse about myself."


Rachel has a new round of Intuitive Eating Mentorship Circles starting soon (the deadline to apply is August 23), and I highly recommend joining one. If you’re curious, check them out here. I’m also happy to answer any questions about my experience so far with intuitive eating or with Rachel’s program. Hit reply and ask!

Are you practicing intuitive eating? Does any of this resonate for you? How would you have responded to the commenter’s question?

P.S. If you want help with the clothing part of this journey, I'm now booking clients for fall and my schedule is filling up quickly. Book a free 20-minute clarity call HERE to see if working together is something that might be right for you.