I find my weight stays about the same when I snack. I've been eating three meals a day for the past week and I find that it really helps me not think about food. Before when I was snacking I was always checking in- any kind of stomach rumble or feeling a little weak would make me think "should I eat???" "what should I eat???" "am I really hungry or bored, or what???". I've got my body on a schedule now and I don't really have to think about eating all that much. If I get a little bit hungry in the afternoons I'm content because I know that I will make dinner when I get home and eat until I'm satisfied. If I'm not hungry at meal time I don't eat it and wait until the next one. This is simpler for me.

I did exactly the same thing. I wanted to make absolutely sure I was hungry and so my hands would be shaking as I reached for ANYTHING to eat when I finally realized I was hungry. It took a while to get in touch with gentle hunger and not ravenous hunger. For me, I do it differently than Locke. I experimented with both ways and I find that eating small amounts often helps me get in better touch with my hunger. Just like the book says, if you eat small amounts then you will be hungry sooner and so you get more practice feeding your body when its hungry. ( or something like that) But I also agree with Locke about then you start feeling weirdly obsessed with food and am I hungry, do I really need to eat? etc... so its a really fine line.

Anyway, I tried legalizing foods a couple of times with out success. I finally was able to and the best way I found to legalize foods for me was to buy a lot of whatever food I absolutely loved and would eat an entire bag of. For me, that was oreos, chocolate, and ice cream pie. I bought 4 bags of oreos at a time. For quite a while I would just eat oreos. Sometimes until I felt sick. And then I would NOT beat myself up with guilt, but I would recognize that eating that much oreo made me feel physically bad. Anyway, eventually I got really tired of oreos. I moved onto ice cream pie. I bought several ice cream pies and ate a LOT. And then I moved on to chocolate. Eventually there came one day when I was automatically moving to eat the chocolate and then I was like "do I even WANT that chocolate?" And I realized no, a strawberry and yogurt sounded really good. Or something else. Now, I have had a bag of chocolate truffles sitting on the fridge for about a month. There are still truffles in it. Those things are rich and I am rarely in the mood for such richness these days. But, besides the process, I think its REALLY important, like Locke says how you choose to talk to yourself as you are legalizing foods. Always tell yourself its ok and do not feel "bad" or "guilty". It was kind of a long process for me. I would say I just recently started not feeling like I need a chocolate desert after lunch and dinner. And the only reason is, is because I am not in the mood for chocolate. But, I had to take away the guilt of eating chocolate and not have it be a "bad" food in my mind to be able to honestly assess wether I was in the mood for chocolate. I hope that really long wordy explanation helped. :)

Oh I forgot. When I first started legalizing foods I had to start slow with things like granola bars (you know because they are "healthy" :) And yogurt covered raisins and stuff like that. I had to work up to oreos. I was actually cleaning out my cupboards today and I found an old bag of oreos with stale oreos in it. I got so tired of them that I let them go stale and old. So, it really can happen. :)

Pinkhippie that's an amazing thing you did. I often wonder if I've legalized foods the way it should be done.

Yesterday in a fury I threw away a lot of food. Cookies, chocolates, all sweets. I don't know why, I was having a very bad day. I felt like I had overdone it. I don't know if I threw them away because i was sick of them or because I'm in diet territory. It brought me a huge wave of relief and I feel even better today. I want to email my NT about it but I'm scared to.

Basically since my big presentation last week I've had a very difficult time listening to my body's hunger signals. I attempt to eat intuitively but then I overeat and feel guilty. I couldn't figure out why. Why am I suddenly not able to be in tune with my body? My NT helped me figure out that since then I have been very hard on myself, scrutinizing my performance, pouring over the publicity shots, going over my speech and how I was received. I realized that I mentally reject all the positive feedback I receive and elevate all the self criticism. In essence I'm trying to be realistic about how well I did, and not delusionally pat myself on the back for a good job well done, and in the process over criticizing myself, and scolding myself for the little mistakes I made.

She called this the inner-critic - my very loud negative voice that keeps telling me that I can't, I won't, I don't deserve, I'm too fat, I'm too weak, that nobody likes me, nobody takes me seriously. In my attempt to evaluate my performance (which is a normal and healthy thing to do) I unwittingly turned on my self-critic and bombarded myself with negativity. The louder the critic voice is the dimmer my hunger signals are, the more confusing it becomes. To escape my critic I resort to comfort eating. Well, who wouldn't!

Something else that she said that really struck me is that my self inner critic is not me. It's not my actual voice. It's not my inner self that's talking to me. It's just a negative voice that's impact me. I can turn it off and not listen to it. It's NOT reality! I thought it was, so knowing this can help me ignore it and try to turn down that volume.

