Intuitive Eating: Why It’s Not Always Helpful in Early Recovery
If you’ve ever tried intuitive eating and thought, this is useless, you’re not alone.
So many women come to me saying:
“Intuitive eating didn’t work for me.”
“I don’t like it.”
“It just made me binge more.”
I get it, I really do. Intuitive eating can feel impossible in the early stages of recovery. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It just means your body and mind need something different to start your journey of recovery - and yes you might come back to intuitive eating at a later stage.
💚 If you’d like a practical first step, grab my free binge-free guide — it’s full of tools to help you get started.
What Is Intuitive Eating?
Intuitive eating is a framework developed by dietitians Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, built on 10 principles. At its heart, it’s about rejecting diet culture, making peace with food, tuning into hunger and fullness and trusting your body to guide your eating.
It might seem like the answer after years of dieting - no more calorie counting or rigid food rules! A chance to eat “normally”!
BUT, if you are in the stages of early recovery from binge eating or overeating, then it’s often not that simple. Here’s why…
Why Intuitive Eating Feels Hard in Early Recovery
If you’ve been stuck in the binge–restrict cycle for years, your hunger and fullness cues might be all over the place and it can feel really hard to start to tune in.
You might be struggling to tell if you’re hungry or full because dieting and bingeing disrupt natural hunger and fullness signals.
Food rules linger - making it hard to truly give yourself “permission” to eat.
Emotions get in the way. Stress, guilt, or boredom can drive eating instead of hunger.
It feels like free fall. Moving from strict diets to “eat whatever you want” can be overwhelming and could find yourself eating everything in sight.
So when clients tell me intuitive eating felt chaotic or made things worse, it makes perfect sense. You can’t expect your body to guide you confidently if it hasn’t been fed consistently for years.
What to Focus on First
Instead of jumping straight into intuitive eating, the early stages of recovery often need more structure and support.
Here’s what helps:
Eat regularly. Aim for balanced meals and snacks every 3–4 hours. This steadies blood sugar and reduces binge urges.
Think gentle nutrition. Include protein, fibre, and carbs to stay satisfied and energised.
Work on emotions. Build tools to manage stress or overwhelm without turning to food.
💚 I break this down step by step in my free masterclass. If you’ve struggled with intuitive eating before, this will give you a clearer path.
When Intuitive Eating Becomes Helpful
Once you’ve built a foundation - you are eating regularly and your binge urges are starting to fade, only then does intuitive eating become much easier.
That’s when you can start to:
Notice subtle hunger and fullness cues
Explore what foods you actually enjoy
Eat flexibly and trust your body more
Feel calm around all types of food
In other words, intuitive eating isn’t wrong per se - it’s just not necessarily going to be your first step. Think of it as a later stage in recovery, not the starting point.
Takeaway & Next Steps
If intuitive eating hasn’t worked for you, please know this: you haven’t failed. You just need a different entry point.
Recovery is about rebuilding trust with your body step by step. Once you have that foundation, intuitive eating can absolutely support you.
And you don’t have to do it alone. If you’re ready for personalised and tailored support, you can book a free consultation call to find out how you could feel calm and confident around food.
Or if you have any questions, just drop them in the form below and I’ll reply with some tips that you can implement straight away.