Intuitive Eating #18
 

Time for a new thread. Eat when you're hungry, stop when statisfied

A repeat that helps me.

This is a guest post written by Skwigg. This girl is a walking dictionary of food and nutrition facts, has read and tried MULTIPLE fitness plans, and every time I check, she’s read another “hot of the press” diet book. And, she tells it like it is.

skwigg

Well, it took like 25 years of trial and error, but I am a happy eater. I follow no rules. I count no calories. I’m completely over nutrient ratios, meal timing and measuring cups. Plus, as an added bonus, I’m not fat. Any time I’ve flirted with this “intuitive eating” stuff before, I’ve quickly become too fat for my little pants. This time I’m gradually losing. I’m 5’8″ and weigh 135-137 most days. I don’t know my percentage of body fat. It’s possible that I’m losing muscle and brains. I’m not concerned enough to get out the calipers. My Tanita scale tells me that I’m between 14% and 24% body fat. Helpful, eh? It’s like asking a Magic 8 Ball. The readout may as well say “Concentrate and ask again.” Or “Signs point to yes.” All I know is that my yoga pants are loose! Woohoo!

So, why did intuitive eating work this time when it’s destroyed my abs so many times before? I’ve been trying to figure that out. I know that in the past I’ve used intuitive eating as an excuse to binge. I’d turn to it after a bout of really restrictive dieting, or when I couldn’t face my nutrition software, or when I wasn’t accountable to a trainer. My “intuition” would tell me to eat boxes of glazed donuts and sheets of cookies. I’d gain weight, scoff at the total lameness of this “embrace your inner cow” intuitive hoody-hoo, and go right back to obsessive dieting, tracking and measuring. I wrote down every single thing I ate or drank for TWO YEARS. That was not fun, and actually not helpful.

I’m more relaxed now. I don’t make food decisions from a place of frustration and panic. My intuition really likes strawberries. I eat chocolate every day. I like bagels. I like to eat out. I’m not limiting myself to dieter food but I’m very aware of portions. I eat one Cadbury Egg, not six. I eat mini-bagels, not those bakery bagels the size of my head. I understand that a typical restaurant serving is enough to feed four people.

Last time I tried intuitive eating, portion control was my downfall. I believed those books that said to eat as many cookies as I wanted and that eventually I wouldn’t want as many. Right!! Weeks later, I still wanted every cookie that had ever been baked. I was reeling out of control on a blood sugar rollercoaster. The more junk I ate, the more junk I wanted. I was never able to pull it together enough to even maintain my weight, much less lose.

Some things that really helped me this time:

- I weigh myself every day. If you’re not going to count calories or measure your food, you’d better be keeping an eye on something. It could be weight, waist measurement, a caliper pinch, a pair of jeans, but you need some kind of objective feedback. If you choose not to track your food and not to look at any of your measurements, then you’d better go buy some fat pants.

- I eat what I want but I always control portions. Generally, the more I want something, the more I need to watch out. I can play fast and loose with spinach but I’d better take my ice cream in a single-serving container.

- I share. I never used to share before. Sharing is the greatest thing ever! You get to eat whatever you want and make everyone around you fat. Try it! Order the double-fudge super cookie dough caramel delight. Eat three bites and watch your dining companions devour the rest of it like hungry hyenas. Share your French fries. Split the sandwich. Order three tacos and only eat one of them. It’s exhilarating! Plus, I always have great leftovers.

- I strike a nice balance of healthy food and treats. You can’t eat an all-treat diet and look or feel very good. I eat loads of fresh fruits and vegetables every day. I love whole grains. I eat nuts and seeds like I’m a squirrel. I’m a sucker for a big salad. I enjoy lean protein as long as it’s not forced upon me every 2-3 hours. I eat a lot of healthy whole foods but I like to add a Pop Tart or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup for good measure.

- I don’t eat six times per day, or three times per day, or three meals and two snacks. I don’t follow anybody else’s rules because how does the book or the calculator know what I’m doing or when I’m going to be hungry? It doesn’t. So, I eat when I feel like it. On an active, hungry day I might eat 5-6 times. On a lazy day with restaurant food, I might eat 2-3 times. I’m no longer dumb enough try to force three more meals after lunch at The Cheesecake Factory.

