So, I guess Im just in a chatty mood today. Today I was really not hungry for breakfast. I wasn't light headed or weak, in fact I had tons of energy and got lots of stuff done. Eventually I had some raisin bran with bananas at 11:30. By that point I was truly hungry and I recognized the gnawing sensation I felt yesterday after lunch. Wow confirmation that that feeling really IS hunger. I thought for sure I would be hungry soon after that but it took me until about 1:30 to be hungry again. I had part of my leftover dinner from the night before. I waited 20 minutes and realized I was still hungry so I had a peanut butter sandwich. I still felt a little empty afterwards but I waited 20 minutes. Now, I feel good and not stuffed. But, we always eat at 5 and I doubt I will be hungry for dinner. It's so tricky getting everything timed correctly, especially when I am not hungry for breakfast. For some reason it is REALLY hard for me to not eat dinner while everyone else is eating. We always sit down to dinner as a family so its kind of a big deal.

I've been eating a lot of vegetables, fresh meat, and fruit for the past few days. I'm feeling really good and my hunger/fullness sensations are very palpable. I had a thought earlier this week that I want to give my body the most nutritious foods possible. Not out of fear of being unhealthy or being fat but because I want to nurture myself. I'm hoping it's not the diet mentality sneaking back in. I just want to eat fresh food. I don't know.

Hippie,

I have chatty days, too. :) My hunger has been more regular lately- I'm grateful for that. Last night I got home late and was starving but I had to do a bunch of stuff before I could sit down to eat. By the time I finished everything I wasn't really feeling hungry anymore- you know how sometimes it comes and goes. Well I ate anyway because I knew I was hungry even though my stomach was rumbling.

Im glad Im not the only one that has chatty days. :) It's nice to hear from you Locke. :)

Im here to chat some more. :D

I think that sounds pretty normal about wanting fresh foods. I really truly believe that is what our bodies really need and crave once we get past the weird mental diet stuff that we have to overcome. But I understand being worried about diet mentality sneaking in. It is so hard to unentangle ourselves it seems.

So, I was serving up dinner for everyone at 5 and I almost served myself, when I remembered I was not going to eat unless I was hungry. I checked in with myself-- nope, not hungry. So I served up the kids and sat down. It was honestly very rough. Everyone wanted to know why I wasn't eating, it was the talk of the table. Meanwhile food and delicious smells are right there in front of me. I made dinner after all, and I made something I knew I would enjoy later. The kids took FOREVER to eat and around 5 30 they were still eating and asking for seconds and thirds. I noticed I was starting to get a little irritable and I realized I was becoming hungry. Around 5 45 I was absolutely hungry with the gnawing empty stomach and so I ate. But, the kids now were pretty much done so they just harassed me the whole time. ( My 5 year old is very precocious) Asking repetitive annoying questions and wanting more of a certain food but not wanting others, wanting more water, etc... Normally when we all eat at the same time they are busy eating so they are distracted and don't focus on me. I had to get up and leave the table because I was so stressed out, I really just wanted to enjoy my food. It DID taste REALLY good because I was hungry but I just don't know if it was worth it. I was really stressed out by the experience. I did eventually return to the table when they were done and had left. I ate in a calmer state but I honestly think I probably ate about the same amount I would have eaten if I would have eaten at 5. Im not sure. Maybe a little less. I stopped at satisfied and not full. It was definitely easier to stop eating than it normally is though so maybe I can tweak things to try to be hungry at dinnertime.

Hippie,

That's great! Luckily I live alone so I don't have to worry about eating on someone else's schedule. If I'm hungry I eat, if I'm not I don't. Same goes with sleepiness and sleeping. It must be so hard to take care of yourself with kids!

Pinkhippie, I can imagine that it would be hard when you have young kids to feed. They seem to be always hungry and you have to make sure they get their nutrition. You did good!

Wannabeskinny, I think I did IE before I even knew that it was actually an eating plan. It just seems natural to me, like the way we were intended to eat. Food is fuel, so you eat when you are running out of fuel, not just because it's there and it looks and smells good. I remember all the years that I ate anytime food was presented, and hunger had nothing to do with it! LOL

Pinkhippie, Very rarely do I write down what I eat or write down my hunger levels anymore. It can get addictive but I do got back to it from time to time. When I was doing it more regularly and taking that information to my nutritional therapist she saw that I was eating until I was "satisfied" and urged me to eat until I was "full." Simply because my perception of "satisfied" left me hungry all too soon later. Now that I go until "full" it has wiped out all snacking so I can think less about food throughout the day. It leaves me much calmer too and it's not that much more food than "satisfied."

@Locke, remember to focus on enjoying your food experiences. Self assessment is important but not to the point where it should interfere with what you eat. You're doing great, own it.

