Intuitive Eating Book Roundup
If you’re interested in intuitive eating there are so many resources popping up every day as this anti-diet movement gains traction. I started my intuitive eating journey by reading THE mother of all intuitive eating books: Intuitive Eating by Elise Resch, MS, RD, FADA, and Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD. Since then I’ve read several other books on the topic, each offering a different point of view related to overcoming diets and disordered eating.
Here is a list of some books I highly recommend. So many books, so little time!! This is probably when a service like audible.com would come in handy. Sometimes listening to a book in the car or when I walk my dog may be more realistic for me.
THE LIST!! 👉🏻
Intuitive Eating and The Intuitive Eating Workbook, both by Elise Resch, MS, RD, FADA, and Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD
Intuitive Eating is a great place to start and get yourself acclimated to what it’s all about. Either during or after reading this book, the Intuitive Eating Workbook is a way for you to start working through the therapeutic process of ditching diets, body acceptance as you are NOW, and how to feed yourself without weight-stigma or anxiety around food. The authors first wrote this book in 1995 while it was still a fairly unknown topic. Intuitive Eating has since become the subject of countless scientific studies in the world of nutrition and psychology and is slowly gaining popularity in mainstream media today.
Eat to Love: A Mindful Guide to Transforming Your Relationship with Food, Body, and Life, by Jenna Hollenstein
I just started reading this book after listening to Jenna’s interview with Christy Harrison on the Food Psych podcast. I already read Jenna’s book, Drinking To Distraction, about how alcohol didn’t lead her to a rock-bottom moment but was a roadblock in her life when it came to relationships, exploring deeper creativity, masking fears, and missing out on opportunities. In Eat to Love she takes a spiritual approach to attacking diet culture and how it invades our life causing anxiety, depression, and shamefulness associated with eating and body image. She focuses on mindfulness and meditation, two things I would love to incorporate more into my own personal intuitive eating practice.
Landwhale: On Turning Insults Into Nicknames, Why Body Image is Hard, and How Diets Can Kiss My Ass, by Jess Baker
If you are looking for a different spin to intuitive eating and body positivity that’s a bit less “science-heavy”, as you can tell by this book’s title, you will find it here. The somewhat-humorous tone Jess takes is not to be mistaken with the reality of her life and what it was like growing up in a larger body. The book lends insight to how fat-phobic our society is and how this phobia feeds us into the hell of diet culture. Jess is an open book as her story is told with honesty and no apologies.
Savvy Girl: A Guide to Eating, by Brittany Deal and Sumner Brooks MPH, RDN, CSSD
I would describe this as a tell-it-like-it-is guide to eating. Chapters include titles such as “Why Diets are Designed to Fail”, “The Secret to Never Counting Calories Again”, and “Exercise Does Not Make You Lose Weight (Gasp!)”. One of my favorite parts of the book is in the beginning where Sumner is describing her “aha moment”:
“But my aha moment happened when I thought to myself, You don’t have to lose weight today. Why don’t you just see what it feels like to eat for your hunger instead of eating to change your body? Afterward I felt an immediate sense of relief.”
Yesssssssss! Can you relate to the relief of realizing there is no need for you to ever diet AGAIN?
Body Kindness, by Rebecca Scritchfield, RDN
Rebecca takes her experience working with clients and explains how diets do more harm than good. She breaks down four principles in her book: 1) What You Do - with regard to food choices, exercise, and sleep; 2) How You Feel - addresses emotions and how to avoid those “diet” voices in your head; 3) Who You Are - to help you set goals based on what you want to accomplish in your life meshed with personal values, not numbers on the scale or your jean size; 4) Where You Belong - how you can find the right support for this journey. Rebecca also has a podcast, Body Kindness, where she explores multiple ways to be kind to your body and periodically features Bernie Salazar from Season 5 of NBC’s hit show, Biggest Loser. Wouldn’t you be interested to hear what he has to say about all of this diet nonsense?
Health At Every Size: The Surprising Truth About Your Weight, by Linda Bacon, PhD
This book cites numerous scientific studies to justify the faults of dieting. Health At Every Size has sparked the HAES movement to stop this idea that we must be a certain weight in order to be considered healthy. Just as it states, there can be HEALTH at EVERY SIZE. We have been led to believe that if we are at a certain weight category on the BMI chart that we are doomed to a life of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and more. We are told the answer to avoiding disease is dieting to lose weight and avoid these outcomes. However, the diet doesn’t serve us as we lose weight, then gain weight, and possibly gain more than we weighed in the first place. Not to mention what dieting does to our mental health, which can cause stress and anxiety around food, leading to health issues.
There are sooo many more books available. There will certainly be more posts here about other books as I discover in the world of body positivity and intuitive eating. Also keep an eye out for a future post on all of the intuitive eating podcasts that I can’t stop listening to. There may even be a podcast in the works from yours truly!!
Are you reading any great anti-diet books? Share in the comments!!!