- I grasp the importance of good nutrition. I’m not knocking diet plans or nutrition programs, especially if you’re trying to achieve a sports performance or body comp goal. A little bit of structure can be good. I base my eating on the healthy principles I’ve learned but I don’t allow myself to become a slave to the details. And don’t believe that I can eat as many cookies as I want and still lose weight. Big derrrr there!

- I flow. That’s significant because I used to battle. I battled my weight. I struggled with willpower. I waged a war against fat. I fought with the numbers. I kicked myself when I slipped. My mindset was one big bloody massacre. My fitness goals were always at odds with what I really wanted, which was to relax and eat Cheetos. Now, if I want to relax and eat Cheetos, I do so immediately. No struggle. No stress. No guilt. I know that for my next meal I’ll choose something a little more ab-friendly.

Thanks for starting a new thread! I didn't realize we were over 500.

This is a small victory, but i don't think it's ever happened before. You know those snack-size bags of chips? Well, i always thought they were so small they weren't even worth eating. Seriously. I would want at least 3 little bags at a time! Well yesterday, i ate one bag and didn't feel like i needed another one.

Wonderful!

This is awesome :D That "I can take it or leave it" feeling is amazing :D :hug:

Way to go surfergirl!!! I think that is a tremendous victory!

I have a feeling today is going to be an unusual day for me, eating wise. I'm pretty much down to 2 meals a day. I typically eat a large lunch around 10-11:30 and then dinner around 6:30-8. I can already tell today is going to be a hungry day. I don't know if it's true hunger or if it's stress/emotional eating, but I have no intention of fighting it. I've noticed, in the past, if I fight something too much then I just go overboard. I'm going to handle today just as it needs to be handled and tomorrow is another day.

It might help my mood if I get my radio station to something a little more upbeat :dizzy:

This is a good point, Trish. I always tell my husband that if I had to eat at church potlucks all the time, I'd be a TOOTHPICK.

That's because I am very squeamish about eating food that I don't know how sanitary the kitchen or cook were that prepared the food. I hate eating at restaurants for the same reason.

I have to force myself to eat at church potlucks, because the whole time I'm wondering about the cleanliness of the kitchen for each of the foods on my plate.

That's weird, I know, but just the way I've always been.

I was once helping set up for a church meal years ago and the pastor was cooking a huge pot of spaghetti sauce. When I saw him stick his BARE HAND AND ARM up to the elbow in the pot to stir the sauce, I nearly gagged, and wasn't able to eat a single bite of the spaghetti.

Hello all!

Yesterday was unusual as I predicted. Part of me wonders if it was a self fulfilling prophecy. I have noticed lately that I've missed the sensation of eating. I'm not necessarily hungry, but I have the desire to eat. I guess I should research and find out why.

I think today is going to be a different day though! Since I ate every time the mood struck me yesterday I don't feel like I'm missing anything right now. Eating doesn't have much appeal at the moment.

Woah!

Yesterday certainly was the complete opposite of Tuesday! I didn't eat until 3 p.m., which ended up being a yummy wonton soup! Then later last night I had a few slices of corned beef.

I felt a little hungry this morning, but after a couple of cups of coffee I'm feeling a bit more "meh, I'll eat later" about it.

And Becky, I completely missed the spaghetti story yesterday...now I really don't want to eat haha! What a visual!!!

confused
 

How do you start doing this "intuitive eating" stuff? Can someone lead me to a thread, website, or book to learn more about this? I am interested but don't know where to start. Thanks

The Overfead Head by Rob Stevens.

I'm also of the Tribole tribe- http://www.intuitiveeating.org/conte...tuitive-eating

BigSky - If you Google the book that Carolr3936 mentioned and add .pdf you can find a copy to read. Lunar's link also has some great information, too.

I've learned a lot from just this thread on it's own. I love intuitive eating...love, love, love it. I will admit, it took me a while to get use to it. The biggest thing for me was learning to be ok with being hungry, and having the patience to wait until I could have what I really wanted to eat.

@PreciousMissy
Couldn't find anything regarding "overfead" but I changed the spelling and found the pdf. Thanks!

Congratulations, great accomplishment surgergirl. :carrot: While I've been able to have that accomplishment with some things, but not with chips. I thought about buying the small bags, but I don't think I'm ready for that. Happy for you.

