NOT A DOCTOR NOR PSYCHOLOGIST NOR MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL but veggiedaze are you familiar with this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthorexia_nervosa

A few days ago on Jeopardy there was an entire category devoted to French cheeses ---you would have blown that one out of the water, freelance! :)

Like you, I tend to be somewhat of a foodie. I haven't eaten fast food in years (mainly, though, because I don't eat factory-farmed meat). My problem, though, is that I did not grow up without junk food. We ate fresh, farm-raised veggies and such, but we also had Little Debbie snack cakes. So, unfortunately for me, I have a taste for mostly gourmet foods, but also for pizza, Cheetos, Kettle-cooked chips, Snickers, etc. Not that I eat that type of food frequently and not that it's as tempting as homemade apple pie, but nevertheless, it's still a temptation.

I have read the entire 10 pages and appreciate the information you all have posted on this topic.

I am not sure were I fit into this spectrum. I am a CC/ calorie cycler and although I have freedom to chose if I want to have a larger calorie day or not and typically don't limit the type of foods I choose I still feel a bit oppressed or obsessed by having to keep count and measure everything. I have lost 80 pounds and have been doing this for a year and a half and still don't seem to eye ball my portions for many things as accurately as I should. 4 oz of steak or chicken ends up to be 6 for example. I was hoping to transition into maintance and practice a bit of IE, but don't trust my intuition to give my self appropriate portion sizes.

Generally speaking I enjoy my plan, but on my lower cal days I feel obsessed with the numbers..... Can't have an apple 'cause that will put me at 1200.....need to stay around 1100 if I want my gourmet pizza on Saturday and still lose my half a pound for the month...... I don't like that feeling of always thinking about numbers.

I feel like a big part of my brain is thinking about all of this and I can't seem to be as creative as I was when I was heavy and not really thinking about what I ate. I am sure I could be creative and be on a health eating plan at the same time but am not sure how to change that mental block. I also fear maintaining..... Like if I stop thinking about it....all the weight will come back on.

Question for people participating in this thread: Some of you recommend eating when hungry and stopping when full, but what is full? I enjoy the feeling of being nice and full (just short of uncomfortable). If I stop eating when I've JUST reached the "not hungry" stage, it never feels like enough. Any way to deal with this?

F.

Great question---and I am the same. Just last week, after dinner, I ate an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's Peach Cobbler ice cream. I felt comfortably full and perfectly satisfied at that point. If I had eaten just one or even two servings, I would not have been satisfied. I actually like the feeling of fullness---not "I'm-about-to-puke-and-cannot-button-my pants" fullness, but the type of fullness where I can feel that I've eaten a really good portion.

At that point I think you would have to accept whatever weight eating to fullness put you at, which would likely be higher than you would want to weigh or require a lot more exercise.

I don't think many can eat literally whatever they want all the time with no limitation AND stay at their own personal ideal weight.

What a brilliant discussion, I've just read all 10 pages, thanks to SouthernMaven for bringing it to my attention by posting it in another thread.

20ish years of binge eating under my belt, I've been doing intuitive eating for nearly 5 months, and it really agrees with me. I agree it has it's challenges. I can elaborate later, but when I started, I was at "screw it" point, thinking I could never lose weight so it was worth a shot. I ate nothing but old forbidden foods for about a week: donuts (I'm a lover of the donuts!), chocolate, pizza twice a day etc. I must have gained weight, but I wasn't counting. I did feel AWFUL though, heartburn, constantly hungry, UTIs (I've had those once or twice a month as far back as I can remember and now they only come back when I overload on sugar), fatigue, worsened depression, the list goes on... I had to regulate my sugar intake (just by cutting it out of drinks) to be able to even tell when I was really hungry. Clearly there was something metabolically wrong, maybe pre-diabetes, now I guess I'll never know.

After tweaking that, knowing when I was hungry got easier. It became easier to tell what I wanted. Apparently I love oily fish :) I'm still learning though, I don't have this down by a long shot. I thought I had, but... not so much.

Positives so far are no binges for 5 months, I can tell when I'm hungry, I like a lot healthier foods than I expected, I've lost 20lbs, and I think I could happily make this a part of my life permanently.

