How about a couple visuals while I'm at the pic thing! First one is me with my husband Rick, my two sons David to my left and Jason with his wife, my lovely daughter in law Laura, the pretty TALL blonde and daughter I always wanted. Then one of me and Jason and the last one we took last week in St Louis with my husband and the foxy blonde ( not me, the cutie on the left LOL ) is my niece Jennifer who performs on dueling pianos at Howl at the Moon she is very talented!! And the last one is my princess Shih Tzu, Muffin. ;)

PS these are thumbnails so you can make them bigger by clicking on them.
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b5...315_181606.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b5...1595180303.jpg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b5...024930971.jpeg
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b5...8123902983.jpg

Cindy, can I just tell you that you look FABULOUS! I hope I can look that good when I'm your age. :)

The purse that you knitted came out really pretty. I knit also, but so far I've been limited to scarves, ponchos, and hats. I haven't been able to master anything more complex really yet. I've checked out a few knitting how-to books but I always have the hardest time understanding the directions! haha. I guess with practice.

Your dog is adorable - it makes me miss my little chow chow at home.

Fabulous family thanks for sharing Cindy! And you've got quite the talent for knitting, I wish I could do something like that.

I had a stressful day yesterday recovering from our party. I was tired and irritable. My food intake was not bad at all, had a very mindful and intuitive breakfast and lunch was hearty. Dinner time I had to take my son to a toddler's birthday party. I had a few crackers with dip and avoided the pizza altogether. I had my slice of cake but it was too sweet for me and it made me feel a little ill. When we came home I was still feeling ill so I had a cup of warm broth and it made me feel a lot better. Then I started feeling irritable and wanting to munch and could feel that something was wrong because I was getting snappy at my husband. He went to bed early and so I was by myself, watching tv and irritable - primed for snacking and binging. I couldn't figure out what was on my mind making me so irritable, I kept trying to think to what could have set me off and driven me to feel a compulsion to eat. So I decided to just sit with the feeling, and took several deep breaths. No bells and whistles went off but I did decide to put myself to bed before I did anything irrational. I'm glad I was able to steer myself away from eating because I know that wouldn't have solved anything, though I still can't figure out what's gotten me anxious other than my oppressive work commitments.

Wannabe could it just be fatigue? I get like that when I'm bone tired. Going to bed was probably the exact best thing you could do.

Hello ladies,

I haven't posted in a few days because life has been, well, life. I have been reading this thread daily. I visited my parents over the weekend. No matter how well adjusted I feel in my life my family always succeeds in making me crazy. I dove right back into my vices of self hatred, binging, and drinking.

Now that I'm back home it's taken me a few days to get back into the swing of things. My energy levels have been wonky lately and I definitely feel irritable when I'm tired. I'm cutting back on caffeine to see if that helps. I'm trying to eat a bit more healthy, too, as I think that my diet of bagels, bread, cheese, and ice cream may be contributing to feeling tired.

Navigating the honoring your hunger vs. honoring your health is kind of tricky. I don't want to make the distinction bread = bad and salad = good. I do want to eat more vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, etc. though. This isn't for the sake of losing weight but rather it comes from a place of gentleness and nurturing- I want to give my body the things that it needs to thrive. So I guess it must be a good thing to do because it's coming from a good place.

Hi Locke,

I am actually in a similar state that you are. I reached the point where having cupcakes for lunch really lost its excitement when I realized how lousy it made me feel afterwards. Not that I still won't have a cupcake, I'll just have some of it and balance it out with other options like with a turkey sandwich and cottage cheese, or whatever food sounds good.

I've found it really helpful to keep eating the foods I enjoy, but just making some easy and healthier modifications. For instance, I've been craving pizza a lot this week. So I've let myself have pizza. But I made my pizza on a whole wheat pita and with skim mozzarella cheese. It tastes just as good to me as any other pizza, but with ingredients that I know are a little more balance for me. The plus is that I don't walk away from the meal feelings sluggish or heavy.

I think the key is to give yourself what you want, but keep your health in mind too. For instance you mentioned bagels, well let yourself have a bagel but maybe choose a whole wheat or multigrain bagel. Just some harmless switches like that. Then you're listening to your cravings AND your health.

If anything I've learned this really is a process, two steps forward and one step back, but overall we're moving in the right direction!

Today actually marks a month since I have binged! IE and eating enough food has completely gotten rid of my desire to binge until I feel sick. I still overeat occasionally, but that is not a binge!

Congrats Koali!

Locke, I struggle with that very same issue. Although I have gotten much better about my self-criticism it's a hard habit to break. I haven't completely ridden myself of guilt over the food I eat. Sometimes I wonder why I eat the things I eat, is it because I'm really craving them or is it because they're around? And if they weren't around, what would I crave?

Yesterday was a tough day, I had cake for lunch and dinner.

Morning ladies. Locke hoping you are back on track and moving in the right direction. And I think it's entirely normal to overeat sometimes, and eat what is there instead of what we are craving at the moment, I just had ham and scrambled eggs and it is totally because the ham is there.

I'm still not really in the groove, but I am making progress on getting my gardens under control at which point I will relax more and I know it will be easier. The weather is stellar the birds are singing, I am heading out in a bit and a few more hours will get me past the spring cleanup, the next dozen items are much easier and more fun.

I have to talk (briefly I promise) about how intuitive an eater my dog is. We have never fed her any table scraps so she doesn't have to worry about what she is craving, but I had her at the vet and she weighed again 14.2 pounds which is an ideal body weight for her. we have had her on a several food searching for an allergy source and she varies her quantity and her exercise level varies. She seems to just hone in to keep herself at that weight. This last food I got is completely grain and starch free and I'd been putting the same cup or a little more in her bowl and she was leaving some and I noted that the instructions say 1/2 to 1 1/4 cups for up to 25 pounds, less than the others and she automatically reduced how much she ate. I need to take lessons from my princess.