Hi all. My name is Georgia and I think I want to join in on this discussion. Years ago I succeeded with a form of intuitive eating, but then I got pregnant and life just overwhelmed me from that point on.

My sons are 21 and 15 now and fairly low-maintenance, I'm divorced from the king of drama and life is pretty good now. I've managed to lose 40 lbs but have a long way to go. I actually lost nearly 70 lbs but then I went on vacation to Scotland and discovered the joys of shortbread and Edinburgh Raspberry Gin. (Dip shortbread in the raspberry gin...mmmmm!) I have finally stopped the weight gain and slowly inched back down the scale.

I have health issues and I've been following advice on how to eat for those issues, but frankly, that's a huge cause of my stress over the last year. My body simply did not want to lose weight when eating like medical professionals and other dieting "experts" were telling me I had to eat. Several small meals a day were making me nuts! I tried intermittent fasting, and it worked great for a year, but then the doctor talked me out of doing it, despite the great results. And when I tried to go back on it, I struggled.

So I'm here, because this week I've just been eating on a loose plan (I prefer to stick to a Paleolithic food plan) and eating only when hungry, eating a few bites, then waiting to see when I'm hungry again. And I'm already down 6 lbs. And it was fairly effortless! I LOVE THAT!

I found value in what has been shared on this thread, specifically that some days one is hungrier than others. I'm having one of those days today. So it's okay to get hungry. I'm good with that! It's okay to take care of it appropriately.

I'll probably still track what and how much I eat. I just want to be careful until I learn to trust myself to make the right choices.

So, see ya 'round here!

Georgia Hi, I remember you from other threads and have wondered how you were doing. Wellcome. My doctor didn't want me to do IF either, but I read an article telling all the health benefits that they believe it will do to the point that there is a university in the UK who are doing a study to see if it will reverse diabetes as well as prevent heart and circulatory diseases. I met a lady who does talks for Heart to Heart Association here in town and she said doctors don't really don't know how to treat women. Her cardiologist didn't know how or didn't treat her as she should have been treted before she had her heart attack. So my feeling is, this is my body and I am the one who has to take care of it. I don't want to wait until the UK proves it and then we have to wait for the FDA to approve of it. So I'm doing it, but I'm also doing it a healthy way. Actually, I'm finding that it is the normal way of eating for me. Actually, my doc once told me that any diet would work... the key is finding one you can live with. Well, I believe I have found mine.

I have met a lady online on a different website that is doing a combo of a form of Carbohydrate Addicts Diet with Intuitive Eating and Intermittent Fasting. This is kind of the way I like to eat and I do well on because of me dealing with diabetes. I started eating this way Sunday. Although I don't follow the diet plan exactly because I do it Intuitively. I eat my starchy type carbs once a day and I eat low carb no starchy carbs the rest of the time. They call the carby meal a Reward Meal. I don't like using the name Reward, so I just call it my Carby meal. Unlike the diet plan, my carby meal is not at the same time everyday. Sundays I have it for breakfast. Most days it is the noon meal but I can move it to evening meal when I need it. The amazing thing is that I ended up eating only 2 meals a day by the 3rd day. I'm just not hungry. I am finally back to eating the way I was when I did IE a few yrs ago and got messed up when I listened to someone on another IE website who told me I could not go more than 5 or 6 hrs at the most without eating. Now that I've learned so much about Intermittent Fasting and the wonderful benefits of it, I know that nothing is going to go wrong if I fast more than 5 or 6 hrs or more. My final meal last night was my lowcarb meal at 7:30 pm and I didn't get hungry to eat again until about 5 pm today. I ate what I wanted and I was satisfied when I quit eating. I'm not losing weight at this point. CAD says weigh daily and average weight loss or gain at the end of 7 days. My blood pressure is normal, my fasting blood sugar has been coming down steadily. I believe the weight has slowed down and my body is adjusting and stabilizing before it starts losing weight. This is how I ate as a child and almost everytime I lost weight so I am very pleased to be eating the way that is normal for me again and the way things are going.

Good afternoon all!

