Can we both listen to our bodies, and control our bodies, at the same time?

This week I’d like to share initial musings on this question, which I’ll be working to answer over the next few weeks.

Controlling our bodies: self-regulation

Many health behaviour change interventions are focussed on “self-regulation” - this is the process of actively controlling your behaviour, by suppressing urges, emotions or desires. We suppress these automatic responses, so we can instead focus on behaviours which help us to meet our goals. For example, we might choose to go for a walk to meet our 10K daily steps goal, and to do that we might need to suppress our desire to sit on the sofa and watch Netflix. This kind of self-regulation is very common in diet culture: we might be craving fries, but instead choose a salad because we’re hoping to lose weight. Behavioural science gives us various tools and techniques to support this self-regulatory overriding of our desires (e.g. goal setting, self-monitoring). However, we also know that it’s a finite resource, and this “self-regulation” gets more difficult over time (that’s why it’s harder to stick to your diet at the end of the day or week).

Listening to our bodies: interoception

A big part of intuitive, weight-neutral approaches to food and activity is about interoception: listening to what your body needs, and responding to it. This might be listening to our hunger cues, or to what movement our body is enjoying, or choosing foods which make us feel good. Part of this approach is about giving yourself unconditional permission to eat or to rest - so your body learns that you’ll give it what it needs, when it needs it. You can also see how these intuitive approaches might be valuable for people with health conditions and disabilities - there are often days when symptoms are higher, and we need to take it easier.

Can they work together, or are they incompatible?

For me, these two approaches feel at odds. Self-regulation is largely about suppressing our bodily signals in order to choose instead the behaviour that meets our long-term goals. Intuitive eating and moving is about listening to our bodily signals, to choose what feels best for us in the moment. At face value, intuitive approaches are all about interoception (listening to your body), and self-regulation is all about overriding interoception. So if this is the case, can we use all the evidence we already have about self-regulatory approaches to behaviour change, and apply them in this context? Or do we need a different model entirely? 

This is an area I’ll be exploring over the next couple of weeks, but here are some initial thoughts:

Self-regulation could improve adherence to intuitive interventions. While “doing what you feel like” might seem easy, it really isn’t in practice. It takes time and conscious effort to reconnect with those signals from our body, and making choices which are in-line with them (e.g. overcoming diet-related thoughts of “I shouldn’t eat that”). Self-regulatory strategies could be applied to helping us to stick to the things that do feel good. For example, with my strength training practice, I knew it felt good in my body to do it, but fitting it into my routine regularly was difficult, so I used tools like planning to make time in my day to regularly stick to it. However, I still intuitively check-in with myself about whether I feel up to it that day, and when choosing the intensity of the session. 

Does our evolutionary psychology, and the capitalist world we live in, mean that we can no longer trust our bodies? This is a big question, and I really don’t know the answer. Some suggest that we have evolved to favour foods high in sugar and fats because they were high energy sources which would have previously been scarce. Furthermore, our behaviour is being continually shaped and influenced by large commercial organisations who profit from us purchasing high-fat, high-sugar food and drinks, and by staying glued to our screens. Is it possible to be truly intuitive in a world like this? 

Is an intuitive approach the answer we’ve been searching for? Given so much of health behaviour change has focussed on a self-regulatory approach, perhaps this is why we haven’t found true success? Results from these kinds of interventions have been mixed, and still many people aren’t meeting the recommended physical activity levels, or have a high enough quality of diet. When will we accept that continuing to try the same approaches might not be working? Will intuitive approaches offer a more effective alternative? Or perhaps we’ve done all we can at an individual level, and for further improvement, major structural and systemic changes need to be made? (I’ve long believed that solving poverty is a much more crucial goal for health than solving the “obesity crisis”)

I’ll be exploring this over the next few weeks. If you have thoughts, please let me know!

Next week: conference insights!

Next week I’ll be at the Behaviour Change conference in Lisbon, so I’m hoping to share some insights I learn there. If you’re also going, let me know - I’d love to chat!