Intuitive Eating: June 2014
 

Happy new month ladies (and gents, always welcome of course). It's the start of summer in the northern hemisphere and for many of us this is the time of year that we all dread. Shorts, day dresses, short sleeves, and gasp! bathing suits. Come January 1st women collectively look in the months ahead as a time to buckle down and prepare their bodies for the inevitable shedding of clothes and start joining gyms by the herds, and swearing off all their favorite foods while scolding themselves for over-enjoying the delicious holidays (and yet every year that doesn't prevent us from looking forward to the holidays, go figure wink wink).

So here it, is it's now summer and we have to make peace with our bodies at a very scary time of year. At the time of year we feel most insecure with our bodies. I have a trip planned to visit my family in europe, and I have lots of fears about being on the beach and comparing to my skinny cousins and friends. But I'm also looking forward to enjoying my newfound self confidence about my body, I have been working diligently every day in the mirror appreciating my own beauty and feeling more comfortable in my own skin. It's paying off and I'm having fun looking in the mirror. So here's to a happy summer and let's take note of these wise words from Geneen Roth:

"We often forget that our lives are made up of moments and of feelings about moments. As emotional eaters, we spend our lives forsaking all the moments of satisfaction for a future moment when we will be thin and the deprivation will have paid off. And if and when that moment does come, we are so worried about gaining weight that we focus our attention once more on the future and do not take pleasure in the present.

Most of us miss our own lives. Most of us spend our time preparing for a moment that never comes, while the years slip by, unnoticed, unused.

The means to an end cannot be separated from the end. If you attempt to get thin by reining yourself in, judging yourself, not believing in yourself, you will end up a deprived, self-condemning and frightened human being. And maybe you will have a thin body. For a while.

Breaking free from emotional eating is also breaking free from preoccupation with the future. It asks, it demands that you be aware of what you are doing now. It forces you to examine, by the very questions it asks, the ways in which you rush through your meals–and your days–in perpetual pursuit of moments that may never arrive. It brings up the issues of pleasure and satisfaction and asks that you rediscover their meaning in your life."

Restraint versus Restriction

For those of you who are still struggling to legalize food this may be a triggering post so maybe skip it for now.

Looking back in the last few weeks I've seen wonderful changes in how I enjoy food in small portions, how enjoyable I can find foods that I didn't consider before because I was stuck on my emotional go-to comfort foods, getting excited about my growing hunger and enjoying the satisfaction of a sated tummy. It's like a switch has been flipped and I can finally feel again. I've loosened that vice-like grip of guilt and scrutiny over what I eat and replaced it with a curiosity about what makes me eat. I've learned a great deal and still have more to learn.

So in the name of curiosity I look back and think about my eating experiences and find that sometimes I still eat for reasons other than hunger. Sometimes those reasons are obvious and sometimes they are confusing. In particular it's baffling when I see myself eating while being completely aware that I don't want to eat. It's very strange and just about the only thing that's bringing on feelings of guilt. I'm far enough along in IE to feel dumb for eating when I don't want to. I want to start exercising a little more restraint. I don't know how I'm going to do that but I'm putting it here as my goal for this month. Does anyone have any thoughts as to what the difference is between restraint and restriction?

I love the quote from Geneen Roth. That is so cool that you have family in Europe and that you can go visit them. That sounds fun. I don't know if I have any beach or swimsuits in my future. I am definitely feeling better this year than I was last year because I have been exercising and I always feel more comfortable in my own skin when I do.

I don't know the difference between restraint and restriction, that is something I am still trying to figure out.

I think I am on hiatus from my in depth emotional examination of issues and my emotional eating. One can only do so much of that at a time! :) Right now I have just been working on learning to eat before Im ravenous and getting tuned in to the more subtle signals of hunger and satisfaction. It's easier to stop when Im not starving when I eat, but its harder to feel that signal of satisfaction too.