I'm still listening to my body, and it's telling me amazing things! My lunch didn't quite cut it today so I went "shopping" at the vending machine down the hall. As I was walking down the hall I decided I wanted something sweet and cake-y.

When I got to the vending machine I stared for a bit, mulling over my choices. Eventually I settled on something salty and savory. So much for sweet and cake-y!

When I looked at the calendar I realized why I've been craving salt all week long. I suspect next week I'll be craving hamburgers and steak. I love not having to follow rules that make me, and my body, unhappy.

I hope everyone has a glorious weekend!

Trish!!! So nice to hear from you again! Fancy meeting you here!

Yes, the very low carb diet with carefully placed carbs, the intermittent fasting in a way that I can handle it (I definitely can go about 7 hours between meals when I stick to my Paleo eating with good protein and healthy fats plus veggies), and the intuitive eating feels right for me. So much less stress over food! And I can go out with friends and make the right choices and not stress over that as well.

Yesterday I had breakfast early, at 6. I was very busy all morning and didn't start feeling hungry till around noon, but couldn't stop to eat till 2. I was SUPER hungry, so I did a drive-thru at Carl's Jr. for one of their low carb burgers and a bottle of water. I inhaled it! And I thought that I was going to be fine with that, but an hour later, I was hungry again! It was really surprising to me. I tried to let it pass, but it wouldn't go away. I made a pastrami and avocado lettuce wrap with a bit of garlic dressing. Dang, it was good! Stomach finally settled down. I didn't feel like eating again till just before bed time. There was a little soup left from my son's dinner, so I ate that. There was ground chicken, brown rice and veggies in it. I topped it with a little Romano cheese. Yum!

So this morning I weighed myself. Up a pound. Really? I think it was the salt from the burger and the pastrami. I'm not stressed. I think I killed that extra pound this morning with my workout.

Tomorrow we're going to visit my boys' grandparents. Grandpa wants to eat at Black Bear Diner. I've never eaten there before. I have heard the portions are huge. Must order carefully! There's a menu online that I can look at so I can plan ahead.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

My day was busy. DH had docs appt so we didn't eat until 3:30 and I ate again around 6pm. So followig my IF part of eating, I only ate within a 4 hr window... not on purpose, but just didn't get hungry. I'm finding that I'm not getting hungry as often, or eat as much as I used to. So glad to say that by combining IE with IF and CAD, is working for me. Although I have to say that today was more of an IE/IF. Really didn't include CAD today.

Carolr I forgot to thank you for the article you posted by Skwigg. I agree with so much of what she says she's learned and it amazes me that I have learned some of the things that she has. So glad to find someone else who has made IE more a personalized thing by doing things a little differently so that they can make IE work for them.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Just popping in
 

Hi everyone - I know I haven't been around much, but I just wanted to say that I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend.

Welcome Georgia and BigSky! So glad to have you join us.

Things are about the same for me - just eating when I'm hungry, stopping when I'm full. My clothes are fitting about the same as well, so I don't think I've lost any more weight, but that's fine with me. I haven't gained any either, so that's a plus.

This weekend is going to be a little stressful as my daughter and SIL are moving into a new house and not only am I having to baby-sit their two cats (Cady and Sophie) my husband and I are also going to help transport some furniture my brother has been storing for them. So it will be a busy afternoon-evening today. They have professional movers for the bulk of the move (moving from a 2-bedroom apt to a 4 bedroom house about 5 miles apart) but the furniture we're moving is in our neck of the woods and it's about a 45 minute drive over to their new house. Got up about 5 am to get over to the apt to pick up the cats so I'm pretty tired already - and it's only 10:00 am! :( Right now I'm too tired to even think about food!

Amazing things happen when no foods are off limits, right? I think over the last couple of weeks I've been able to get all the cravings I didn't meet over the last two years of dieting. Lots of healthy fats which I had been under eating. Delicious fruits that I wouldn't eat because they were not low GI. And I also stopped eating things that I ate daily out of habit but were not bringing me pleasure (like by daily dose of baby carrots). In short, I am eating for nourishment but not only if my body by my spirit and emotions as well. I am eating for pleasure not punishment. If I am still hungry I will just eat some more. And guess what? I am more at peace. I am eating a variety of foods all in moderation. I've gone back to some of my staples because I DO enjoy them (oatmeal and egg whites in the morning) but I won't eat them on remote control, I ask myself if that's what I want that morning. I went to the supermarket and bought things I had been thinking about and you know what? I didn't have to eat them right when I got home because I realized there is NO RUSH. I can eat them whenever!!! FREEDOM around food. I pray this continues. I need a sane way to maintain my weight loss. I like the element of trust in our bodies on IE. I lived in fear I would one day snap and eat myself back to obesity but I know realized I need to trust myself to eat how I need to eat for nourishment, health and fitness. Sorry if this seems like rambling. I am just do excited. Thanks to all for sharing your journey through this thread.

