449-Coach Corner: Normal Eating VS Intuitive Eating-Are They The Same? & What is My Body Weight Set Point?

How can coaches explain set point and metabolism to clients without reinforcing diet culture?

Coaches can explain set point and metabolism without reinforcing diet culture by focusing on body regulation, not weight control. The goal is to teach clients that metabolism is a protective system, not a tool for shrinking the body. Emphasize that the set point range is a natural, biologically driven zone shaped by genetics, stress, sleep, life stages, and past dieting. Avoid promising weight outcomes. Instead, guide clients toward behaviors that support regulation—like normal eating, emotional stability, gentle movement, and nervous system care. This keeps the conversation rooted in body wisdom rather than body manipulation.

[00:00:00] Stephanie: Welcome to this Beyond the Food Podcast, my sisters. I’m your host Stephanie Dodier, and in today’s episode, we’re answering two powerful coaching question. First, we’re gonna unpack what is normal eating versus intuitive eating, and the second we’re gonna talk about body weight set.

[00:00:18] Now before we dive in, if you love the short podcast coaching episode, you can grab the coach corner vault. It’s a on demand library of over 50 mini training I’ve done over the years on mindset, body image, eating behavior, and even some for you, as the CEO of your business. So a little bit of business coaching in there. So go to stephaniedodier.com/coach-corner.

[00:00:45] Ready? Let’s dive in with our first question, and that came through our October community survey that we did, and the professional wanted to know what is the difference in my view between [00:01:00] normal eating and intuitive eating?

[00:01:02] Is it the same thing? The first thing I wanna talk about is the spectrum of eating behavior and how most of your client have been on the spectrum of eating behavior. The one side, like the one end of the spectrum is eating disorder, where people eating pattern are endangering their life and their wellbeing, and these are treatable health condition that should be, addressed by health professionals that have been licensed to treat eating disorder. That’s one spectrum. That’s a small percentage of the population. And then on the other end of the spectrum, there’s what we call normal eating. And in the middle of the spectrum, there’s a range of disordered eating behavior.

[00:01:50] This is why. I absolutely recommend that any client to work with, specifically people [00:02:00] identified and socialized as women must be evaluated when you are in taking them in your practice, no matter who you are as a health professional. Evaluating the eating behavior of your client is essential, and what you will find is people socialize as women because of our thin ideal diet culture, our socialization to the beauty standard.

[00:02:30] Most of your client have had used their food intake, their eating pattern to manipulate their body. And I also wanna do a caveat for typically a younger bracket of people, of generation, of women, where perhaps it’s no longer the thinness or the beauty ideal, but it’s about the health status and performance eating, and therefore, the same [00:03:00] disordered eating pattern can be observed, but they’re not reaching for manipulation of body size. They’re manipulating their health through performative eating. So understanding that what is normal eating? Normal eating is one side of the spectrum, which is food is not a thing. That’s the best way I can describe it.

[00:03:23] People eat. “normally” naturally where food is no longer something that takes a huge amount of space in their mind, and it’s not used to manipulate their health and or their body to achieve ideal standards. So people who eat normally don’t worry. It’s not a source of negotiation, and it’s certainly not intertwined with their identity.

[00:03:53] It’s just a part of life. Normal eating is flexible. It’s rooted in self-trust, it’s [00:04:00] grounded in respect and has no intention of controlling, changing, or managing health or body size, and it’s a blend of cognitive element, Your thoughts, your understanding of gentle nutrition and somatic guidance, which is the guidance that our eating cue are providing us hunger full and satisfaction.

[00:04:26] Now, how do we get there if we’re not in a normal eating state? As you will find out for most people that come into your practice, how do we help people move from where they are to normal eating pattern? That’s where intuitive eating comes in.

[00:04:42] Intuitive eating is a self-care eating framework. It’s a process that was created by two dietician Elyse Resch and Evelyn Oli, and that process was created in their [00:05:00] private practice and was first used in the world of eating disorder. Remember one end of the spectrum where we wanted to help people move back to normal eating, to food not being a thing.