I don't usually eat when I'm not hungry anymore. My problem is that when I am truly hungry I eat too quickly and get too full. I feel cravings for foods sometimes, or have the urge to eat but it's so disconnected from my hunger that I just dismiss it. The key for me was to understand *why* I was wanting to eat when I wasn't hungry. For me the emotional eating was the last piece of the puzzle. After I figured out that it actually is better to take care of my needs instead of placating myself with food it just sort of all fell into place. I eat now to give my body the nutrition it needs while also honoring my tastes and preferences. My cravings are infrequent and I just brush them off. If I see a box of donuts in the kitchen at work I think about eating one and think "yuck, that will make me feel gross". Food is just... food, I guess. I don't know I just don't feel the pull of it anymore. It wasn't that I consciously restricted eating it's just that I started identifying the things in my life that I was using eating to cope with- being alone (I'm going out more often now), finances (working on a plan to get out of debt), too many activities (cut back on some responsibilities that weren't necessary), and self esteem (worked on building positive self image). If those things aren't bothering me as much I don't need to eat. I also cut out caffeine, alcohol, and any other substances that aren't good for me. I sleep a lot- like 8-9 hours a night. I also rest a lot. Sometimes I come home from work and just sit in the dark and rest before bed. I figured out these things through experimenting to see how I feel. I realize they aren't practical for everybody, especially since you have a family. But that's how I hacked it to where I am. I'm not perfect and I have a long way to go but I'm in a better place now.

I had a fantastic breakfast today. A slice of toasted english muffin, buttered and topped with a slice of ham and one sunny side egg with a sprinkle of chives. On the side was sauteed mushrooms with a drop of truffle oil. And the other slice of the english muffin, I spread on butter after it cooled so that you can see the butter instead of melting into the bread. Drizzled with a touch of honey and sea salt.

That sounds amazing :)

Upon reflection tonight it has become clear to me that eating healthy has gone from an intention to an obsession. I have so much anxiety about it. *sigh* I get so caught up in the idea that the western diet is harmful and I go overboard trying to be healthy. I knew this might be a problem when I got the urge to eat healthier. It stems from the idea that I've harmed my health by becoming obese, and if only I eliminate x, y, and z I can reverse the damage and improve my quality of life. I forget that even though I eat bread sometimes my diet isn't horrible. The worst part is the obsessive thoughts about omega 3's, transfats, saturated fat, etc. I wish I could just clean out my brain. So anyway I'm resetting and I'm going to challenge myself by eating whatever I want tomorrow morning. IE is like one step forward two steps back for me.

Locke... IE being one step forward and two steps back is so true for me as well. It's so hard to dismiss all the diet dos and fonts that have been shoved at us all these years.

I have a hard time eating healthy and not having the diet mentality kick in. I'm working on it though. Last night for dinner I had salmon, long rice and green beans because that is what sounded good. We then went to DQ later on and I enjoyed some ice cream because I wasn't full from dinner.

You all know how I struggle with the LC mentality. I like LC because I always have so much energy. When I eat whatever I always feel like I need a nap after lunch. Maybe I need to try and eat a LC lunch just to honor my health and not for WL but because it makes me feel good. It's such a fine line to walk on!

It's not a fine line, don't get caught up with that. This is hard for me too and we have to help each other out. Always choose what you want to eat, let your body dictate what it wants, not your mind. Don't start experimenting with LC on an intellectual level. I promise you, there will come a time when you will look around to decide what you want for lunch, you will eat lunch based on what your body craved and afterwards you will realize that there was not a single starch in your meal. This has been happening to me all the time, and I credit that with giving up complete control of making that choice. It's hard to believe and I still don't believe it myself. But if you struggle with the LC mentality then, you can't feed into it, not even a little bit. Stay away from that kool-aid. I hope this doesn't come across as aggressive, but LC is my achilles heel too. You can be rid of it.

I retract my question about restraint. I saw my NT and asked her about restraint and she seemed horrified by the mention of it. She looked at me as someone who was about to jump off a ledge lol, and very calmly explained that at this point this is absolutely the worst thing I can do more or less. It just so happened that on my way home I happened to come up on the chapter about "restrained eaters" in the IE book, I had a good laugh about it. Restraint it seems is not a good word.

Yep restraint is definitely what I've fallen in to. Luckily today is a new day so I will start making food choices based on what I want rather than what's good for me.

Do you think that you're still struggling with legalizing food? I think you give too much power to "healthy foods" and by doing so continuing to villainize bad foods. I know you want your body to feel good, but your body plays servant to your mind. Feed your brain, take care of its needs, man the control center and the body will follow suit.