Stuff I'm still working on is knowing when I'm full (eating more slowly and noticing when my food doesn't taste as good as it initially did are things I'm experimenting with right now), reinforcing the fact that I don't have to clear my plate (we didn't have many leftovers growing up, my dad would hoover up anything that wasn't nailed down so I became very protective of my food) and learning to stay mindful under stress when so many other things are competing for my attention. That, and general stress reduction.

So, there's my pitch... I'll be following this with interest and look forward to joining in the discussion. This subject can be approached from so many angles as everyone posting has shown. I'm happy to say that I expect I can learn a lot from this, so thank you all for contributing :)

When I did make a stab at IE a couple of years ago (and probably didn't try well, as I can see now) this was a major issue for me as well, so I'm interested in others' thoughts.

Like freelancemomma and lin43, I love to feel full. Love it. I'm a calorie counter and save about 50% of my daily calories for dinner. Even then, I choose very "filling" foods - leafy greens, protein, fats - with the old Volumetrics principles.

I really don't like the word "diet." Diet to me, means something that is temporary--deprivation of certain foods--a word that is certain to fail, and often ends up gaining all and more of the weight back.

I prefer life style change for permanent weight loss. Meaning total control over your health--which means to me portion control over deprivation of certain foods that you may like.

I really don't believe that anyone gained 200 pounds because they ate too much chocolate cake. The problem is we ate and or drank too much of everything. And that is the point we should all address--"how many calories are we consuming compared to how many calories we are expending through exercise and daily activities." And once you have total control over that question, fully understand it, and change lifestyles to accommodate it, the pounds will melt off and no one will ever have a weight problem again.

Eat less--move more

I eat until I am satisfied--(no longer hungry) versus the word full. I guess everyone has a different way of describing what full means--but full to me means that I have eaten too much and at a point where I am uncomfortable.

Freelance - For me it actually changes depending on what time of day it is and what I am doing. For breakfast I like to be quite full (but not uncomfortable) so I know I can get through my busy mornings without getting hungry again. On my work days there is 5 hours from when I eat breakfast until when I can eat again. I work in a place where there is absolutely no food allowed except at break times (I work in a lab with dangerous chemicals therefore this is strictly enforced). Then at my break times at work I don't really like to feel full at all because I have to do so much running around at work that being full just makes me sluggish and not want to work. If I get hungry between meals I will just have a snack that takes the edge off so I can get to the next meal where I want to be hungry, so I only eat until I am just not feeling the hunger pangs which does not take much food. Then lastly at dinner I like to feel more on the full side because I typically wind down and watch the news or something on television before bed. But still I don't want to be uncomfortably full otherwise it interferes with sleep.

Intuitive eating has been working wonderfully for me as opposed to calorie counting, but I would never trust using this method if I ate alot of processed "junk foods". Firstly becasue these foods are very calorie dense and secondly because they are designed to be pleasureable making you automatically want to eat more. For these kinds of foods (which never existed in my regular diet until now and I only ate them when I was bingeing) I take just what is considered a portion (like 1 donut or 1 slice of cake) and try to be satisfied with that.

Krampus - yes I've researched this before and alot of it is very true for me. What differs though is that I am in that cycle of restrict/binge. The definition of this condition seems more like anorexia where there is no binge part, just restriction. But yes, the quality of my food is of utmost importance to me. Luckily though, I do not ban any food. I will eat every food that exists, but I am obsessed with it being as unprocessed as possible. For example, I will eat cooked brown rice but not white rice and never something like a rice cake. I will eat wheat like rolled wheat flakes in my porridge or bulger wheat in something like tabouli, but I will not eat flour of any kind. Therefore I do not eat bread ever or pasta. I can sometimes eat sprouted grain bread but it kind of freaks me out because it reminds me of bread. I will not eat any hydrogenated oils, and deli meat is my absolute nightmare with all the sodium, preservatives and nitrites. I eat nut butters but they have to be completely natural with no stabilizers or hydrogenated oils. I do not eat refined sugar or sugar substitutes. I eat unrefined cold pressed oils but sparingly. I eat all dairy even higher fat but prefer it to be organic to avoid things like antibiotics and growth hormones. I will sometimes eat chocolate if it's 70% organic dark chocolate but it makes me feel guilty due to the sugar. I eat all meat, fish (not tonnes due to the mercury), and poultry. It doesn't HAVE to be organic or free range, but I prefer it. I don't like eating anything canned. I tried eliminating all grains at one point because I got wrapped up in the whole paleo thing (several years ago), but my bingeing became much worse and it was actually more difficult to meet the RDA for certain vitamins and minerals. If I forget to drink my "green drink" everyday it really gets to me. I can never decide if I should drink red wine or not. I really love it but studies indicate it increases the risk of cancer. However other studies say it is heart healthy. So I am really torn on that one. I do find that any alcohol puts me at a higher risk for bingeing. I eat all fruits but prefer ones lower on the glycemic index so I don't eat alot of bananas, and I Never ever drink juice or any kind of soft drink. I will eat potatos even white potatos since they are high in potatssium and many other minerals, and I eat all vegetables. So as you can see, I am completely CRAZY!!!! But, I don't lack nutrition.

