Hi. Today will be my sixth (or seventh) day of living with IE. I still don't quite know what I am doing. However - I think I can feel food in my tummy and sometimes can feel some fullness. I don't, however, know exactly when to stop eating. It's usually when the food on my plate is almost gone. I have been leaving a bite.

I have read the Overfed Head. Now I am reading You Can Have Your Cake and Skinny Jeans, Too. There's a lot to think about.

I am still thinking and afraid I am eating too much. I hope some comfort in this will follow eventually.

Today is my 36th anniversary - DH and I will go out for dinner. That has always been tricky and hard in the past. I've looked at the menu online (habit) - and am fretting over making the 'right' choice. I'll figure it out. My goal is to feel no guilt after having a delicious supper.... focusing on feeling full.

Cindysunshine - nice to have time now to pursue yoga and other activities.

Southern Maven - thanks for the link to the magazine. Teaching mindfulness would be awesome. You said: I found it particularly interesting that it said women stop dieting at the average age of 64.
Well - I am 61 and I hope I can do it now.

pattygirl - yay for eating at KFC with no guilt.

Gotta go.... have a good day.

Joining tentatively and mostly out of curiosity. I know that there's truth to intuitive eating but I don't trust myself to do it right. I'm one of those people who know that if I allow my true self to eat that I will eat everything in sight and then go and get more. The concept of IE makes perfect sense but is an alien concept.

So I'm reading Overfed Head. I figured I should at least read it before declaring myself a failure at IE right? And the stories of people gaining and giving up aren't exactly enticing.

So please excuse me if my suspicions run high but I truly am curious because it all sounds too good to be true. I want nothing more than to be free of food obsession. I don't want to count calories, I don't want to restrict myself, I don't want to punish myself when I eat "bad food." But I'm afraid that my hungry signals are all messed up, so I have a hard time relying on that.

I'm only 50 pages into the book so there's no indication yet of how to do this. I need some concrete steps on how to start this thing. But one thing did make an impression - I was an intuitive eater when I was pregnant. I lost weight when I was pregnant. I didn't restrict anything (other than the typical restrictive foods on preggos like sushi and blue cheese), and yet I craved little. I didn't obsess about food. I was the most normal person in the world, happy healthy and not obsessive. It all came back after the baby was born but I long to get back to my pregnant state of eating. Maybe IE is the way to go?

So glad to see you, Wannabeskinny! You are more than welcome here.

I am glad to see that you are reading The Overfed Head. It's a great book, and I've always recommended it, but now I really have very high praise for Overcoming Overeating by Hirschmann and Munter. I am almost finished and I have learned a lot from it, particularly the second and third sections. I find it a great complimentary read to Overfed Head.

Rob Stevens makes some great points, but there are a few things I don't care for in his book - one is the hunger/fullness chart, which I find totally useless. I think that's so individual and is something each person has to learn for himself/herself. And I can see how people might drive themselves crazy trying to determine if they are full or not.

The whole purpose of IE is to get in touch with your body's own signals. This takes practice.

I can completely understand the fear of overeating, and often people do overeat at first. I think people either overeat or undereat when first starting IE; if they are undereating they are still restricting, which is so hard to break away from. If they overeat most of the time they are still learning their signals. Unfortunately some people do gain weight and it scares them away. But Rob Stevens does make the point that the body really needs to reset itself, and sometimes a weight gain is part of that process.

You and I have already had the discussion about our "normal" eating during pregnancy, and guess what? I have recently been participating in another IE forum and the very same discussion came up, and several women there ALSO said that was the only time they can ever remember eating "like a normal person," as they put it. I can't help but think it's because we are not only NOT worried about weight gain, but also because we are so much more in tune with our bodies; we're in a heightened state of awareness, as it were.

At any rate, I think it's really interesting that several other people said the same thing. Fascinating, really.

Feel free to ask questions, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a bit skeptical. I totally understand that.

I hope Carol will jump in here and give you some encouragement. She started the first IE thread here in 2006 and is still here. She's lost about 40 lbs in that time...yes, very slowly, as she has said, but it's staying off. She's a long-term success story with IE.

Beverlyjoy - no need to fret; the right choice is very simple - eat what you want. Period.

We all know restaurant portions are always so large, so just ask for a "to go" box if there's a lot left over. I do it all the time.

The main thing to remember is to try - as much as possible - to eat mindfully. When you're with someone else at a restaurant it's a bit tougher to do, but you can. Just eat slowly and try to concentrate on how good the food tastes. At some point you'll experience "the law of diminishing returns" as I like to call it. You start getting full and the tastiness of the food starts to go down. When you get to that point it will be time to save the rest of the meal for later.