IE is not an eating plan. It's just a process that we use to go back to eating naturally, you're right it's just natural. And you're so right about food being presented and feeling like you have to eat it. You have to release yourself from obligations, I don't like it when people expect me to eat in order to please them on the occasion. "But I made this cake from scratch" they say or "but it's dinner time now." We'll never be able to listen to our bodies as long as we continuously subject them to the voices on the outside. Someone on this board, can't remember who, told me that she could never do IE because eating dinner with her husband is very important to her and the initial stages of IE urge you to ignore standard meal times and eat ONLY when you're hungry. That never held me back, I sat with LO and OH during meal times and sometimes didn't eat anything and it was fine, I was still there during the meal - just because I wasn't shoveling food into my face doesn't mean that I couldn't spend that time with them. And then OH sat with me while I ate later so in essence we had 2 dinners together! Of course this stage was relatively short and I'm on 3 solid meals a day now and they usually always coincide with family meal times.

I actually feel more connected with people now because food is out of the way. I used to feel alienated at social functions, watching other people eat without feeling guilt, feeling preoccupied with avoiding certain foods, wanting desperately to appear normal as I ate etc. Secret eating played a big role in my ED and now that I'm not binging in secret anymore I don't feel self conscious about eating in front of other people. The anxiety around food has lessened.

Yes! It really can be! Sometimes I won't eat even when Im hungry because Im busy attending to their food needs or as soon as they see me eating or near the kitchen they descend on me for snacks. They always want to eat what I am eating.

Thanks Wannabehealthy! I think I am slowly figuring it out. And yes they are ALWAYS hungry! lol

Thanks for answering my question Wannabe, I like the idea of writing down hunger levels in the beginning to figure it out all out. I know when I was working on overcoming my ED several years ago I kept a food journal and it was a huge part of my recovery. But it was more like writing down what I ate, how I felt, if I was hungry and if I purged it.

So, I have just been plugging away at my emotional eating. Have any of you heard of the book Shrink yourself? by Dr. Roger Gould? I read it years ago when I was in diet mode so Im not sure if sticks to IE principles, I think its more of an emotional eating book, but I subscribe to his emails. Anyway he has an app called the pocket hunger coach app. Lately I have been feeling hungry after I put the kids to bed. I really have been feeling like Im hungry but last night I decided to check out the app and see if it was emotional hunger. Using the app I figured out and realized that I have started dreading the evenings with my husband after the kids go to bed. He is super grumpy and negative because he has a chronic injury and he reinjured himself a few weeks ago. He is SO doom and gloom and wants me to tell him what I should do to take care of it and gets mad when I don't know and yuck. Anyway, once I worked through that I realized I actually was not hungry. wow. I also realized the ways that I was contributing to the situation by the way I was reacting. So after I put the kids to bed we actually had a really great evening because I was aware in my interactions with him. I also felt no hunger or urge to eat. And bonus, I was hungry for breakfast this morning! So, I think it will be easier to time things so I am actually hungry at dinner. :)

I need to be more active here. I am so tired of going back and forth between IE and low carb (LC). I always think I can follow LC and then when I hit goal I'll just IE....but we all know that won't happen. I know IE is a process and I just need to work through it. I just want to be a normal eater dang it.

I think it was Wannabe that said she reads the LC boards and that's what I do and it sends me in a tailspin. I just need to quit reading other boards and stick to what I know in my heart works.

A lot of you can relate to things in your childhood that have made you the eater you are today. The only thing I can really think of is never having any junk other than cookies in the cookie jar in our house. I can remember many times sneaking into it and having to be so quiet because it was a ceramic jar and the lid made noise. My parents left my sister and I with our grandparents once when I was in the 8th grade and I can remember my sister and I walking to the convenience store and stocking up on candy and hiding it in our room. I can remember Halloween (like someone else said) and having all the chocolate in my room and I could never stay out of it. I can remember a job I had and I'd stash chocolate in my desk and would eat on it all day. And now I guess the rebel in my just buys the crap and eats it because I can and I don't have to hide it anymore but in the long run I'm only harming myself. Not sure where I'm going with all this but you all did get me to thinking about what my motives are when it comes to gorging on junk. Funny thing is we never had junk in our house but my mom has been overweight my whole life. What the heck was she eating to keep her that way?

I'm going to be around more often because I need you all! I've realized I can't do this on my own anymore. I still have a hard time giving up the "just one more try at a diet" thought. My mom has just lost 25# with LC and keeps telling me I should join her which hasn't helped at all. She knows I try IE so she doesn't push the issue.

@Country

I know that feeling, too! I actually don't visit anywhere else on this board but our thread. I don't even go up into the "Chicks in Control" board because of the people talking about trigger foods. I'm to the point where I'm eating happily and healthfully. Nothing is off limits for me except for caffeine and alcohol because they give me mood swings and other bad stuff. There's a huge difference between the diet mentality and the IE mentality. I'm not really eating bread these days because I'm experimenting to see whether it has a positive or negative effect on my moods. If I want some bread I'll have it but my body hasn't really made me miss bread so I'm waiting it out to see. Will I eat bread again? Of course! Life's too short to not enjoy the heck out of your food. I've found the best foods are those that are tasty and make me feel good like fruits, veggies, and meats. That's totally different (imho) than me going on a low carb or paleo diet. There's no on-the-wagon or off-the-wagon mentality. If I want a piece of cake bad enough then I'll eat one! It's totally relaxed and not stressful at all.