Try not to be hard on yourself Wannabe. We are inundated with messages about food and our bodies our whole lives. I have a big advantage in that I am a former THIN IE eater. :) The way I messed myself up was trying to diet to lose pregnancy weight because I still have a few lurking issues that come up when I gain a lot of weight. (that's how I found 3FC though. :) ) Im sorry, I just felt the need to put that in there because I find myself frustrated when people talk about how IE won't really help you be thin and healthy. Now of course only wanting to be thin goes against the premise of IE which is to accept your body and just work on nurturing yourself by honoring your hunger, thereby causing the result of thinness when you are no longer eating food that you don't need. Anyway... It was scary to do that with the food and I had tried legalizing a few times before with no success so for me that is what I needed to do.

I find it bizarre quite honestly that people actually don't trust their bodies to let them know what and how much they need to eat. We are so out of touch with our bodies these days and food isn't just food its wrapped up in so much of our self esteem, our worthiness, etc... It has gotten insane. And the reaction we have to then control our food that our bodies need with our mind makes no sense either to me. I really believe that if we get in touch with our bodies, they will tell us what we need. But we have to trust them. Usually for me I will have a few days where I just want lots of bready stuff. Cereal, sandwiches, pasta. Then a few days later all I want is protein and vegetables, or dairy and fruit, or some other combo. I really believe my body will tell me what it needs. I am sad that I got so out of touch with my body that I have to work this hard to get back in touch with it, but Im happy that I have been reconnecting with the needs of my body. I really could go on and on about this but I feel passionately about it and I always have, ever since I overcame my eating disorder in my early twenties.

It sounds like you have a great Nutritional Therapist! I have read a LOT of emotional eating books etc and I have read about and identified my inner critic. It is a great realization that you don't have to listen to it and that it has become louder since your presentation. You are doing so awesome! It's amazing how emotional eating is so tricky sometimes. I still have times where my sadness or discomfort with a feeling honestly translates itself as hunger to me. The only way I have been able to start to be able to recognize that is to really practice feeding myself when I am hungry and to NOT feel guilty if I can't or don't. If I do need to eat when Im not hungry I just try to recognize it and tell myself it's ok. Treat myself with love and compassion and later look at things and try to figure out why I needed to eat. We have got to love ourselves and treat ourselves with love in order to honor our bodies hunger signals and eat in a way that actually nourishes us. I think that has been one of the biggest parts of my journey.

Anyway, there I go again, sorry. Like I said I feel passionately about this. :)

Pinkhippie, hearing from you really helped! I was doing the exact same thing! By the time I let myself eat I would be so hungry that my hands were literally shaking. I'm going to try to listen to more gentle hunger signals so I don't let myself get to that point before.

When you let yourself eat things like oreos did you also strictly enforce the stop when full part of Overcoming Overeating? Sometimes I will eat a couple of oreos and then stop myself thinking that they are too rich, and trying to convince myself that I am really full off of a couple anyway...I think in reality it's just me knowing the nutrition content and being afraid that if I let myself eat a whole bag then even less of my clothes will fit (many of them have grown quite tight.)

But it sounds like you are really in a good place with the legalizing process, and that's a place where I honestly haven't reached yet. I really want to get there though. Like you also stated, it was a diet that messed you up in the first place. I'm in the same boat. I started a diet to lose 5 lbs (I didn't even need too :/ ) when I was 17 and the battle began then. Except I'm done battling, I'm ready to make peace with my body and listen to it instead of ALL the media and nutrition messages we hear all day!

Thanks for your help:)

Wannabe,

I cannot tell you how many times I have thrown out perfectly good food because I was in a rage at myself. I struggle with bulimia and I it feels almost like purging does to me. I've thrown out a few things (mostly sweets) since I started IE. Every week when I go back to the store to do my shopping I take care to buy at least one thing. I make sure I always have at least one thing in the house that I know is there for me to eat that is a "bad" food.

I've been struggling with the urge to diet in the past few days and have been consciously not eating carbs. I know it's harmful but I sometimes am just so desperate to lose weight that I will try modifying IE to get my way. It started with wanting to cut down a little on sugary stuff because it seems to effect my moods. That spiraled into a full blown low-carb couple of days. I don't really feel great and I'd like to have a bagel, please. :) I am just the type of person who has trouble being moderate- I can't just hold off a little bit on sweets, I have to go zero-sugar, no carb, etc. etc.