I've been struggling again. I just can't seem to let go of the diet mentality when I know it's only making me fatter. I keep thinking "one last time" which I know I won't last on it. I can't begin to tell you how many times I've started and stopped LC in the past few months only to end up heavier than I've been in years. The scale is almost at the 200# mark and it has me freaking out that I can not go beyond that number which brings up the whole diet issue. My clothes feel awful. I know I just need to quit with it all and I feel like I'm just sabatoging myself. I just need a good knock upside the head to get me straight. Feeling very frustrated.

CindySunshine...interesting about your dog. We have a 1 year old lab. First dog I've ever had and I see that she just eats what she wants of her food and will just leave the rest. Somedays she even skips breakfast. I have 3 kids and they are great at IE which I'm so happy to see because I don't want them to go through the struggles that I have. When I see them leave 1/2 a dessert because they are full I just want to rejoice! I'm trying hard not to corrupt them!

Hi there! I'm fairly new to intuitive eating (have been experimenting with it over the past couple of weeks after reading Josie Spinardi's 'How to Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too'). I lost about 12lbs between January and April via calorie counting, but I found myself getting super stressed out and obsessive over the numbers. So now I'm not trying to lose weight, but more trying to maintain while resetting my relationship with food.

One thing I'm trying to do is eat three (or two) substantial meals a day, instead of the constant grazing I did during my dieting phase. I'm having a tough time deciphering my body's hunger signals, though - so I'll stop after a fairly small amount of food, thinking I'm no longer hungry, and then I'll get hungry again within a couple of hours. Any tips for this?

Also, I'm really excited about the awesome, supportive community you have here! (And it's incredibly refreshing to read through your posts after inundating myself with endless info about calories and nutrition over the last few months.)

Littlegreen,

Welcome! I love our little community. Hunger signals can be perplexing at first but it definitely gets easier. I think the fact that you know that you are hungry a few hours after eating until just satisfied shows that you are indeed attuned to your signals. When I first started IE this would really bother me. What I do now is I eat until I'm satisfied and it is definitely a sure feeling. I used to stress so much about if I was full or not- now I eat until I'm full- which is hard to define but I'll try:

For me fullness feels like I don't *need* to eat anymore, and I don't really want to eat anymore, either. I find myself no longer fixated on food. I may get distracted by something else. It's different for everyone. For me it's also independent of how "full" my stomach feels. If I eat something light like a broth-based soup my stomach may feel stretched a bit but I'm not really satisfied. Sometimes I still feel like I need to eat a few hours after I'm full and that's okay, too.

This is an art, not a science. The most important part for me is forgiveness- forgiving myself for the way I've treated myself over the years and rebuilding a healthy relationship with food.

Welcome littlegreen! We do have a supportive bunch of Intuitive Eaters here in this thread and we have a small presence around other threads. There are only a small number of naysayers and a few people who don't quite understand why we do what we do but for the most part everyone on 3FC is very inclusive and supportive. Check in here and on the threads labeled IE in the Chicks in Control section.

Stopping after a fairly small amount of food thinking you're not hungry is part of the process. Putting in the time and effort required to get in tune with your body's hunger signals is time well spent, eventhough I know how infuriating it is to be hungry just a short while later. When I first started doing this I was very unhappy about how often I would need to eat. If I were to think of myself as a vessel I would say I was constantly filled 75% of the way and kept topping myself off to 90% - that was an annoying but necessary part of the process. Over the course of a few weeks I went from eating every couple of hours to eating 3 solid meals a day with absolutely no snacks. I'm really comfortable with this!

There is a scale you can use that I've found very useful. I rate my hunger from 1-10. I like to eat when I'm at 2-3 and eat until I'm at an 8.

1. Famished, Irritable
2. Very hungry
3. Hungry
4. Slight hunger
5. Neutral
6. Appetite goes away
7. Satisfied
8. Full
9. Overly full, stuffed
10. Sick, discomfort

There is no wrong amount of hunger, if you're anywhere between a 1-4 you can eat. My guess though is that you may be eating when you are closer to a 4 and then not eating enough. That's what was happening to me in the beginning, I was eating at the first sign of hunger and then not eating enough, only enough to get me to 7. But I wouldn't stay at seven for long. Since I started eating until 8 I feel much calmer and able to stay away from food for long periods of time.

Some people say that this type of rating scale does not work for them, I'm glad I gave it a chance though. There are times that I am feeling irritable AND slightly hungry at the same time. That's a sure sign that something else is going on and I hold off on food until I get to the bottom of what I'm really craving.

Thanks! All this advice sounds awesome, and the 10-point scale looks helpful too. The book I mentioned uses a hunger scale too, but it's just a 5-point one, which I think was unhelpful for me.

Today I ate three square meals - and no snacks yet! - for the first time in AGES. I still might end up having a snack pre-bedtime because I ate an early dinner, but I'm cool with that. I'm also getting out of the habit of mentally estimating calories, which is refreshing.

Great to see you CountryLiving. I've been having a bad week or so myself it happens, but restricting just never works for me.

Welcome to you littlegreen! I do best with a few bigger meals and no or few snacks. I've been eating sugar and carbs with Easter and feel yucky am out of pattern. In the past, I find I need to flush out the carbs and sugar once of in a while to get back, I used to do fruit flushes and just eat fruit or smoothies a day or two which is NOT a diet with no intent to lose weight, but I get nice and hungry at which point IE works best. I feel fabulous when I eat IE, my energy level is through the roof. It's a huge motivator for me.