What Intuitive Eating Actually Looks Like (When You Still Want Results)

Mastering Intuitive Eating: Balancing Intention and Freedom for Lasting Results

In this episode of the Muscles & Mindset Revolution podcast, certified fitness and life coach Anne Jones breaks down what intuitive eating actually looks like—especially for high-achieving women who still want to lose weight, build strength, and feel confident in their skin.

Anne tackles common misconceptions, including the idea that intuitive eating means “eat whatever, whenever.” She explains why true food freedom doesn’t mean giving up your goals—and how intentional choices, mindful planning, and a flexible framework can help you get real results without obsession or restriction.

Listeners will learn how Anne’s 10-step Muscles & Mindset Nutrition Method blends evidence-based nutrition, mindset coaching, and intuitive principles to help women stop overthinking food and finally feel in control.

Topics covered include:

• The real definition of intuitive eating (and how it’s often misunderstood)
• Why tracking “works”—but why it’s not a long-term solution
• How to build a balanced plate without counting every bite
• The role of mindfulness, hunger cues, and self-trust in sustainable fat loss
• What it looks like to eat with both intention and freedom

🎯 Whether you want to lose fat, improve digestion, or feel better in your body without obsessing, this episode will help you understand how to finally make peace with food—without giving up on results.

Timestamps:

00:26 – Understanding Intuitive Eating

00:44 – Misconceptions About Intuitive Eating

01:17 – The Muscles & Mindset Approach

02:18 – Balancing Intuitive Eating and Tracking

04:52 – Real-Life Applications and Client Stories

07:32 – Mindfulness and Eating Patterns

12:00 – The Sustainable Approach to Nutrition

14:52 – Final Thoughts + How to Connect

👉 Want to eat with more freedom and get results?

Book a 1:1 Nutrition Intensive with Anne’s team or apply for the Muscles & Mindset program.

Links in the show notes.

• [FREE YOUR BODY YOUR WAY GUIDE]

• [Join our Free Facebook Community]

• [https://musclesandmindset.ca/]

Ready to build strength, feel confident AF, and lose fat without obsessing or stressing over it? [Apply to Join the Muscles & Mindset program here].

Connect With Me:

• Instagram: [@annejonesfit]

• Website: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/]

• YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@annejones]