I see this alot around the forum with the people who say that they can't control themselves around sweets so they don't eat any at all. I think this swinging to the opposite extreme is not the ideal solution. Moderation is (in my experience) harder but ultimately a more effective way to gain control over foods that you find problematic. That's why I like IE- it stresses the middle path between deprivation and binge.

I am so glad that my long rambling helped you! I actually didn't always strictly enforce my stop when full part with eating the oreos. Sometimes I ate way more than my body needed. At that point, any restriction at ALL even if it was just myself telling myself to stop eating when I was full could mentally mess me up. I had to give myself permission to well... to gorge. I only did that a few times because I didn't feel guilt about it, and just tried to notice the effects on my body. Lethargy, sleepiness, stomach pain etc.. By treating myself kindly and not telling myself I could never have those again because I was "bad" by overeating those, it worked out to be less and less. I honestly didn't want to feel that way and so I chose to only have a few over time. Another thing I noticed was that oreos only really tasted good when I was hungry. I started noticing that when I was full they tasted kind of chemically and too sweet but when I was hungry they were delicious. So, I started waiting until I was hungry to eat them. I have noticed that if I start eating when I am hungry, it is much easier to stop when I am satisfied because there is a very different feeling. If I eat when Im not hungry I can eat forever because there was never a physical cue to eat in the first place. Then I started noticing when I ate oreos when I was hungry that they really weren't satisfying and I really wanted FOOD when I was hungry. So, eventually I just stopped eating the Oreos altogether and gradually became more in touch with what my body really wanted when I was hungry.

I hope that helps! I know its scary. I probably did gain some weight during that period but since I have legalized foods and don't feel like I HAVE to have sugary junky stuff anymore, I have lost about 30 pounds. But weight loss can't be your main motivation. You have to want to get in touch with your body's hunger and take care of yourself. And like you said, make peace with your body. I think that is SO important. At least I have found that to be true for me. As soon as I motivate my eating to be about weight loss it completely changes things for me. Its a tricky line to walk right now with losing weight and being happy about it, yet not changing my eating to try to lose weight.

I don't feel any guilt about eating these foods in theory. But I'm feeling more capable of not being swayed by them. I'm not enjoying the feeling I'm getting from them. I don't need them around me as much anymore, I think that's why I threw them out. I still haven't gotten to the bottom of it but I can tell you I don't miss them at all, good riddance.

Have you given any thought to your inner critic? I get the sense that it is loud for you too.

A small success this morning. I woke up feeling "skinny" which we all know means absolutely nothing in terms of reality but it is a good feeling nonetheless. Usually when I get this skinny feeling it prompts me to step on a scale so I can reward myself by seeing a 1lb loss. But I stopped myself and thought - hey, I already feel good, I already feel beautiful, why do I need to attach a number to this feeling?

I swear sometimes I think you might be a long lost twin of mine. :) I had the same feeling and resisted, too. I feel fabulous today! I had a revelation this week that I have not been taking care of myself- almost at all. Here I am a 27 year old woman and I never learned how to really, truly take care of my needs. So in the past few weeks I've been sleeping more- if my body feels tired and I'm not at work I'm going to rest. No more pushing myself through criticism, caffeine, and anxiety. (The inner critic is so true for me Wannabe it didn't even bear mentioning, I've lived with that beotch for a long time ;) ) For a while with IE I was eating sugary foods for dinner- like jello, or just a few bites of ice cream. Well that didn't make me feel very good so I've resolved to give myself a nourishing meal when I need it.

What pinkhippie said really resonated with me- when I'm really hungry my body wants quick energy, mostly in the form of sugar. Knowing that has made me able to give it what it really needs (what makes it feel good) rather than what it cries for when it's really hungry. I'm also planning a little bit more for week nights. My schedule is hectic and I only have a few minutes to eat dinner so I'm making up some meals ahead of time that are balanced like meatloaf/potatoes/broccoli and pork/beans/corn bread. Good tasty food that's going to stick with me and give me what I need. :) Anyway I'm happy and grateful today. I hope you ladies have a nice weekend.