[00:05:13] And then over time it was so successful it got populated in general population for disordered eating behavior. So intuitive eating is a process. It’s 10 principle that guide the process of coming back to normal eating or. Perhaps some people will call it, I’m an intuitive eater because they’ve gone through the process of the 10 principle of intuitive eating and they’ve reached the end.

[00:05:43] It’s also normal eating, like normally a human who eats with flexibility with cognitive and somatic influence is naturally an intuitive eater or a normal eater. What is the [00:06:00] difference between the two? Someone who is a normal eater and an intuitive eater? The mechanical act of eating isn’t the difference, like the actual food.

[00:06:12] The act of eating isn’t the difference. It’s their thoughts and their belief system about eating, health, body, beauty standard. They’re ensemble of thoughts around these three topic is different than a normal eater and these what normally we call like diet, culture, thoughts and self-criticism.

[00:06:35] This internal narrative that I have to make better food choices, I have to control my food choices in order to achieve the beauty standard or the health status. Normal eater don’t have these thoughts. Now that’s the work of the intuitive eating process is to help people see these thoughts, unpack them, select them [00:07:00] in order for them to achieve a end of the process of normal eating.

[00:07:05] So here’s another way for you to think about this. Normal eating is the destination. And intuitive eating is the vehicle to get there when people are not there, so when you intake your clients and you evaluate them, and you find them in a disordered eating state, the process to get them back to normal eating is intuitive eating.

[00:07:31] So some takeaway for you. Normal eating is the end process. It’s flexible, it’s respectful, it’s rooted in body trust. Intuitive eating is a process to get people back to a normal eating state.

[00:07:47] So moving along to the second question, what is the body weight set point theory? Let’s unpack the definition first. So body weight setpoint theory proposed that the human body has a [00:08:00] specific weight range and it tries through various biological processes to maintain that range.

[00:08:09] Now it is a theory and not a lack of a better word, a demonstrated fact through science because the human metabolism is an unbelievably complex system that we have yet been able to study in its extreme complexity, hence we still don’t have, “the diets that work.”. If we had a full understanding of the human metabolism and it was demonstrated peered review, we would know the diet to give to people to control the body weight set range, and we don’t have that.

[00:08:58] That’s why we do what we do. [00:09:00] And because we have people pretend that they know and they inflict harm to our client, and we’re here in the non-diet health world trying to repair the harm caused by people who bluntly lie, saying that, Dean, you had to control human body weight.

[00:09:16] The other piece to that is the research that would be necessary to demonstrate or to find exactly how human metabolism work is highly unethical with our standard of research. We cannot lock people in a lab for years first to figure out how the human metabolism work, and two, demonstrate a process to control that. We can’t inflict that level of harm to people in order to demonstrate a theory around body or human metabolism.

[00:09:48] So with that in mind, what do we know about body weight set point? Body weight set point is a range that the body has system to keep the human within that [00:10:00] range. And I want you to think of it like any other homeostatic system in the human body, like body temperature, we have a range in medicine from 36.1 to typically 37, 37 0.2, where we say it’s a normal body temperature, and we do know that for reason, the human will safely vary within that range. But when we exceed that range, that’s when we know something is happening. So body temperature is regulated through this homeostatic system, just like the body weight.

[00:10:38] And when that range for the body weight is exceeded above or below, then the body engage into response in order to bring back the human in this body weight set range. So it will release hormone, neurotransmitter, create thinking [00:11:00] pattern in order for people to overfeed, in order for people to create anxiety, create even depression, like create different emotional state, different behavior in order to modulate back people into that weight range.

[00:11:17] So what influence body weight, subpoint. That’s where the complexity of the human metabolism comes from. Just here’s some of the things that we know influence human metabolism. Environment, so some of you may know the social determinant of health, all the various environment that influence health, stress, sleep, emotion nervous system, access to food, economical status, trauma.