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to the Muscles and Mindset Revolution podcast, the podcast for high achieving women who are done with quick fixes and ready to build lasting strength, confidence, and fat loss without obsession and without BS quick fixes. I'm Anne Jones, your host, and after 15 plus years experience in the fitness industry, I know that results don't come from what you do, but how you think. Let's get into it. What's up you guys? Today I want to speak about something that comes up a lot inside my programs and in my dms. Many people, especially those who have done all the diets, love the idea of intuitive eating. It sounds good, right? I also think there's a misconception about what it is, which we are going to talk about. So this is what I hear. I love the idea of intuitive eating. But I can't do it because I'll just go buck wild and eat everything. Or I love the idea of intuitive eating, but what if I still want to lose weight? Or isn't intuitive eating, just eating whatever I want? I can't do that. Or how do I actually eat intuitively and not spiral back into old patterns? So if you've ever felt that tension between desiring intentionality, freedom, between eating without guilt and still wanting results, this episode is for you. So let's begin here. First of all, I do not coach exclusively intuitive eating. Intuitive eating is a self-care eating framework, which integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought, and was created by two dieticians, Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch in 1995. So it is a thing. It is a book. There's a wonderful workbook, which we have recommended to many clients. It is its own thing, intuitive eating. I love intuitive eating because it is essentially what saved me from both, obsession with food, binge eating, purging, and yes, weight gain. We inside muscles and mindset do not coach like traditional purist, intuitive eating. I will explain why, but it is a thing. I do love it. A while ago when I first started coaching, I went through a phase where I was like, we're only doing intuitive eating. That's all that we teach, all that we coach. And now we have our own framework. We have a 10 step muscles and mindset nutrition method, which works for clients. But let's begin with intuitive eating. Even if you did do traditional, pure intuitive eating, it is not just eat whatever you want. A lot of what you see online makes intuitive eating sound like Always eat the cookie, always, go all in on your cravings as far as you wanna go. Let go of all the goals. And while I'm sure some people do coach intuitive eating like that, that is not what it is. And while, yes, intuitive eating absolutely honors hunger, fullness, satisfaction, and body trust, it is not the same as being on autopilot with zero intention. That's actually not what it is at all. So if you have ever tried intuitive eating or done intuitive eating and you feel like you have no intention, you're on autopilot or you're just eating everything all the time, you're not doing it correctly or you are not being guided through the phase of honoring your cravings. Because the women who come to work with me want to feel confident and strong in their skin. They wanna improve their energy, their digestion. They wanna lose fat. They want to improve their performance. And they want to lose weight, but they want to do it without restriction, obsession, or tracking forever, and it is completely possible. The thing that gets in the way here is something you have heard me talk about a lot, which is. All or nothing thinking. So anyone who enters into all or nothing thinking is going to buy into, there's only intuitive eating over here and there's only, dieting or restricting over here. So if we were to look at a scale of one to 10, let's say one is traditional intuitive eating and 10 is like a super restrictive, like fitness, bodybuilding style of eating. Then I would say I am probably like a four. I coach at a four, pretty close to the middle, maybe a little closer to the intuitive eating side, and then I would put tracking macros at an eight. So, because tracking macros can be intelligent and intuitive, and it actually doesn't have to be, there is restriction always involved, but it's definitely more on that end of things. So the key to me is that you're not forcing, you're choosing and inside the muscles and mindset nutrition method, we help clients integrate concepts of intentional intuitive eating. We help them integrate concepts of macros and macro bro tracking. Again, usually going whole hog on anything doesn't work for anyone long term. I was talking to one of our coaches today who was having a conversation with someone. I've had this conversation a million times. Okay. You guys having a conversation with someone who was asking her about coaching, wants to lose weight, and said that they're, they're tracking, they're tracking macros, and Coach Taylor was like, is that working for you? Like, is tracking macros working for you? And they're like, yeah, totally. And she was like, cool. So like, you're losing weight. And they're like, well, no. And she was like, oh, like, why not? And they're like, well, like tracking macros works while I'm doing it, but then I forget, or I get busy or I get loosey goosey about it and then I'm not consistent. Yeah. Tracking macros works. Weight Watchers works. Everything works while you do it, but can you do it forever? For me personally, I am not, tracking every single thing that I eat for the rest of my life. That's a hard pass. To write down or track or put in an app, every single thing that I eat for the rest of my life is a hard pass for me personally. And do I still know what a macro is and what a micro is and how to build a balanced plate? Yes. Do I also know when I feel hungry and when I feel full and what the makeup of a meal should look like? Yes. And that's exactly what we coach our clients. So inside the muscles and mindset nutrition, coaching method, we help clients integrate both. That means eating enough protein, not being crazy obsessed about it like Instagram is right now. And not because MyFitnessPal told you to, but because you want to feel full. You want to fuel your workouts and you want to build muscle mass because that's how you promote lean tissue and that's how you burn more body fat and create body recomposition and lose fat that means learning your hunger cues so you're not riding out hunger and then waiting till you're a ravenous. Do you know how common it is for me to speak to women who don't eat all day and then tell me they have a nighttime binge eating problem? I've never seen that be because the person is an asshole or is lazy or doesn't know that chips are not a health food. It's because they're fricking hungry and haven't been fueling themselves all day and they just get used to feeling like garbage, which comes from a couple things. Overwhelm being too busy to sit down and eat a meal, but also a very nineties Kate Moss, just like. Ride it out and don't eat as long as you can mindset. This also means planning balanced meals ahead of time and having a plan B and a plan C. Because life be lifeing, we are not leaving ourself at the mercy of cravings or burnout or the drive through. So we know how to build a plate, but we don't have to fricking. Enter numbers into our app ahead of time just to like have a day. This also means noticing your patterns. This is why obviously we are a mindset forward program. I am all about mindfulness. 