I went to bed late last night (I have sleep issues), but was delightfully blessed with sleeping in quite late. 9.5 hours! I really needed it!

My sons wanted pizza for dinner last night. They had friends over and I was happy to not have to cook anything. I only ordered enough pizza for them. I know that if I have one piece, it multiplies to several pieces. So they chowed down and what was left was a single piece of pizza. And I got it! Satisfaction!

My weigh-in this morning was satisfying. I didn't lose anything since two days ago. I'm fine with that because I have eaten a little more over the last two days. So I think I know what level of eating equals maintenance for me (I've been trying to figure that out for a while).

This morning, I'm not hungry at all. Having my coffee with cream now, and I really don't want to eat till an early dinner tonight with Grandpa and Grandma. I looked at the Black Bear Diner menu. Yeesh! I could easily eat all my day's calories at one meal! Planning for the smaller portion of top sirloin steak, plus a salad with lemon (and I'm packing my own olive oil) and double portion of the sautéed veggies. No dessert. Maybe I'll bring along a bit of my dark French chocolate stash. 'Cuz that's what I really like!

That is great that you are learning to do this to maintain. Wish I had learned this when I lost so much weight yrs ago and I wouldn't be having to do it now. At least this time when I lose the weight, I will know how to stay there. It is a wonderful feeling to be at peace with food and the freedom to eat what you want is great. I think the reason it took me so long to really do IE 100% was that I didn't trust my body. I went through that time of eating all the foods I had not been allowed to eat when dieting. Then there came the day when I suddenly realized that some of those foods weren't as good as I thought they were because now I could have them. I never even notice them in the store any more. I also learned that some of the healthy foods I was supposed to eat or was allowed on a diet that I had convinced myself that I liked and were my favorites... suddenly I found that I didn't really like them at all. I remember in the IE book when they told a client to find out what she really liked and she learned there were only 10 foods that she really liked and they taught her to make her meals around those food. So that is what I've done and now that I know the foods that I really like I plan my meals around those foods. Eating is much more pleasurable these days. Happy for you.:)

SouthernMaven Good to hear from you. I hate moving so I understand the stress as just the thought is stressful to me. Good luck and take breaks when you need them.

Georgia Great plan for the pizza and eating out with the Grandparents. I like planning in advance. I try to eat my starchy carbs one a day. We have company coming to town Friday... DH cousin he hasn't seen in 20 yrs. We are taking them to Outback. We will all share the blooming onion and I'll have steak, salad and veggies at the restaurant. Then when we come to our house, I plan to have a salad tray and cheesecake and drinks. That way my carby food will be my piece of cheesecake. I do love how I can eat healthy and lowcarb and do it eating exactly what I want.

My weekly average loss is 1.4 lbs this week. My weight loss will be slow this way, but the nice thing is that my blood pressure is normal again and my fasting blood glucose reading was down to 133. That is down from around 202 when I started eating this way. So I am very pleased.

Hi Trish, I hear you! I've lost and gained weight SEVERAL times in my life! This time MUST be the last time! But like you, I wish I had discovered IE before or that at least I wouldn't have such an "all or nothing" attitude. Drastic diet/deprivation or "I blew it so I will eat it all". Now I realize I was punishing myself and my body which would just end up backfiring.