[00:11:44] All the things genetic. Huge part to play in that as well. The various life stages from puberty to pregnancy, to illness, to aging, hormonal states. And, we’ll, I’ll stop the list there, but I’ll go into what is more relevant to [00:12:00] us. Weight cycling, dieting history. This is why it’s so important, we teach that in a certification, but I’m telling you, you have to take a dieting history of all your incoming patient inclined, because that’s where you’re gonna find the weight cycling and the impact that has on the wellbeing of your client.

[00:12:22] When people manipulate their eating, their exercise, even take surgical means or even medicine, like what GLP one means. It triggers a response in the body weight theory to bring back people into their normal setpoint range. No matter what the mean is to manipulate the human body. At this point, we haven’t found a safe one.

[00:12:49] Hence why you look at dieting, it is an average 91% failure rate, meaning people go back within three to five years that they’re natural beginning [00:13:00] weight. Same thing with bariatric surgery. I don’t have the exact stat, but it’s as almost as high as dieting, and that’s what we’re seeing right now in research with GLP one.

[00:13:10] The body is so powerful, we’ve not found a way to manipulate the body, perhaps because there isn’t a way to manipulate the body weight. Anyway, I could stand on my soap box forever. And talk about that for hours. So how do we know if our people, our client, our patient, are in their set point, their range?

[00:13:34] We do not have a tool, a grid, and evaluation to know that for anybody that told you that they are, figure it out. It’s complete other bullshit. We don’t, but here’s what we know. From observation, and if you’ve been in practice for enough time, you know that because we had clinical observation of this, people who are in their body [00:14:00] weight set range for them, don’t restrict food.

[00:14:05] They don’t have over exercising behavior. They don’t macromanage their food choices. They live sustainable, emotionally regulated life. They eat when they’re hungry. They’re stop when they’re full, and they make sensible choices around gentle nutrition. Standard blending both cognitive knowing around food and what feels good within their body.

[00:14:34] So for many people, especially those with an extensive dieting history and weight cycling, identifying the set point range means watching where the body weight stabilize after the intuitive eating process. When they’re back to a normal eating state, they’re back with a [00:15:00] healthy relationship to movement.

[00:15:02] They have emotional regulation and nervous system regulation on board. Then observation of that natural range will happen. Now in one case study here me, Stephanie. So if you don’t know, I have a 25 year dieting history with severe weight cycling and took me about three to four years to be a natural, normal eater with a healthy relationship to exercise and onboarded, emotional regulation, nervous system.

[00:15:39] And now my weight has been stable for five years. I don’t know what the number is because I have a traumatic experience with the scale. I don’t weigh myself, but I know it from the clothes that I wear. I’ve been a size 20 pants and top for the last five years, so this [00:16:00] is my natural weight range, and it does fluctuate.

[00:16:04] There’s some time that my pants are tight and sometimes my pants are loose. Like I probably have a range of 20 pounds. Again, don’t weigh myself, but I just know it from how my clothes fit, and I’m there without any control on either exercise or food, my body naturally maintain that range. So here’s what I want you to take away from this.

[00:16:27] If we truly knew how the set point for body weight worked, diets would work. We wouldn’t need GLP one. We wouldn’t need bariatric surgery. We wouldn’t know exactly what to do to control body weight, and we don’t. And we’ve been trying for over 150 years now with zero success with actually harming people instead of helping them.

[00:16:53] If this is the kind of coaching you want to master and knowledge you want to get [00:17:00] about what influenced body weight, like the setpoint theory, that’s what we do inside of the non Diet Coaching certification. You can learn more at stephaniedodier.com/certification. We are onboarding our new cohort in January, 2026.

[00:17:15] Until next time, my sister coach behavior not bodies.

[00:17:25] wanna coach behaviors, not bodies. Learn the mindset tool and the method that create real changes.

[00:17:32] Join the wait list for the next cohort of the non diet coaching certification at stephaniedodier.com/waitlist. That’s where the real training begins, and I’ll see you on the other side, my sisters.