I know Locke, I have the same issue. I had like 3 pieces of whole grain bread over the course of the day and I was horrified by myself. The thing is, listening to MY body, I think I do pretty well on whole grains. I feel satisfied and my digestion seems better. But, I still feel like Im doing something wrong to eat "too much" bread. Oh and see that sentence above? " I was horrified by myself". You know, for having 3 slices of bread. I typed that out in a quick stream of thought but seriously that is TERRIBLE. Sigh... Yep it is definitely 1 step forward two steps back. I guess it takes a long time to eliminate the diet chatter AND to stop making our food choices reflections of who we are.


lol are you talking about the Evelyn Trioble IE book? I borrowed it from the library but the nutrition chapter pushed so many buttons for me I never bought it. Do you find it to be a valuable resource?

Wannabe,

I was doing really well for a while with legalizing foods. Then I started wanting fresh vegetables, fruit, and meat. That would have been fine in and of itself but it spiraled into orthorexic type restricting behavior very quickly. I found myself tossing out food (a warning sign), avoiding whole categories of food (a warning sign), frequenting forums that discuss optimal diets (a warning sign), having fears about the health effects of food (a warning sign), and obsessing over planning meals for optimal nutrition (a warning sign). Even with all those things I still convinced myself I was just eating to provide my body the nutrition it needs until last night when I had a total panic attack about what to eat- that's what finally made me admit to myself that this had gotten out of control. And it doesn't help that my weight has dropped while doing it, either.

I feel like I have this meta-problem that I don't know when enough is enough. I always have to do extreme- extreme overeating, extreme undereating, extremely unhealthy food, extremely healthy food. I don't know when to stop. Other people tend to find the middle way between these things but I can't. I'm either teetotalling or binge drinking (both as a metaphor and not). So I'm trying to figure out how to eat that honors my needs, tastes, etc. I'm of European descent- bread is my birthright, and it is the staff of life for many cultures around the world. I love bread and I didn't get fat eating bread. I got fat bingeing on all sorts of things because it made me not feel feelings. It's not fair to my body to not eat bread, which is a huge part of our eating culture.

Anyway, before this gets too long I find myself not knowing what to eat anymore. I feel so fricking lost. Eating has become an act of self expression and I can't handle it.

I found this story written by the man who coined the term Orthorexia to be enlightening. He unknowingly went on an IE journey. http://www.beyondveg.com/bratman-s/h...unkie-1a.shtml

I can sense your frustration and empathize with you. Don't be tempted to isolate yourself with this, saying that other people tend to find the middle way and you cannot, that's not the truth, not the real truth. Your inner self critic is having a field day over here. Home base is eating what you want to eat. If that means you need to eat everything in your kitchen then so be it. Do it and don't place any expectations on yourself. This journey is not about controlling the steps, you can't go to step 2 until you've completed step 1. And if you complete step 1 and step 2 isn't going so well, you go back to step 1 again.

I was really shocked when my NT told me that restraint would derail me. Shocked! I thought I was ready. I thought I'd been feeling so good about my progress and she is not letting me get off square one. She went as far as to say that she is glad I haven't lost any significant weight yet, because I need to learn internal gratification first before I get the external one. It was harsh but I needed to hear that. For all the progress I think I'm making, my goal is not going to come quickly.

So I urge you Locke, feed yourself the food that you want to eat. The process starts AND ends right there.

It's the book my NT bases my program on. I'm enjoying it so far and I find it applies to me. But I can imagine that if I didn't have her to guide me through it it would be daunting.

Thanks Wannabe,

Every time I think I've got this down I find myself drifting and having to mentally restart. I'm just reminding myself that I'm still better off than I was when I started several months ago.

Im so glad you are going to a NT and are sharing with us. I find it really helpful. when you say internal gratification before external gratification are you talking about eating what you want without worrying about how it could affect your weight?

That is cool she bases her program on it, maybe I will check it out of the library again and see if I find it more helpful this time around.

I've recently started dabbling in IE. I was a MFP junkie, and when I say junkie I mean it. I actually had almost a 600 day streak of weighing lettuce, counting sugar free gum and not ordering things at restaurants because the joint wasn't in the omnipotent database.