What's funny about all this is that it all goes out the window when I binge. Then it's cheap disgusting carboard tasting cookies galor. Also, what is strange is that I am surprisingly flexible when travelling because for some reason I just make due, try to make healthy choices, but end up being able to eat things like bread and pasta and other processed foods without it triggering any bingeing. It's really weird. It is the only time I feel truly free of this eating disorder. For me, vacations arn't just a vacation from work, but a vacation from being crazy. I think I am able to put my rules aside because I know I will be returning to my restriction.

BUT, I've been making great progress lately. The last couple weeks I have been partaking in the donuts or treats at work although I realized the first time I should ditch the Intuitive eating with these things because I went a little crazy. Also, I ate chips (also too many) a couple times at my friends for dinner. And yesterday, I ate a reese peanut butter cup. I didn't even really want it an pretty much forced myself. I am finding if I don't force myself, it is easy for me to convince myself I don't want it and I just never end up eating any of it which only enforces my unrealistically strict rules that perpetuates my bingeing episodes. Honestly, I'm not sure if I am really learning anything because I am still perceiving these foods as being "bad". And it kind of upsets me to have to include any of these things because honestly I really don't like the idea of having to eat these things regularly. The only reason I am doing it is in hopes it will help me to not binge. I am struggling with the guilt though. I am trying to be optimistic. It is seemingly easy to change some of my behavours, but difficult to change my thinking. I bought a spinach lasagne to bring in my lunch tomorrow. It is giving me anxiety because of the pasta. I am bringing an alternative in case i chicken out.

Anyways, I know I didn't need to go on and on like that but writing out my obsession helps me to see how "black and white" I am. I hope it doesn't make me seem completely unrelatable. It really is just the restrict/binge cycle with a different definition of restriction. The ironic part is is that it all started the regular way eating disorders start being about weight and wanting to be ultra thin in my teenage years. I recognized I had an eating disorder and wanted to cure myself by learning as much as I could about nutrition. but then this happened. You know the saying "the road to **** was paved with good intentions".

the shiv - it's really interesting to hear your experience with intuitive eating. I had read some of the intuitive eating thread so I recognize you from some of those posts. It is insightful to hear from someone who is trying it out.

kscott - glad you joined the conversation. I agree with you about the word diet. I have always believed whatever i was doing to be "permanant". The binges never really allow me to fulfill that hope.

lin43 - I don't see intuitive eating working well with ben and jerrys if you are concerned about calories.

You have to define what being full means to you both physically and emotionally. For me being full means eating more than I probably should have, and nothing looks tempting any more. Obviously that's not a good gauge, and usually means I've eaten way past the point of necessity.

I've come to the conclusion that hunger is something that I will have to face. I've been "facing the hunger" for a while now. I have good days and I have bad days. But I know that being hungry is something I will have to get used to until my appetite/stomach capacity shrinks. I really think that hunger is something we dieters do our best to avoid and try to find tricks to fix it but I think we're missing the point. We're intolerant of hunger while I believe that skinnier people are ok with it. Ask any model and she'll tell you she's been hungry for years.

I've noticed that when I get hungry I get all sorts of angry and upset that only go away when I eat. Not good! So I'm trying to address those issues instead of the hunger. I'm letting myself go hungry!