Yay Im glad we are all feeling so good! This morning I went and bought myself some summer clothes that fit! No more giant too big for me now clothes and no more squeezing myself into just a little too snug clothes from several years ago. It felt good. I totally agree with you Locke, it is all about learning to take care of yourself. It sounds like you are really figuring out how to do that. I tend to put myself last and take care of everyone else first. It honestly felt a little wrong to focus on me. But, since I have been everything has been falling into place. I take time to fix myself delicious nourishing meals, I take time to exercise because it makes me feel good, I have been getting more sleep, and my wonderful supportive husband even watches the kids for an hour every evening so I have have a much needed introvert stay at home mom break. It felt really strange to do all this at first and it has been gradual over time but it has made a HUGE difference. Now, stuffing myself with food when Im not hungry doesn't feel comforting, it feels painful and like Im not really taking care of myself. I also have been learning about my body and my needs and I recognize that I usually need protein with every meal or I feel light headed or hungry soon after. So, I make sure I do that. It's a constant evolving process. I am so glad that we can help each other in our little IE corner. :)

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend too! :)

I gave in this morning and got on the scale- it's down six pounds since the last time I used it. That's really encouraging for me even though I know people disagree on the use of the scale. Does anybody here think that alot of sugar effects their moods? I had juice mixed with sparkling water in the evening last night- I wasn't hungry for food but I sipped on that for about four hours. I got a little cranky toward bedtime and then had the most horrendous nightmares and a middle-of-the-night panic attack. Very strange.

You're right pinkhippie, I really do have to continually remind myself that this isn't about weight loss, it's about healing my relationship with food, and enjoying life. And I noticed you updated your stats, congrats on your weight loss! (not that the weight is the main importance, but I still know it's nice to move towards your goal :) ). The past week I've really legalized ALL foods, from cookie dough to marshmallows I've just let myself eat. To be honest, it's slowly starting to lose it's appeal. I know it's different for everyone, but can I ask you how long it took your eating and weight to normalize? if you remember? I think I may be getting closer to that point now. I just want to be sure I'm coming from a place of non-restriction.


I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed that eating sugary food has caused breakouts? I almost NEVER have any acne, but right now I have like 3 pimples on my face. Let me tell you, that makes eating junk food sound a whole lot less fun. Maybe it's my bodies way of saying it's gotten through some of my cravings and now wants to be nourished with some healthier food...? I'm also starting to find that my body FEELS better when I eat healthier. As in less bloating, sluggishness, etc. Not that junk food isn't fun, but I think I'm getting over having it as my main meal staples.

I'm just kind of afraid if I move towards healthier more rounded meals that for some reason I'll feel "deprived" of junk food and rebound on eating them. But it's not that I want to cut out junk food, it's just that I'm getting tired of having it so frequently. I guess some of the IE books I read make me feel like I have to eat junk all the time to prove that I can, but I like healthy food too.

Not just my mood, my whole body. I have been really feeling very good since I threw out all my junkfood a couple of days ago. Then yesterday for Mother's Day my son gave me a cupcake. We sat down and shared it (I was slightly hungry but probably not hungry enough to eat).

Immediately I felt sick. I had a headache. I felt bloated. My tummy hurt, I felt nauseous. It was from a reputable bakery which I know uses excellent ingredients and the icing wasn't too sweet to the taste but it upset my body all the same. I felt this way for about 3hrs with no relief. After 3 months of IE I think I've reached that point where sweet food has lost its appeal to me. I was presented with a slice of chocolate cake at a family dinner last night and I couldn't bring myself to eat a single bite of it, I felt a little rude for refusing but I couldn't stomach it.

I had given up on the idea that certain foods would lose their appeal. Like Koali I kept asking myself "how long before I don't want to eat something?" Eventhough it's futile to ask ourselves this, it just prolongs the process imo, and keeps us focused on results rather than process, I couldn't help having the nagging suspicion that it wouldn't work out. But slowly and surely my tastes have evolved to crave really scrumptuous fresh foods. We had a bbq the other day and I made mac n cheese and caesar salad (with real anchovies) to go with the ribs. One taste of the mac n cheese and I knew, I couldn't eat it. Too rich, too creamy, too soft, everything was wrong - I make a good man n cheese i'll have you know but it was not appealing to me at all. On to the ribs - my recipe is quite herby/savoury and we don't put any sugar or wet sweet sauce on our ribs, so they're not sweet. Usually I'll eat 3-4 of them. But this time I had one rib that I savoured forever. But the salad is what really drew me. It was light and crisp and exploding with flavor and freshness and when I knew everyone else had enough of it I sat with the bowl and ate almost all of it. I wish there was a video of me eating it, I was in ecstasy making yummy noises and going "omg this is sooooo good." Normally a meal like that would consist of a big plateful of mac n cheese and a bunch of ribs and maybe I'd have the salad off to the side posing as my side dish meanwhile hardly touching it.

I never knew that 1 rib and a bowl of salad could end up satisfying me that way. Of course when I was dieting I would set out a meal like that for myself. "I'll have just one rib and a big salad" and eat it begrudgingly and feel deprived. To me, this is one of the biggest powers of IE, to feel satisfied by eating what I want to eat and look back to see that I've eaten very little.