I'm not going to say that calorie counting doesn't work, for me it did. But I'm a perfectionist. Everything was black and white, there was no gray anywhere in that calorie counting world. The numbers usually matched the results.

But then I got angry. Calorie counting shouldn't be my forever. It shouldn't be an obsession. And penance over a cookie shouldn't mean an extra hour on the treadmill over a few calories over. But it did. And it spiraled. It spiraled into a dark corner of my mind where I lived for a few months.

I started off by not weighing a few things, easy things, like lettuce. Then I got to entire meals without counting. Now I'm up to days.

But the gray scares me: the unknown. The lack of trust. All the "what if" moments that I worry about happening: weight gain, relapse into a borderline ED.

Does the what if ever go away? Can a perfectionist live in an imperfect and gray world? When will food just be food? When will I be able to enjoy a cupcake without worrying about the rapture raining down upon me? For now, I think I'll just keep struggling to find the light in this new world of gray, because no matter how scared I am, I can't bare to go back to that black and white world.

Hello all! I'm new to the forum but I think I may have found my home here in intuitive eating :). I'm pretty sure my comfort eating is the reason I have put on so much weight, but I've never been able to deamonise food, restrict or count calories, my heart is never in it. I've noticed then when I do try to count calories (usually on some experts advice), the obsession with food makes me put on weight!

Anyway, reading everyone else's accounts makes me feel much better. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one :)

Does anyone have any book recommendations for IE or emotional eating?

Welcome owls and Nanu. You can bet most of us here had "success" with calorie counting. When you're an emotional eater you feel removed from reality and playing the numbers gives you something sturdy and real and tangible to hang on to. Counting calories is a life raft so that you won't drown... but it won't get you out of the ocean.

I may be biased but I think IE can provide things that diets can't. It takes a long time to divorce yourself from calorie counting but it is well worth it and you are so right owl, who wants to live the rest of their life afraid of numbers? It was the reason that I came to IE, because I had a future me in mind, and that future me is a normal eater that doesn't obsess about food. There is no way to become that by calorie counting or low carbing or fasting or juicing.

Food is not the enemy. Welcome, and hope that you find some insight here.

No, I'll elaborate though because this was very important for me. It came up in a conversation about a friend who is losing weight right now on a rigorous exercise and diet program. About the time that I started IE my friend signed up for a personal trainer and dietician. Since then she has lost over 30lbs and I have lost 6lbs. Obviously that makes me nervous, because I feel like I have worked very hard these past few months too. She has an approved list of snacks, a low carb approach, and talks endlessly about the carb window, the protein content of her food, the benefits of cottage cheese, etc. Things that can be triggering for me.

Her success has gained her a lot of external gratification:
- the scale is moving
- new clothes
- compliments
- her trainer motivates her
- her dietician urges her to continue

Obviously, these are all good things, but they are all external validation of the change a dieter goes through. I'm getting none of these things. My scale is moving, but at a snail's pace. My clothes fit the same way, nobody's noticing anything, I'm exercising, but I'm not doing rigorous exercise with a trainer. I have a NT but she could care less about what I'm eating or how much I weigh lol.

Instead, I'm experiencing internal gratification that is not obvious to the outside world. I was telling my BFF "I don't know what's going on, the scale hasn't moved but I swear to you, I feel skinnier!" I like what I see in the mirror. I'm not nervous or anxious around food. I'm finding ways to address my emotions without eating. I'm enjoying my life, I'm enjoying the exercise that I do. I'm not thinking about calories in and how many calories I'm burning with exercise. I'm exploring new foods. I feel more confident and less worried. These are all wonderful things, they're all internal. That's why my NT said that she's glad I'm not losing weight fast, so that I can learn to appreciate this internal gratification and realize that it's the real goal of IE, and that the weight loss is a slow but steady side effect.

Here's a few http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/chic...resources.html

And anything by Geneen Roth, she's like an emotional eating guru.

Hi, ladies, and welcome owls and Nanu.

I wanted to come in here and post this link I just stumbled across on Isabel Foxen Duke's website. It's about why IE fails because most people turn it into the hunger/fullness diet, and I see a lot of that on the IE threads here.