Just always be hungry when you eat something. That's probably the hardest part of IE - getting used to the fact that it's okay to be nice and hungry because you don't have a restricted set of calories to stay within or a certain type of food to eat (which may not satisfy you AT ALL). You of course don't want to get TOO hungry, but it's nice to be hungry enough to really enjoy the meal.

I read both Overcoming Overeating and When Women Hate Their Bodies when they first came out, and found them to be very helpful to me at that time. Besides Geneen Roth's books, they were some of the first ones that provided me with a good reason to stop dieting.

Years have gone by since the books were first published, and nowadays, the talk is that the Overcoming Overeating approach is quite harmful, mainly because people get stuck on feeding their "mouth hunger", and don't move past it into choosing "healthier" foods.

I used to be active in a couple of Overcoming Overeating Yahoo groups, and any mention of wanting to lose weight was forbidden. There were people on the groups that gained LOTS of weight and weren't able to put the brakes on the gaining.

I guess the whole point of the books was for people to make peace with food, not really to lose weight.

Hi, ladies...It's good to see so many new people on this thread. I don't get a chance to come over here very often, but always like to catch up with the thread when I can.

This past Fall, thanks to walking with my Fitbit, and using our NutriBullet, I had managed to take off 19 pounds. That total has come over a couple of YEARS though, so it's been very, very, very slow.

I had hoped to take off a couple more pounds over this winter, but the winter has been a hard one here in Vermont. We've either been having ice storms or Arctic blasts, so there's been NO outdoors time to speak of. I've been bouncing up between three to six pounds ever since Thanksgiving. If I can just stay where I am and not gain it all back before Spring, I'll be happy.

A couple of my sisters are going on a Spring cruise, so they're in get-the-weight-off-asap mode right now. It's been tempting to join them, but that doesn't work for me. Restricting food just makes me want to eat all the time.

I do best if I stay busy and think about food as little as possible. I don't try NOT to think about food; I just try not to make it a big deal.

I'm not really doing IE because I find it's just as easy to turn that into a diet as anything else. I just don't diet, and try to let food be a natural part of life, instead of letting it cause all sorts of problems for me.

That was a very interesting statistic about when most women stop dieting. I'm 57, and though I'll still make a diet attempt every once in awhile, for the most part, I'm DONE with diets. I don't know if it's because the older we get, the less we care about what people think of us, or what.

I'm mainly interested in keeping my mobility and as much health as I can as I age, not in whether I look "hot" or not. :lol:

Hiya all...Just checkin in...Welcome newbies!!

Truffle...I love the nutri bullet..been having smoothies ,and had stopped with brutal cold weather we dealing with...Once it gets warmer, will start using it again...Thanks for the reminder and Bravo of your weight loss success so far!!

Folks...lost track of my hunger scale efforts..and am just eating to give me strength to do my home duties. I am now eating every 3-4 hours and plenty of movements. I am addicted to the scale part and I know on few self help books, it states to avoid the scale due its part of the dieting world. I agree and in fact that am done or should I say outgrown from the dieting game mindset.

This may sound strange...But I am happy with my size..I love food and love to exercise!! What I truly need to focus is work on my self esteem and do plenty of self caring, and not dieting per say talking anymore. Feb 1st, am thinking about keeping a thoughts journal and work on my issues. I come in terms that I will never be a medium size..and just face the facts I am big and good hearted person .The only way is holding me back is doctors and family members on pushing me back on losing weight. For many years been told to loose..It was fun in the past...but now...I am interested on maintaining and not going past my current weight.

Will check in here from time to time...Good luck to all on your goal efforts..Have a great day!!

I am glad to see Time coming out with the Mindful eating issue. I never could get my kids to slow down and taste what they eat and I noticed that DH grandkids are even worse. DGS comes to visit on weekends and goes in and gets himself something to eat or I cook a meal for him and I swear that the food never stays in his mouth long enough for him to even taste it. He is thin because he is so active, but he comes from a family of big people. Both his grandparents on his Daddy's side had their stomachs stapled and she has gained all her weight back and he has to still fight gaining weight. Youngest DGD is the same way... eats so fast. However, the oldest DGD refuses to eat if she has to rush through a meal. She takes time to taste what she eats and hopefully in time she will be a good example for the youngest one. At least, I hope so. I really believe that it isn't always what we eat that is a problem as much as it is whether we eat it mindlessly.

It is so good to see us being so active a thread. It really helps.