99% of us are moving too fast and never stopping to ever notice that we're hungry. Notice that we're full. Notice the difference between hunger, bloating, digestive pain, and having to pee because we are are moving too fast. So mindfulness plays a part here so that we can notice our patterns, like binge or emotional eating at night, like skipping meals when busy, like not being hungry at certain times of day and gently course correcting. So it's informed. It is intentional and it is intuitive, but it is not impulsive and it's not a black hole like I think some people think it is. And this is the sweet spot where results happen and where peace with food is possible. So when I have clients, which like the most consistent things that I hear is like, it just feels easy. Like I feel better. My energy is up, my sleep is better, my digestion is better. I'm losing weight, my clothes fit differently and it feels easy. Or I lost inches, I lost pounds. My digestion is better and I didn't have to go on a diet. I didn't have to count anything. I didn't have to track anything. It also feels like I go to a barbecue and I can eat whatever I want without basing it on what other people are eating or how much other people are or are not eating, or what I think I should be eating. Like we can get very in our head right when we're pulled in all sorts of directions, or we can get very restrictive. So. I know this because I used to spend a lot of energy thinking about food, and if you have heard my story, if you go back to the original first episodes of this podcast, I tell my story about nutrition. One of the first episodes is also about all or nothing thinking I explain my experience, but I will put it in brief for you here. To make a long story short, I spent a lot of energy and time thinking about food. In fact, when I was in university, it's all that I thought about. I remember watching friends'cause that's how old I am. I remember watching friends or like sitcoms TV and, and also just being in public with people and literally thinking, how can they not be thinking about food right now? How can they not be thinking about food and what they are going to next eat or not eat? Like, I couldn't understand how people were not thinking about food. All the time. And then when it was time to eat, it was like anxiety ridden. Is this enough? Is this too much? Like, can I eat this thing? Should I just like treat myself like so much overthinking? Did I ruin my day? Should I purge this? Should I be hungry right now? Should I be full right now? So much overthinking. I thought being good with food meant control. I actually didn't even know what control meant, but I thought that intuitive eating meant giving all of that up and just hoping my body would know what to do. And that is not the case because what I learned and because I was a student of intuitive eating myself, and again, if you haven't heard my story. I was a binge and restrictive eater and perr in university, and I found one of those little like dangly flyers where you pull the phone number off and I was part of a research study on nutrition. Then I got referred to a nutrition student. Her name's Billie Hermosa. She's still a nutritionist in Ottawa. She's also a CrossFit girly. Shout out to Billy. And she changed my life. She taught me about nutrition, the science. We did a little food logging. She taught me like how to intuitively basically. And she also taught me how to eat. And that's what led me to teach that to everyone else.'cause I was like, God damn, this is way more fun than that other shit that I was doing. But the other thing that I hear from women, particularly women with body recomposition goals, high achieving women, women who have had experience with a diet or tracking before, is that they believe that they need more control. They think that being good with food means controlling everything. I can't, I just can't intuitively eat because then I just emotionally eat or my period comes in the carbs. Girl, that's not intuitive. Eating's fault. That is dealing with your emotions and your stress. That is what that is about. That's not. Because your body doesn't know what to do, your body knows exactly what to do. You just don't know how to listen to it. And more control, more restriction, more tracking does not teach you anything about listening to your body. It can teach you about appropriate macro, micro, and portion sizes. But then what do you do without it? And what do you do when your body changes? What do you do on a day where you feel more hungry or you are not feeling well and you feel less hungry? You still do what your fucking macros tell you to do. This makes zero sense. So intuitive eating is a skill. That must be combined with logic and science. It is a skill that gets stronger when you practice self-trust. Hello. There's a mindset, little, little mindset, you know, requirement here. Build consistency and stop chasing extremes. I hear you. You wanna feel confident in your clothes. You wanna lose weight for your health, for your happiness. It doesn't make you shallow. That makes you human. That's fine. But you don't need more control restriction or willpower to do so. So here's a little sneak peek, inside what our version of intuitive eating looks like inside the muscles and mindset, nutrition coaching method. So our clients are eating three epic protein forward meals a day, just as I do. They are not grazing, they are not tracking, but they are planning and. Do clients track? Sometimes? Yes. We usually, with new clients in particular, we'll do a food log, usually just a log, which can be like writing or taking photos or recounting. It can be a track for a few days. But we are teaching how to eat so we do not have to do that long term.'cause I haven't met anyone who, from a non obsessive place was like, I love counting and weighing all of my food and showing my children that that's how we eat. We teach our clients how to get back on track after a weekend. It really involves not being off track, but there's no shame around it. Our clients enjoy treats on the regular. They enjoy alcohol, they enjoy all the summer foods they feel in control without constantly needing more control restriction. Willpower and structure. They know how to notice when they're emotionally eating and they have the tools to shift it and bounce back really freaking quickly. My clients lose weight, they lose body fat. They feel energized and they stop obsessing. It is not a perfect like system because there is no perfect system, and it is also not rigid, but it is powerful and it is literally sustainable till the day that you die. Don't wanna be in the nursing home tracking your macros. How embarrassing. Good Lord. what I need you to know is that you actually don't need another rule around food. You need to learn to listen. And the women who I coach, who usually I hear saying, I just need the meal plan. I just need another, I just need a better meal plan. Maybe I should try this. Maybe I should try intermittent fasting. I've coached those clients. And it takes them a little bit longer to get there, but you know how they get the result and they, you know, how they get out of that is by doing the mindset work to realize that no freaking meal plan is coming to save them. No macros breakdown is going to change their life permanently. They learn how to listen. They learn how to tune in without judgment, and they learn how to feel powerful in their own bodies. That is it. That's money my friend. You are not broken. If you wanna lose weight, you're not anti-feminist. If you wanna lose weight, I get it. You're not behind if you still are confused about what to eat or you think that butter is a carb, you just need a method that brings your body's. Signals together with your desire for change. You can have both. That is what we do inside muscles and mindset. That is why I have hired two very educated nutrition coaches who are here to help you with this. So if you are nodding along to this and you are ready to stop obsessing while still getting results. Let's talk about it. You can DM me, I'm at@annejonesfit over on Instagram. all the links are in the show notes here. You can apply for muscles and mindset directly. You can just book a one-on-one nutrition intensive with one of our coaches, 75 minute deep dive, and they will walk you through exactly how to eat with freedom and intention and feel good doing it in a way that works. For your life. All of these links are in the show notes. Thank you so much for tuning into Muscles and Mindset Revolution podcast today. If this episode landed with you, I would love for you to share it with a friend. Tag me at@annejonesfit, or please leave a five star review. It really helps to keep the show going and I so appreciate your feedback and the time that you take. I will see you next week, same time, same place. You don't wanna miss the next episode. Have a wonderful day.