The #1 Reason Why Intuitive Eating Fails

I bought the IE book years ago when it first came out, read it once, tried their method, and immediately turned it into the hunger/fullness diet. That's why I prefer the term "non-diet". (I think SouthernMaven used to talk about the same thing when she was here.)

I'm of the firm belief that I have to let food, eating, and anything that could even remotely remind me of dieting fade into the background. I can't keep any type of restricting or restraint around food and eating and weight in a corner of my mind, or it turns right back into the hunger/fullness diet.

I can't mess around with trying to figure out my "hunger number" or anything like that. I just need to let all that stuff fade out of my mind, and get busy with life instead.

I remember back to what life was like when I was naturally thin. I ate something if I wanted it, and didn't give a thought to food when I wasn't hungry, or didn't want to bother stopping to eat. There was no difference to me between a bunch of broccoli or a Snickers bar. Whichever one I wanted at the time, I ate, and my weight was never a problem.

It was GOING ON DIETS that started the weight problem that has now plagued me for over 30 years.

I was never successful with calorie counting. Calorie counting, Weight Watchers, all those things were giant triggers for me. They used to call it having a "strong inner rebel" when you'd break a diet.

Inner rebel or not, the farther I stay away from calorie counting, the better.

I think the longest I EVER managed to follow a diet was two weeks, and I've started diets THOUSANDS of times over the years, as I'm sure most of us have.

Yep good ole MFP. I used to be a regular user too. I am a perfectionist too, I think a lot of us with ED's or borderline ED's are. You are right, IE really is a world of grey and it is soooo tempting to make it black and white. You ate when you weren't hungry? FAIL. You ate when you were hungry and stopped before you were full? SUCCESS. But, its really really important to not do that. Hard, but important. Im glad to see you here. :)

Welcome! Wannabeskinny recommended all the books I like or have read. I always thought I wasn't a very good restricter or calorie counter until I started really devoting myself to the principles of IE and then I realized I had all these little things hiding in the back of my mind that were my own personal food ideas and rules. Its been very enlightening. I am reading Beyond Chocolate right now and I really love it. It's very simple and it seems to me like they took the ideas of Geneen Roth and then showed you how to apply them in your life. The overfed head is great and you can read it for free as a PDF, I think you can just google it.

Ok thank you for the clarification. That makes a lot of sense. It's got to be hard to have a good friend who is hard core dieting and having lots of external gratification when we have been trained that external gratification is the only thing that matters. That is such a good point that we need to focus on our internal gratification. Like having a comfortable relationship with food, feeling our feelings and dealing with them rather than covering them with food, etc... thanks for explaining.

I am still working on becoming aware of my food rules. For breakfast today I had a bowl of cereal (which was hard in the first place) and then I realized I wanted toast too! I would normally never let myself have toast AND cereal but this morning I did. And not only toast, but cinnamon honey banana toast. Then I realized I really did need some protein so I had a few spoonfuls of greek yogurt.

Like I mentioned, i am reading the book Beyond Chocolate and so far I really love it because she really helps to show that its not all about perfectionism. It's not about being nervous as you eat your meal because what if you go OVER the point of satisfaction?!! And what if you eat before you are truly hungry? Or what if you are not hungry at all?" She demonstrates that its really more about being aware and that over time you will become even more aware. She also makes absolutely NO nutritional recommendations and believes that your body will crave fresh fruits and vegetables as much as it craves candy if you let it, so you will over time achieve a balanced diet. She also points out that forcing yourself to eat healthy or depriving yourself only to result in a binge on sugar, fat, bread (whatever you deprive yourself of) eventually is less healthy than letting yourself eat those foods when you feel like it. It has really helped me with my perfectionistic/ diet mentality.

[QUOTE=owlsteazombies;5017401
Can a perfectionist live in an imperfect and gray world? When will food just be food? When will I be able to enjoy a cupcake without worrying about the rapture raining down upon me? For now, I think I'll just keep struggling to find the light in this new world of gray, because no matter how scared I am, I can't bare to go back to that black and white world.[/QUOTE]

I'm a perfectionist (though I've been trying to let a lot of that go over the years), and it's VERY hard for us to live in a gray world.

