One of the newest diets around isn’t a diet at all. It doesn’t name “good” or “bad” foods. Nor does it require measuring food, tracking calories or stepping on a scale. Yet it’s consistently linked to healthier weights, improved mental health and lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, according to one Public Health Nutrition review.
So how does it work? Intuitive eating comes down to paying attention to your body, whether you feel sated, says explains Tracy L. Tylka, professor of psychology at Ohio State University who has extensively studied intuitive eating.
Through her Intuitive Eating Scale, she notes four main characteristics of the approach:
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- Labeling no foods as forbidden.
- Avoiding emotional eating.
- Trusting the body’s hunger and satiety cues to guide food choices.
- Choosing foods that both make the person feel good in his or her body and taste good.