Thank you. :) It is nice to move towards my goal. The weighing thing is tricky with IE and I follow an IE coach's philosophy who actually recommends weighing every day to deal with your issues with the scale on a daily basis. It works for me, and is actually really helpful for me but everyone is different. Good job with the legalizing everything! I had a similar issue when I first legalized foods. I felt like I was forcing myself to eat junk as far as buying it in the grocery store. Once I got it home though I had no trouble eating it. I realized I had just trained myself extremely well to not even think about buying treats at the store. I also had a hard time with the eating healthfully but feeling restricted. But, I just kept eating what I REALLY wanted to eat and eventually I started craving salads and steamed broccoli. Then I ate it and it was delicious because I was craving it. So then I wanted more. And of course the more healthy food you eat the more your body wants it, so I started eating more and more of it because its what I REALLY wanted. But, I really really think you can't force it. You just can't. It will backfire. I think its a gradual natural process as you start listening to your body. It sounds like though that if you are tired of having junk food so frequently that you should try eating something else that you really want. And of course you don't have to cut junk food out entirely. You don't ever have to do that. :) You might eventually get tired of it and just not want it at all anymore but that is very different than cutting it out.

As far as time goes... That is a tough question to answer. I have been trying to pinpoint the exact time that suddenly I just cut way down on my sugar without trying and WHY and I haven't been able to do it. It's really been a journey of ups and downs and straight aheads for me. I also have different factors such as the fact that a year ago I was nursing my baby a LOT and now I only nurse her a few times a day. I think its tempting to look at it as a goal to reach but honestly its just not like that. It's a process of allowing yourself to eat whatever you want, learning to get in touch with your hunger and your satiety points, and learning to love yourself regardless of how you eat. So, i really think it is different for everyone. I have been doing work off an on with my emotional eating issues for about a year now. I started working on IE itself in earnest again probably back in February. But its really different for everybody.'

ETA: I went back and read some of my very first posts here which were about IE and trying to legalize foods. I started the IE process about a year ago but didn't REALLY legalize foods and so wasn't able to keep the IE thing going. I legalized foods again around February of this year and THAT is when the IE thing really started working for me. So, as you can see It was REALLY important for me to truly legalize foods in order to really get in touch with what my body really needed and how sugar ultimately made me feel.

That is awesome Wannabe! I had a similar experience yesterday only a little different. With it being Mother's day yesterday my husband picked up Sonic for us so I wouldn't have to cook. ( we VERY rarely get fast food so it was a special treat) I got a burger, ( because I was really in the mood for a burger) a small fry, and a small snicker blast. I ate and savored that burger until I had eaten about half and then I realized it had stopped tasting amazing and that I was satisfied. I put it down. I nibbled on a few fries but after only a few of them I felt totally satisfied on the fry front. Then I got my snickers blast and I ate it slowly and enjoyed every bite. After I ate about 1/4 of it I realized it had stopped tasting fantastic and that I was totally done. Also, on the emotional eating front I was really sad yesterday because it was mother's day and there is stuff going on with my mom where I haven't talked to her in about half a year. I didn't overeat yesterday. I didn't even THINK of overeating. I DID cry off and on for about 30 minutes and felt really really sad for about an hour though. After dinner, I still felt really sad and I got my bike and went for a vigorous ride. I got home and felt so much better. WAY better than I would have felt if I had eaten a bunch of ice cream. But, early in my journey, I tried to go exercise to keep myself from eating after dinner and that never worked. I would come home and immediately want the food I was trying to keep away from. It's just a totally different mindset for me now. I was thinking of what would make me feel good and food didn't come to the top of the list. I knew riding my bike would make me feel good so I did it. It was not about weight loss, or burning calories, it was about what would make me feel good. HUGE transformation for me.

Oh and yes Sugar REALLY affects my mood and my body if I eat too much of it. Like I have said earlier, it gives me a headache which makes me grumpy and I have noticed since I stopped eating it for the most part that my skin has gotten totally amazing. I do break out more if I eat sugar and of course it makes me tired. Yesterday I just really wanted a snicker blast but I ate only how much tasted good to me and I also ate it with food. I know if I had eaten the whole thing past my satisfied point it would have made me feel really bad, head achey bloated, and tired. And just like wannabe said above, if when I was dieting and I had said Im only going to have half the burger and 1/4 of the blast, I would have felt totally deprived and I wouldn't have been listening to my body, I would be acting on external rules I made for myself.