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EricT
 
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This is a post that appeared in Gustrength's Blog in July 2009. I think it is a good post and that more people will read it here so I am moving it, along with many other past posts from that blog.
Once in a post about Micheal Pollan's ideas about "nutritionism" and instincual eating I made the following statement:
“…nutritionists would never tell you that simply eating by your “instincts” is a magical ticket to health.”
Well, of course, I cannot speak for any and all nutritionists. I cannot speak for nutritionists at all for that matter. Many nutritionists might very well tell you that eating instinctually is just what healthier people do.
The truth is I don't just object to the concept, I object to the word. Instinct. Instinctual. Very muddy waters there.
Many do not share my problem with the word, of course. And you could argue that it’s semantics.
Look at this quote from Michelle May, for instance:
“People who naturally follow instinctive eating or intuitive eating just seem to know when, what and how much food they need. When their body needs fuel they get hungry, triggering an urge to eat. They simply stop eating when their hunger is satisfied. Most of them really like to eat and seem to be able to eat whatever they want. However they’ll turn down even delicious food if they aren’t hungry and they are less likely to respond to stress with emotional eating.”
Michelle May is right, of course. They’re are people like that, YOURS TRULY, for instance. That’s why you will never see me develop fat loss advice. I may talk about healthy eating and nutrition and fat loss in a general sense but fat loss advise? I leave that to the experts, like May.
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But is it instinct or intuition? In psychological terms I would feel more comfortable with something that can be observed in science.
So let me tell you something about myself, as one of those “naturally thin” people. And about some of the people like me I’ve known and talked with.
And before you get too fed up with the “lucky” nature of this…remember that we all have our cross to bear.
Naturally thin people seem to be able to eat whatever they want.
The truth is that most lifelong thin people eat MUCH LESS than they are perceived to by others. The reason they seem to be able to eat “anything they want” is many times because when you observe them eating “anything they want” it’s the BULK of their calories for that day.
They simply take in LESS OVERALL ENERGY period. And in fact…they probably under-eat if they are like me and are very active.
Most thin people who want to gain weight or lean mass but have trouble do it (so called hardgainers) usually are taking in much fewer calories than they think and if asked they will over-report their food intake, quite the opposite of the overweight.
Thin is not automatically healthy.
The idea that lifelong thin people instinctually eat only healthy foods is erroneous. They just eat LESS. Again, I am not a fatloss expert but less energy in than out means less fat gain. Regardless of where the energy comes from. And when I say LESS, again, I mean MUCH less. There was a time when eating 900 to 1000 calories a day was a LOT for me. And I was NOT healthy. In fact..it was a period of the worst health of my life. Anecdotal though it is, it's the same observation I've made in many thin trainees.
Thin people stop eating when they are full.
Most of the time probably. But not always. A thin person is likely to skip as many meals as they eat. Intermittent fasting is popular these days. Well…thin people do that simply because they forget to eat or don’t have time or are so absorbed in what they are doing…or for any of a hundreds of possible reasons.
This is not instinct. This is about attitudes regarding food. Food is just fuel for the most part. As May says, many thin people really do enjoy eating. They eat slowly and savor their food. It probably takes them longer than their overweight friend to finish eating, in fact. Thus, further fueling the perception that they are eating more. When in fact they are simply eating slowly.
But while thin people do enjoy food, as I’m sure Michelle May would agree, it is not exactly about food as such. It is about the moment. In other words, food is something a thin person will enjoy, especially when given their favorite choices. But they don’t enjoy it more than anything else they enjoy. It is not a replacement for anything…in fact is is simply not that important or more important than anything else.
This is not meant as “thin people are so smart” kinda thing. That same thin person may have many destructive and unhealthy habits. When they are forgetting or not bothering to eat they may be downing coffee by the gallon, smoking, you name it. They may not exercise at all. They may have organs surrounded by fat. They may have high cholesterol and many other markers of deteriorating health. Don’t be fooled into thinking that no fat is synonymous with health.
Thin people often turn down food when they are not hungry.
True. Thin people do not tend to eat, most of the time, when they are not hungry. That is not to say that they NEVER eat when they are not hungry. There are many psychological factors which determine why a certain person would turn down food in a certain circumstance. Many people feel uncomfortable eating in public. By the same token some people feel more comfortable having something to munch on. This is similar to social drinking and smoking.
Honestly, though, I think if you were to round up a bunch of thin people and try to map their eating patterns…you’d get a mess. An unpredictable, chaotic mess. Sort of like you’d get with obese people only with the leaning toward not eating and less food rather than eating more often and more food.
If “instinct” means without any order, rhyme, or reason, than yes, thin people eat by instinct.
Yet, most all fat-loss advice involves ORGANIZING your eating. Becoming accountable for what you eat.
Instinct should facilitate survival and we evolved to store energy for lean times. I know, I know, getting into evolution is getting into more muddy waters. But it’s hard to deny the metabolic strategy involved in fat reserves. However many fatloss writers seem to think that evolution is ALL biology and no psychology. Which, of course, can’t be. We’ve evolved many built in cognitive strategies and patterns through the ages.
To say that thin people “instinctually eat less” is like saying there were hunter gatherers who “instinctually” refused to fuel up for the lean winters. Or to eat more when there was more so that there would be fuel reserves for the times when there was less. Which is how it supposedly worked. When there was less overall food available and no such thing as a food surplus (at least a longstanding one) then this worked. But someone who was not able to store fat efficiently (like me) would have been in a bit of trouble in those times.
Face it, there was less food available and you had to expend more energy to get it. Now you just have to pick up your phone and order a pizza.
That’s all very simplistic and ignores about a million influences we have today. But I didn’t say that thin people were born to be thin anymore than fat people are born to be fat.
What’s the point of all this? Well, if there is a point it’s that there may be no point in striving to think like a thin person to get thin. I think a better goal is SELF-KNOWLEDGE. You will never be able to think like another person. You have to learn to think for yourself.
As Michelle May says, in the article the quote above was taken from, “The answer to weight management lies in YOU.”
Give up believing in the myth of the idealized thin person. He or she does not exist. There is no purpose in feeling guilty because you cannot be more like an ideal that is nothing more than a phantom by-product or our culture.
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