Stop Counting Calories and Start Paying Attention: The Boomer’s Guide to Intuitive Eating

Let’s talk about intuitive eating. That modern-day phrase that sounds like something your yoga instructor says right before charging you four hundred bucks for a “mindful retreat” where you eat kale in silence. But underneath the marketing fluff, it’s actually a good idea. It’s just been hijacked by people who think hunger is a “vibration.”

Here’s the gist: intuitive eating means listening to your body instead of following some rigid diet plan that tells you when, what, and how much to eat like you’re in food prison. It’s about trusting your hunger cues, not your calorie app, and realizing that maybe you don’t need to drink a liquefied spinach smoothie at 7:03 a.m. just because TikTok told you to.

The science behind it isn’t nonsense either. Studies show intuitive eaters tend to have better psychological health, lower rates of eating disorders, and a more stable body weight over time. It’s about breaking the “diet cycle,” the one where you lose weight, gain it back, lose it again, then eventually say “screw it” and live off pizza and self-loathing for six months. Your body doesn’t need another boot camp. It needs you to pay attention.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Most of us grew up being told to clean our plate or wait for dinner. Hunger wasn’t a feeling; it was an inconvenience. Add in decades of low-fat this and high-protein that, and by now your internal “I’m hungry” signal is about as reliable as a Florida turn signal. You’ve probably ignored it for years.

Intuitive eating is basically retraining that inner voice. The one that says, “Hey, maybe I’m full” before you plow through the last three bites just because they’re there. Or the one that says, “You’re not hungry, you’re bored,” when you find yourself staring into the fridge like it’s going to tell you the meaning of life.

It’s not an excuse to eat donuts all day either. That’s the rookie mistake. You’ll see people online bragging about eating intuitively while double-fisting croissants like it’s Paris Fashion Week. That’s not intuition. That’s denial with frosting. The point isn’t to rebel against rules; it’s to understand why you eat and how your body actually feels afterward. Sometimes that’s pizza. Sometimes it’s chicken and rice. Sometimes it’s realizing you were just dehydrated and angry at your boss.

If you’re over 50, this all takes some unlearning. Boomers were raised on the “three squares a day” model, and if you skipped one, someone called a doctor. But our metabolisms change, our hormones play games, and our energy needs shift. Intuitive eating lets you adapt instead of forcing your body to obey the same diet plan you used when Reagan was in office.

You want to eat better? Start by paying attention. Notice what foods make you feel good two hours later, not five minutes after. Notice when you’re actually hungry versus when you’re stressed, tired, or scrolling news that makes you want to chew drywall. That’s the real work.

At its core, intuitive eating isn’t about food. It’s about control. Not the kind you impose, but the kind you earn back after years of letting the diet industry convince you you’re broken. You’re not. You just forgot how to listen.

So next time you’re thinking about counting calories, try counting moments instead. Moments when you ate something that made you feel human, strong, or just plain content. That’s the point. Not to fit into jeans from 1989, but to live like your body and your brain are finally on the same team.

Intuitive eating isn’t new-age nonsense. It’s old-school common sense we forgot somewhere between SnackWell’s cookies and keto. Listen, eat, live. That’s it. And if you mess it up sometimes? Congratulations, you’re human. Now pass the potatoes, intuitively of course.