So I am new to this thread and am curious. I am trying to fix my disordered eating as well as my irrational thinking with food. This IE is interesting to me because I never used to be one to eat breakfast, but in the dieting world....you MUST eat breakfast.!! I have been overweight since I was a kid, yo yo dieting since likely 18 or so. My irrational thinking with food is that I really prefer crap junk food. I feel deprived even if I am not dieting at the time because I want to eat takeout for 3 meals a day sometimes....and not salad and have brownies and cookies on top of that. I need to change my thoughts about food and why I eat. I feel like crap when I eat the carby food, but doesn't stop me. I need to change my way of thinking to fuelling my body in a healthy way and not feel deprived. I think about food constantly, worse since loosing 50 lbs on a low carb diet.....then quickly gaining 20ish due to ridiculous binging. I have always been a bit of a binger, elementary school like grade 5 + I would buy 5 chocolate bars a day and eat them throughout the day along with gummys, hamburgers.....(hid from my parents) I have always eaten a row or 2 of cookies in a sitting.....yes since elementary school.....but since this last restrictive diet (I stuck to it faithfully for 24 weeks no cheating) my binging is way worse. The is the longest I have stuck to anything, with WW I would do it for a week, weigh in then take the night off and eat a lot and get back on the next day. Currently I am doing that same low carb diet trying to lose again what I gained, but in the mean time trying to get a plan in place to try and let go of this disordered eating. I am reading books on binging, I am actually starting on an antidepressant, because I have hit a super low and can't get out.....hoping that will help to level out my head a bit and make this situation of my food issues not seem so grim.

Wow sorry for the long story lol. Just curious about this way of eating, I will look for the book mentioned earlier and see what I find. Thanks everyone, and good luck with all of you!

I did really well at the restaurant last night. While there, we explored the menu but I stuck with my plan. I even asked my sons to remind me to stick to my plan if it looked like I was going to stray. While looking at the menu, I decided this was probably going to be the only time I would ever go to this restaurant. The calorie counts were horrible! They served a "bear claw" that was around 2400 calories!

I did come home a little hungry, so I ate a handful of almonds and was fine for the night. I slept in and woke you to another loss on the scale (down 9 lbs. of my regain!). I was feeling particularly hypoglycemic so I opted for a homemade sprouted wheat buttermilk waffle (and I stopped at one!) plus two eggs and a bit of cream in my coffee. I ate it pretty quickly, but managed to wait it out for 20 minutes to hit my blood stream. That's when I discovered I was completely satisfied and was free to go about my day!

This is awesome! I feel free!

I really enjoyed reading this page :D Hi to the newbs :) :hug: *welcome*

I've been eating a lot of cr*p the past few months, and I've maintained. I LOVE this! Other things have just taken priority, and that's fine. My weight isn't the only thing in my life, and this sense of perspective is one of my favourite things about IE :) I'm happy to have not got bigger, I still feel good, and now I have my BC (9 days on it and no nasty side effects, in fact I feel even better!!) I don't need to obsess over the number on the scale. So, I've just done my first week of my lifting program and I LOVE it!! While I've not lost any lbs the past few months, that will come. Been focussing on stress reduction, balancing my hormones, heading off the recurring depression... Loads of progress there. I know when I get more full on with the IE again, more weight will come off. Totally loving this :) ok I want to be smaller and stronger, but I think IE is teaching me patience, in a round-about way.

No idea where I'm going with this post ;)

I wanted to share another online article by a man named Steve Cooksey who controls his T-2 diabetes with Intermittent Fasting and Primal Lifestyle (Lowcarb). He says there's 2 ways to do it. One way he calls Planned IFasting where you eat 30 grams of carbs a day starting out and no more than 50 grams a day of carbs a day as you adjust to eating this way. You choose how long and how often you want to eat and fast.

The second way (the way I eat) he calls Unplanned IFasing where he says "if you're hungry, eat. If you're not hungry don't eat". Hummm sounds like Intuitive Eating. He says he only eats 2 meals a day Primal Lifesstyle but never really shares in the article I read what his eating window was. However, he did mention having done 24 hr fasts, but I didn't get the feeling he did this on a regular basis. I think he must do shorter fasts more often although most people I've heard of eat within 5 to 8 hr window and fast 16 to 19 hrs. So I assume since he eats more Intuitively that like me, he may eat between a 5/19 ratio and 8/16. Some days I may eat within only a 5 hr window, but I have on rare occasions eaten within a 4 hr because I just wasn't hungry. I've never done a 24 hr, but have done a 22 hr fast because I got so busy that I actually forgot to eat. The nice thing about all this is that it has helped me accomplish IE better because I am actually able to eat the way that is "normal" for me. It finally clicks for me "eat when I'm hungry and don't eat when I don't". Can't really explain how or when it came together for me. Just glad it did.