Welcome back CountryLiving. You're right, it's more beneficial to be around non-dieters but we are few so you have to seek us out more often. When the general population rewards dieting behavior you have to find someone who will support your non-dieting motives or else you can easily get sucked back into diets. It's like the ocean is the diet and beach is IE. If you stand at the surf you'll get shoved back and forth but ultimately get sucked back into that diet. Get on sturdy ground and you won't drown. High five I just made up that analogy hehe.

Remember that other people lose weight on diets. But will they keep it off? Will they regain? The rebound off diets is horrible, just one uncontrollable binge.

Welcome! We would love to have you join us on your journey. At first I couldn't really figure out childhood triggers for eating either. ( even though they seem so obvious now) I think as you just keep being aware you will discover more about your urges to eat and why. Maybe your mom was sneaking food or she had a weird attitude towards food that made her overeat? I have never been able to do low carb. I rebound into massive amounts of bread and pizza. I don't feel good on low carb at all. My only diet trip up is calorie counting. Still working on that.

You sound like you are in such a good place right now Locke! That is soooo awesome!

I like your analogy of the ocean and the beach. :) I actually didn't even realize until coming here how many people DO regain on diets. That has never been my issue, I just can't stick to them. That used to make me feel like a failure but now it makes me feel like I have a strong healthy piece of myself that says Im worth it and its not OK to deprive myself and treat myself badly.

SO, I didn't eat between lunch and dinner. I started getting hungry around 3 30 and I ate a few pieces of apple. That tided me over to be hungry at 5. And so I ate delicious dinner AND dessert with everyone and it was very peaceful. I was able to stop at just the right spot for me because I started out hungry. I think it was less than I normally eat for dinner so Im interested to see if I have the snacking urge this evening and if Im really hungry or not. I feel like I have a really small stomach or something. I feel like I get satisfied pretty quickly and my stomach feels like its getting stretched out after not much food either. That is where high fiber foods like vegetables or lots of water can be my downfall. My stomach will FEEL full but I will be hungry again in less than an hour.

It is nice to see more activity here. welcome all new members :).

Country, I just want to let you know that I'm an example that dieting and going to IE really doesnt work. I calorie counted my way down to my goal weight, and thought I could practice maintenance with IE. It didn't happen. My body was so hungry that I binged my way back up and gained a lot of pounds back. Now that I'm doing IE I can honestly say that this is a sustainable and much more healthy way to reach your bodies set point. I'm only a few months in to the journey, but I feel SO much better than I ever did dieting.

Pinkhippie, I have a similar experience with high fiber foods. I'll fill up quickly, but an hour later I'll be starving! I've learned that I need some sort of more substantial element to the meal to feel full.

and Locke, I'm happy to hear that you're in a really good place right now :).


I feel that I'm getting better at sensing my hunger, and knowing what to eat. However, I still am working on deciding if I should eat "until the hunger signal is gone" or until I "feel full". Many times if I just eat until the signal is gone I still feel like I want more? I don't know why this is though.

Koali,

When I started I ate until I was just satisfied. Now I eat until I feel just right (full), but I think it was important for me in the beginning to discover different levels of hunger and satiety. I also used to eat slow and really concentrate. Nowadays I eat at a moderate pace but slow down as I approach fullness. I also just eat- no internet or anything else.

Thanks for all your feedback. I really liked the beach analogy! Every time I think of LC I'll think of swimming in the ocean with the sharks! The sharks being all the diet info.

Another big battle I have is the scale. I have hid it far away before but it makes me anxious but so doesn't weighing all the time. I just really am having a hard time putting weight loss on the back burner when all my summer clothes are already tight. I have been working at IE for probably 1.5 years now. Not sure why I can't grasp it. Today I just hate food... Sick of everything about it. I just want food thoughts to only come to mind when I'm hungry.

I'm sorry you had to learn the hard way that dieting before you do IE is not a great option, at least not an effective one. But hey, you learned that, there's no unlearning it now.

Regarding sated vs. full. When I first started IE I would eat until satisfied. And then I wasn't satisfied anymore only an hour later which was frustrating and so annoying. I remember constantly feeding myself small amounts of food and I hated that. That was almost the point where I thought that I should give up on IE, I couldn't live like that! Constantly identifying hunger and nibbling until it was barely gone. With a little push from my NT I began to eat until full, almost too full. That's when things started to fall in place, my meal times seemed to fall into a predictable schedule and I stopped snacking entirely. I'm much happier now, maybe this will work for you too? If you're still unsure about your skills in sensing hunger this might seem drastic but it seemed drastic to me too and it worked out.