People talk about letting food "have power" over you. I think this might be true. Thanks to so many diet attempts, I think most of us learned to give food more "power" than it has. It's just food. If we want some, we don't need permission from anybody to eat some, and we don't have to judge it to see whether or not we'll consider it "good" or "bad". It's just food.

If you don't mind me asking, did you lose your weight by calorie counting?

Ok Im back just to share this. To go with Wannabes post about swimsuits and such. This is from Isabel Foxen Dukes newsletter which I know some of you already get but I thought this was REALLY great and should be shared and I should remind myself of this often.

"I recently heard a friend say “I’ve been really loving my body lately, because I’ve been working out and eating well.”

And I get what she’s saying.

Like, yeah, it’s a lot “easier” to find yourself attractive, or respectable, or approve of your shape when you’re behaving according to society’s “thin rules.”

But that’s not necessarily what I mean by the phrase “body love;”

Finding yourself attractive, respectable, and approving of your shape (which is what my friend really meant when she said "I've been loving my body lately")

is often a part of (or even a result of) true body love, but not necessarily the same thing.

I want you to think about the people that you love in your life—

your children, your parents, your sisters and brothers...

Maybe you find them attractive, maybe you don’t. Maybe you find them respectable, maybe you don’t. Maybe you approve of their shape, maybe you don’t.

But are any of those things what it means to love them? Or is loving them something entirely different?

A mother doesn't love her baby because she thinks it’s cute. She loves her baby, because it’s her baby.

She was put on this planet to love that baby, whether it kicks and screams or goes to sleep easy; whether it goes to college, or drops out; whether it gets tattoos, takes drugs at school, or f’ing murders someone, she loves that baby, for no other reason than because it’s her baby.

It’s an unconditional, selfless kind of love.

Do you see the difference?

xo Isabel"

http://isabelfoxenduke.com/what-body...ctually-means/

Welcome Owls and Nanu!

Owls, I totally understand the MFP obsession. One of the reasons I gave up on dieting and started IE was I had started to use the mail machine at work to weigh food for lunch. People treat their weight problems like it's a disease. Just like a diabetic might have an insulin pump or a paraplegic uses a wheelchair we are sold MFP, WW, or other programs like they are medical devices necessary for our "disease". I decided I wasn't sick and it was in my power to find a healthier relationship with food.

Nanu,

My favorite books are Overcoming Overeating (I recommend reading this first because I think it has the most comprehensive yet approachable overview of IE), and Women Food and God by Geneen Roth- she is an excellent resource for people who eat emotionally. OO will cover the basics of how to eat intuitively, and Roth covers the psychology of overcoming emotional eating.

Truffle,

I agree with you that non-dieting is a good way to think about it. The difference for me is that I've been obese since childhood. Learning some things about mindful eating (eating slowly, savoring, stopping when full) and implementing them in my life has been helpful. This requires work on my part. My default is to eat quickly and to not stop until my stomach is too full to take in more food. If I just let everything fade into the background I'm pretty sure I'd keep doing that.

Wannabe,

Thanks for the clarification. Even I've found that I'm more relaxed around food and I feel fitter, thinner, and more beautiful since starting IE. I used to cringe when I saw pictures of food in the paper- HOW DARE THEY SHOW A PICTURE OF CHICKEN AND WAFFLES!!! I was so full of hatred that I would punish my body over and over for doing what it does. I talked to a friend yesterday and she said she's noticed how content I am now. While I can't say I'm content all the time I'd say I'm a lot better of mentally, emotionally, and physically since when I started IE. I haven't lost a tremendous amount of weight but I would rather be where I am now mentally than 30 pounds lighter.
*******************
I spent much of yesterday evening reading some body positive blogs and rereading some IE stuff. I also ate a hot dog at the bus station! Okay seriously that was hard to do. I thought so many people would judge me for being a fat woman eating a hot dog. My heart was racing as I ate it- small bites, chewing slowly, and savoring. It was a darn good dog! Nobody gave me disgusted looks or harassed me. In fact nobody seemed to care at all.

Last night I thought "Okay, time to eat some carbs for dinner because I have been low carbing for about 10 days." Then when I actually got home from work and thought about what I wanted to eat I decided I wasn't too hungry (hot dog three hours earlier lol) and ate yogurt and berries instead. So yeah glad to be back with IE.

Welcome Owls and Nanu!