I was so excited to find another testimony of someone else that has successfully lost weight, improved their health so that their bs, bp and other numbers are normal because of eating this way. The only thing he does stress that it is important that I needed to hear is to be sure to eat plenty of protein and fat before fasting.

Kelly:welcome3: :hug:I've been right where you are. Although I didn't have a weight problem until my early 20's, I didn't eat like everybody else. I never ate breakfast except on special occasions. I could go out with friends and just have a cold drink while they ate if I didn't want to eat. The way I eat now with IE, is the way I ate growing up and most of the times I've lost weight effortlessly. I first gained weight when I started eating the way the world calls "normal". And that is how I've gained it everytime.

I would suggest going back and reading old Intuitive Eating threads. I hope you will be able to find a way to be at peace with IE if you choose to do it. Took me a while to get it right myself even after knowing it would work. Please feel free to jump in and share and ask questions. Hopefully we can help you find your way. Good luck on your journey.

Trish - Thank you so much for sharing that information from Steve Cooksey. I have been exploring his website all afternoon. So much to process, and I'm so happy to read every bit of it. Helps remove my doubts about what I'm trying to achieve.

Hello
 

I would love to join your group of Intuitive Eaters, i'm currently reading the book now and i'm about 45% thru it. I did MRC (Metabolic Research Center) to lose 34 lbs but it was a very low carb low fat diet and I lost 29 1/4", but when I hit maintenance all my cravings came back and we could only eat certain foods. To make a long story short, it's fast but once you're done its hard to maintain. I read The Diet Cure and it's amazing also and is helping me not to diet then I saw a post on Intuitive Eating so that's how I started reading it. I've gained 8lbs trying to maintain thru MRC and seems like all I do is think about foods until I read The Diet Cure. So hopefully I can become a Intuitive Eater also. Thanks for listening. :carrot:

Hey Skelley :) :hug:

Congrats on getting straight in there with knowing why you're struggling to maintain, and knowing what you want to do about it. I don't have your willpower, I can tell you that! 34lbs on low carb low fat... I'd be a wreck, lol! That's an awesome job you've done with your weight loss! I'm maintaining on IE right now as I'm feeling lazy, it takes me more psychological effort to lose, so I just take losing periods where I can get them :)

I haven't read The Diet Cure, but from the title it sounds like an inside-out approach rather than an outside-in one. On the day I accepted I CAN'T stick to a meal plan for a day, let alone the rest of my life, I found the right approach. I don't want to be planning my life around food, I think that just gives food way too much power over me! How are you enjoying the book? :)

I was talking with a dietician last week about intuitive eating. She really likes it and practices it herself. She asked me if I had noticed I was more hungry some days and less on others. At that time, I hadn't, but I definitely noticed it this week! Yesterday I felt ravenous! Ate all my calories by lunch (I'm still tracking what food I eat, just to stay on top of it), but after that, didn't really feel like eating. I nibbled on some cauliflower and some tuna in the evening. This morning, I woke up genuinely hungry for breakfast. I took my time eating and now I feel satisfied and am ready to go about my day without having to worry about food again.

Last night, I was even feeling superpowered by feeling empty but not hungry. Like I have new strength over food. Freedom!

I'm glad this thread is busy. Since my TIA a month ago I've had problems and can't post as often. I did lose 4lb last month.

Thank you! The Diet Cure shows you how to get your body back in balance after being on such a roller coaster! I'm loving the Intuitive Eating book, I love the fact that you eat when your hungry, the MRC program you have to eat three meals a day with in a certain time and take supplements and protein drinks and you are limited to what you eat. There are times i'm just not hungry. I'm anxious to get thru the book!!!:carrot:

Carol, glad to hear you've lost 4 lbs, but so sorry about your health issues. My brother had a TIA many years ago (was either in his late 40's or early 50's, not sure which) but fortunately did not have any recurring problems.

Thank you for keeping up with the thread and setting up a new one when necessary. I appreciate your efforts and totally understand why you're not on as often. Hope that you feel better really soon.