Becky It's good to see you here and I like what you called the taste hunger. I like "mouth hunger" best so I just may steal that term from you. My sister loves smoothies and I do too in the springtime, but just can't go it during cold weather. I even have a problem getting my water in during this time of the year and probably drink too much in the spring and summer. Check in when you can.

I'm not sure I can remember this correctly but Carolr can as she truly has been my inspiration through the yrs since I found this thread. But this is the basic rule from Intuitive Eating book which I used to have on my fridge. Maybe I should put it up again.

1. If you are really hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you really want, not what you think you should eat.
3. Savor every bite.
4. When you start to feel full (I always preferred feel satisfied), stop.

Hope this helps.

BBL

Liliann, I hear you on the self esteem! That's a topic I'm trying to tackle this year, too. I bought the book "Beautiful You: A Daily Guide to Radical Self-Acceptance". It leads you through a "365 day action-plan", and each day's item is just a few pages long. A lot of them ask you to record your thoughts in a journal. I'm on day 33. Apparently I'm not in a real journaling mindset lately and keep "meaning to" but don't, but I'm making sure I don't let that stop me from reading each day's writing and really thinking about it. Maybe next year I'll go through again, and be a good girl and do the journaling part. But even without journaling, I'm getting a lot out of it. It may be a helpful book for you, too.

Had to end last post quickly as dinner was ready and I didn't want it to burn.

I wanted to share that I weighed and measured myself about a month ago and found the notebook this morning and decided to see how things had gone. I've lost 4.4 lbs and an overall loss of 8.1 inches. I realize that isn't a whole lot, but at least it is a loss even if it is slow.

Liliann Glad you are happy with your size. In fact, in Allan Carr's book Lose Weight Now, he says not to use the scale to dictate what you should weigh. He says when you can look in the mirror and be happy with what your size then you have reached your goal. Sounds like you are there.

I think we all have problems with low self-esteem. I know I do. It is like the youtube site Maven shared says... we are not dumb ignorant failures. Although we have been successful in other areas of our lives... loved them showing doctors, lawyers, teachers etc, we are made to feel like we have failed because we couldn't lose the weight and keep it off. One of the things I love about IE is that saying "the scale is a number which gives me important information, it does not define me". I love it when I meet people who accept and love me for who I am and not for how I look. I consider them to be better and smarter people. Those who only look at my size, I consider to be shallow. JMO

Have a nice evening and stay safe and warm.

Those are fantastic results, Pattygirl! Congratulations on results you can really see! =)

Truffle, you're doing great! Sometimes it's very hard to keep focus when we're not seeing BIG results all at once. To keep yourself moving in the right direction is a wonderful thing!

Hi folks - It's been over a week now I've been doing/trying Intuitive Eating. What I realized yesterday is that I really can eat the foods I want - as long as I am really hungry. It's freeing in a way.- I know that I am still very mindful of portions and good or 'bad' foods. It's still a dieter's mind set. I am working on it. But, what I have learned the most this week is feeling the fullness and/or emptiness of my stomach. I certainly don't have it mastered. But, I think I have made progress in that area. I am grateful for that.

In the evening I wanted to eat - I wasn't hungry or my tummy seemed OK. And I didn't eat. That's a miracle. I am grateful.

I weighed today and lost 4 pounds in the last 8 days.

DH & I didn't get to go out for our anniversary as he was called away with a work project. We will go out on Friday night instead. Also - thanks for the Happy Anniversary wishes.

pattygirl - I am so happy for you to see the scale go down. I know how the scale can be a tricky thing. Carry on. Thanks for posting this again:

1. If you are really hungry, eat.
2. Eat what you really want, not what you think you should eat.
3. Savor every bite.
4. When you start to feel full (I always preferred feel satisfied), stop.


milrman - thanks for mentioning that book

lillian - it sounds like you know what you need. That's wonderful.

truffle - glad you posted.

southernmaven Thanks so much for your thoughts about the restaurant and facing IE. Appreciate it. You said: The whole purpose of IE is to get in touch with your body's own signals. This takes practice. That's a good reminder.

wannabeskinny - hi. I am newish at IE, myself. It's sounds like a trip to 'crazytown' to me. But, it does make sense. I am trying to see how it works.


Have a good day. Treat yourself as kindly as you would treat a good friend.

Haha, a trip to crazy town.

I'm still trying to figure out what being hungry means. This is a life long battle.

Trish...Great work on your Lbs and inches victory!! Bravo!!

Beverly...Glad to hear you holding up well. Keep it up!!

mlroman... Thank you for the book recommend...Will check it out!

Have a great one all...Everyone is doing awesome and Thank you all for sharing...It keeps me going and Not fallen into the dieting game mindset..Enjoy your day folks!! :)