Discover your eating personality and how to turn this into your super power to transform your health!

Perhaps you are still dieting and don’t know it!There are many types of eating styles that are actually unconscious forms of dieting. Many of my clients have said they were not on a diet, but upon closer observation of what and how they ate - they were still dieting!

Diet culture has had a very sneaky way of co-opting the language of health, lifestyle, wellness, and even mindfulness. It may be possible to be following some food plan in the name of health, but it’s actually some form of food restriction with the goal of shrinking the body. 

The eating personalities

To hero you clarify your eating (or dieting) style, there are three identified key categories eaters within the foundations of intuitive eating that exhibit characteristic eating pattern; the careful clean eater, the professional dieter, and the unconscious eater. These personalities are exhibited even when not officially dieting.It is possible to have more than one eating personality, although there tends to be a dominant trait. Events in your life can also influence or shift your eating personality. 

The careful clean eater:

Careful eaters tend to be vigilant about what foods they put into their bodies. On the surface why appear to be ‘perfect’ eaters. They are highly nutrition conscious, Outwardly they seem health and fitness oriented (noble traits admired and reinforced in society). Today,  this may be known as orthorexia.

Much though there is nothing wrong with being interested in the wellbeing of your body, problems occur with this eating style when it affects the healthy relationship with food and your body through rigidity, scrutinising every food situation, and even passing their beliefs on to others around them, because of such a sense of strong self identity around this eating personality.

The professional dieter:

Professional dieters are easy to identify; they are constantly on some food plan. They have usually tried the latest diets, diets books, or new weight loss gimmick. Sometimes dieting takes the form of fasting, or ‘cutting back’. Professional dieters know a lot about portions of foods, calories, and diet ‘hacks’, yet the reasons they are always on another diet is that the original one never worked. 

It is not unusual for professional dieters to engage in frequent binge eating patterns,  sabotage, or ‘last supper’ eating the moment a forbidden food is eaten. This is because the chronic dieters truly believe they will not eat this food ever again, and tomorrow they will start a new food plan, and hence a new slate. 

The problem with this eating style is that it is hard to live this way as chronic underrating through dieting usually results in over eating or periodic binges. Chronic dieting can hence also be a stepping stone towards forming an eating disorder

The unconscious eater

The unconscious eater is often engaged with paired eating - which is eating while doing another activity at the same time, such as watching television and eating, or reading and eating, or scrolling on a phone and eating. Because of the subtlety of this behaviour, it can be difficult for this person to identify this eating personality. 

Some further examples of unconscious eating are the chaotic eater, whereby the eating style is haphazard and whatever is available will be grabbed in the moment, even the person is nutrition conscious, often due to lack of recognition of biological hunger due to the chaos in daily life. 

The refuse- not unconscious eater is vulnerable to eating food whenever present, regardless of hunger or fullness, and often eat without awareness of that are eating.

The waste not unconscious eater values eating food at all costs, and will find themselves always clearing their plate, or others. 

The emotional unconscious eater uses food as a predominant way to cope with emotions, especially uncomfortable ones such as anger, stress, and loneliness. 

The problem with the unconscious eater personality is if it results in chronic overeating, and if it being used to ‘zone out’ with food, rather then processing and healing underlying emotions and associated issues.

The Solution

Becoming an intuitive eater!Intuitive eating reconnects you with your mind, body, and soul, so that you have trust, peace and freedom around your food and body with all foods and situations, and are able to eat with nuance, balance and variety without ever feeling deprived or restricted again. The 10 principles of intuitive eating is an evidence based self care framework that achieves life changing health transformations that are sustainable for true, authentic, long term health and happiness.