I have good days and bad days with IE. I just try to keep myself motivated and learn from my mistakes. It helps that when I mess up, I usually feel that not-so-wonderful "too full" sensation or icky "too-much-sugar-that-I-really-wasn't-craving-BLECH!" feeling, which helps me back on track.
Hi everyone! I've read all of your posts and have read the intuitive eating book and ICMYT and am just not having any luck. I started to eat intuitively about a month ago and was eating what I wanted but a lot less of it. I was also feeling really good about my body and my self esteem was starting to make a comeback. I even started exercising again! and then I weighed myself.......I'm up 2.5lb and now weigh more than I ever have. I'm getting ready to go on vacation in a week and none of my summer clothes fit!
I'm really bummed and just don't know what to do from here....I thought about starting another diet but like I told my mom when I started eating intuitively, the only thing diets ever got me was 70 extra pounds!
I guess I'm just hoping someone can give me some advice as to what I'm doing wrong?
IE is a slow process. If you are looking for a quick weight loss, this is not it. There are 11 IE threads with about 500 posts each. That will take awhile but you might find what you want by reading those. A good short book about IE is The Overfed Head by Rob Stevens.
Last edited by carolr3639; 02-16-2010 at 09:51 AM.
Reason: misspelled word
Yesterday I ran across my copy of "Breaking Free from Compulsive Eating," by Geneen Roth (published in 1983!) Which is funny, because I must have had it at least a decade, maybe two, by now, but if you had asked me if I had eating problems that long ago I'd have said no. Now I spent most of today rereading it.
Anyway, I just want to highly recommend it. Highly. It's hard to think of something the book "Intuitive Eating" covered that Roth didn't cover, and in greater and more practical depth, 27 years ago. Really good stuff. I think "Intuitive Eating" is like an outline or introduction, in comparison.
Thanks for reminding us about that book. I read something by Geneen years ago but I can't remember a thing about it. Is that you in the avatar, Julie. Nice.
I wish! Actually, I'm not so terribly far off from that, but I'm definitely a few months of daily practice and 5 pounds from that (not that I'm dieting or worried about losing more - whatever happens happens - I'm just saying my body is not in *that* shape). But I love that particular pose and I'm trying to inspire myself to develop that flexibility and form again. I really want to have a really nice portrait of myself in that pose some day.
Another quick one here just to pop in and say hello. I am thoroughly enjoying my way of doing IE. I still do the low carb foods. I make a food plan for the day with the knowledge that it may change a little or that I may not eat all of it or may even add something. I love the IE flexibility of it. Don't know if I'm losing any weight, but I noticed yesterday and today that my clothes are looser which makes me feel good because I know that is the way low carb does. I am going to work at staying off the scales. I got on the scales 3 different times today and within just a short time my weight bounced between 5 lbs. I either stayed the same or lost, but can't tell by anything but the clothes. So that tells me it is time to stop using the scales for a while.
carolr Glad you are losing again. It feels good for those clothes to get loose doesn't it.
So, I got to a point with my body and IE that I am amazingly happy. My body looks really nice, and I don't care if I don't lose another lb ever again, if I can just keep my body the way it looks now, I'll be happy.
All the exercise I've been doing is starting to show and I love it. I was at the gym yesterday and I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like holy s***, I look small!
A couple of weeks ago I had this moment of being fed up with my body, because I was just overeating, not doing EI. It was a food party. I ate everything just because I could. It got to a point where I looked at myself and was disgusted. So I went back to listening to my body (I think this is a normal processes in IE). I guess I was mostly bloated, because as soon as I started to eat lighter meals, my belly went down like magic.
I'm writing here instead of eating. Strangely, the only thing I ate yesterday that wasn't due to hunger was a coffee mug filled with salt free pretzels. I'v given up sweets for Lent which actually is going well. I tried on some clothes yesterday that are so far from even buttoning it's not funny. Obviously that's a bit discouraging, and makes me want to go back to the diet menallity but I'm fighting it. trying to work out more but have been dog tired lately and having trouble keeping up.
I notice that I really like carbs. My favorite food group! When I eat meals they are balanced with a starch, produce and protein, but my snacks, what I am drawn to during the day is carbs...english muffins, cereal, toast, noodles. I'm tempted to keep a food journal to work on balancing my food, maybe against the food pyramid. I can tell you right away that I do not eat enough vegetables. Is a food journal going against the principles of IE?
Obviously I do not want to diet but I'd be a liar if I said I want the clothes to fit. I feel good about IE until somethign reminds me of my size/weight.
(sigh) I hate to say it, but I just took out an entire box of cereal. I wasn't hungry, I just wanted to eat it. I was hoping that IE would allow me to have power over my trigger foods, but that's unfortunately not the case.
If I wasn't also gaining weight and size at a break neck pace I may have been able to take this in stride but being that I don't feel good about myself anyway-that I have no control and am rather disgusted with myself.... and then this happens...it kinda gets a person down, ya know?
So, not totally sure what to do at this point. Trying to look at this rationally, trying to compromise between not feeling controlled by the diet and having control over food...
Cereal has always been a weakness for me, too. Sweet and tasty, always calling for seconds, never filling for more than an hour. Come to think of it, cereal is the reason WW didn't work out for me this time last year. It gobbled up too many points and left me hungry.
Maybe it's totally un-IE, but I don't keep it in the house anymore. Two reasons: 1) I remember totally losing control with it before and thus fear losing control again, and 2) I remember how crappy I always felt after eating it... the sickly "oversugared" feeling, the overfull tummy, the guilt. Plus, my body never seems to "call" for it when I'm in the grocery store... so I guess I do have one IE reason to shun it.
I dunno. Maybe there is a better solution. Part of the trigger for me is that there is always a BIG BOX of it. Perhaps if I just bought the one-portion kiddie packs the psychological pull to go for seconds wouldn't be as strong.
Now I spent most of today rereading it.