I am a perfectionist as well. It's exactly why dieting has never worked for me because I was always in the "all or nothing" attitude. If I ate something wrong I blew it for the day.

Wannabe...I liked what you had to say about me taking LC to a different level. I really do need to just dismiss the whole idea of it. Not sure why I keep trying LC because I'm not on it 2 days and I'm miserable because of all the deprivation!

I've done very well with IE this week. It's so freeing when you really let it work!

We're like kids taking off our training wheels. The dieters who depend on external forces to tell them what/when/how much to eat need training wheels to keep them balanced that's why they need the MFP, the daily way ins and the number obsession. Let us take off our training wheels, we may fall a few times but we will find our balance!

Me too. I can't even last 2 weeks in a diet. When I said that some of us have found success in CC I meant that the number crunching made so much sense. Even for 2 weeks, I'd see results and then I'd stop anyway. Which was infuriating because then I thought I was self sabotaging which further made me a failure. My inner rebel is a beast too :)

I've read Isabella and have come across this same argument against IE. I do believe that people who want to dabble in IE set about doing just this, eating when hungry and stopping when full. When that doesn't work they say "oh IE didn't work for me." There are people here who claim that they understand Iae and haven't read a single book on the subject. There are people here who claim that IE caused them to gain 100lbs, in fact people think that when they are not dieting they are IE by default.

I agree with Locke, there is a process here that some of us need more time with. I can imagine coming to a place where I don't want to be here, where the thought of food is not important, but right now I need to practice the skills I've learned. The hunger scale has been very helpful to me. I did it for a very short amount of time and took what I needed from it. If I was going to eat to satisfy my hunger I had to learn what hunger is.

@Wannabe,

Yes IE is definitely misunderstood. People think it means eating whatever you want for whatever reason you want. People think it means giving into all of the urges you have to eat junk food. People think that it just means whatever you do when you aren't on a strict diet. People think it's a way for fat people to feel good about their *horrible food choices*.

@Truffle,

I did lose all my weight through calorie counting. And weighing lettuce..and counting sugar free gum.

I was to the point that I would order black coffee at a coffeeshop because I didn't trust anyone to get the measurements right AKA: calories.

I have found IE is helping me build trust in food. The intensity of your CC indicates a distrust of food and a distrust of yourself around food. The more distrust there is the more rules we tend to apply. IE is a powerful way of countering that, this is so exciting isn't it?

I have discovered if I don't wait to eat until I am ravenous, that it is much easier to slow down and savor my meal while eating mindfully. I mean duh. But it took a while for me to make that connection. I noticed that in every IE book I read, I would usually wait to eat on the hunger scale until it was at a 1 or even a 0. So, I have really been getting in touch with more subtle hunger. It has been SO much more enjoyable. I used to try to force myself to eat slowly but would find myself wolfing food down. Now I know why, its because I was really really hungry.

I have been going back and reading through all the old IE threads on here and it has been so helpful. That is where I was able to begin to see the connection between waiting until I was so hungry and then being unable to eat slowly or mindfully. By reading others experiences.

I've been catching myself waiting to eat when I'm at a 1 or a 0 and then stopping at a 2 or a 3 for fear that I'll overeat, and instead I end up undereating all day.

I'm always a little hungry. But it's an improvement. When I was counting calories all I could think about was my next meal, my next snack, when I could have it, how long until then. Now, it's just a notion. If I really wanted, I could go get it. But why not wait?

If I want to eat and I'm not too hungry I usually just eat something light- fruit and yogurt, some toast, etc. If I'm really hungry I eat something heavier. That's how I approach that situation.

I've been eating very slowly lately. It took me about 30 minutes to finish my breakfast this morning. I know that every IE book and blog out there implores people to eat without distraction- no television, no reading, etc. I find that I eat best with some distraction. I thought about it after going on a date last Sunday and having such a slow and relaxed meal. Part of the reason I slowed down was because I was talking with someone and enjoying the fresh air outside- people watching, etc. So I've been eating while browsing the internet, working, etc. Don't get me wrong, I'm not shoveling food in my mouth with eyes glued to the screen- I savor each bite, eat slowly, pause between bites, and check in about hunger/ taste frequently. It's really worked for me to help me slow down.