Tell us more. How does it feel to maintain with iE? Do you wish to lose more? Do you have a weight goal or further nutritional goals? I know you're. Long timer with IE, your experiences are invaluable to us.

I had a stroke a year ago and life is hard. We went to the mts. on a family vacation and I couldn't breathe. I've had sarcoidosis for nearly 40 yr. I would like to lose 20lb but some days it doesn't seem worth it and I don't know what to do different.

I'm sorry to hear it, I hope you are able to find relief through treatment. I don't know what is involved with sarcoidosis treatment but i know it must be difficult to deal with. Does staying active help?

I hope so. The only thing they give for sarc is prednisone and that has lots of side effects.

Carol, still 40 pounds, with your health issues and going through what you have gone through is impressive. It sounds like you have really got IE down.

Yesterday I had the unique experience of not having to cook dinner for the family or eat at mealtime. My oldest daughter was gone and my dh and little girls ate pizza of which there was not enough for me, and I was fine with that. I said I would eat leftovers instead or make myself a sandwich. When dinnertime came, I realized I still wasn't hungry and it was no big deal for me not to eat because it wasn't such a formal meal time. So, I caught myself feeling anxious and waiting to be hungry. I asked myself why. If I wasn't hungry why did I want to eat? I realized I had been looking forward to the emotional soothing of sitting down to eat a meal. Being able to sit and relax after a busy day. But, I wasnt hungry and therefore, didn't want to eat. once I realized that, I was able to go on with my evening and stop thinking about food. After I put the kids to bed I finally felt hungry and asked myself what I wanted. It turned out to be a few slices of apple with peanut butter and a bowl of cereal with milk. It was perfect and then I wasn't hungry for the rest of the night. I have been on a cereal kick lately, probably because no cereal is one of my internalized food rules. I have been having cereal for at least a meal a day for the past week. This morning I woke up and had no desire for cereal. Another thing I have been having is juice. That was an early food rule. Almost every diet book says no juice, eat the fruit instead pure sugar blah blah. I used to drink juice back in the old days. so, I have been drinking juice when I feel like it.

I finally got the updated version of Overcoming Overeating on my kindle. I am so glad I did. I have the old 80's copy and it is falling apart. Even though I have read it at least 4 times, It is still so helpful and hitting home to me. Its also cool because I can see how far I have come since I first read it in terms of body acceptance and self image and restriction. I hope everyone is having a good weekend! :)

So I had a full blood work lab done. I paid for it myself as I haven't been to the dr in years and didn't want my results sent to him because if something came back high it would be put on my med records which in turn would up our med insurance. I got the results yesterday and everything was good except my cholesterol. Total us 282; triglycerides 232; HDL 64 (good); and LDL 172 which are all in the high range. This is really throwing me for a loop. I refuse to go on meds when I know diet can bring all this down. But here I am struggling with LC mentality again as I know it can lower it. What was the saying...1 step forward 2 steps back. How do I process this info?

Pinkhippie, I've been happily breaking my food rules too.

The most recent one is salad dressing. I haven't bought salad dressing in many many years because "I can make my own salad dressing using organic fine ingredients rather than the crap they use for bottled salad dressing." So I've been making my own dressings and it has been a pleasure. But I can't make a very good honey mustard dressing on my own. I've tried and tried and tried and believe me, I'm a formidable cook. It's good, but there's just something missing. It turns out Kraft makes a better one lol. I conceded and I keep one in my fridge, I still make my own most of the time but when I need a quick fix it's there and I'm ok with it.

There have been some huge breakthroughs this weekend. The first was a strawberry sundae from DQ. The second was letting myself have pizza out with my husband, which before I would just pick at and move around and pretend to eat.

I'm still not feeling hunger cues, which is worrisome. I keep thinking that once I start eating more regularly I might start to feel something. But it tends to come all at once in a ravenous stabby rage with a headache.

@Country: I would try making small changes that honor your health and taste buds. You don't have to go all out low carb to do that. Remember, too, that low carb will lower your trigs but it also raises cholesterol. Your trigs will be elevated when you are losing weight because you're burning your body fat. It also may be helpful to check in with a doctor- those numbers are troubling.

@Owls: Give it time. Remember that hunger cues are gentle at first and get more insistent the hungrier you get. I still don't have a full grasp of it myself.

Country: That does sound like a challenge but I know I have read that you can incorporate IE into eating when you have to eat a certain way for health reasons. I agree with Locke, I don't think you have to go full out low carb to do that.

Owl: I had the same issue when I first started IE. In fact, I am still working on recognzing the more gentle hunger signals. It's like they have been muted or confused with other cues for so long that I wasn't able to hear them. Give it time, keep trying to honor your hunger and as time goes on, your hunger cues should be more noticeable before you are starving and want to stab people.

Wannabe: That is so funny! I bought Kraft honey mustard salad dressing this week too! I make my own dressing sometimes as well but I haven't had any creamy salad dressing in years because its CREAMY!.

So I bought that and was so excited about it and now I haven't even wanted a salad in a week. I keep making them and eating a few bites and realizing its really not what I want. As a matter of fact, I don't think I have had a deliberate vegetable except for broccoli in almost a week. And I love it. :) I have veggies in my food, like casseroles, or mexican dishes with peppers, tomatoes, etc... but no sides of veggies and NO salads. I have been eating a lot of fruit though. I am noticing that I seem to be eating MUCH less when I really eat what I want. It's kind of crazy. And not that eating less is the goal but Im eating much more in accordance with my hunger, and my hunger seems much less since I have been really truly eating what I want and tossing my food rules off a bridge. I feel like I have come to a new place in my eating, but its hard to not feel nervous like I could lose it at any moment.

I also physically feel so much better. I have so much more energy, I don't get weird random stomach aches lately like I had been, and digestion is way better. I think my body really does know what I need after all. Im going to try to keep listening to it.

The most important part of this process is having compassion towards yourself. I'm not at all surprised that your hunger cues are not clear yet. Considering the extent to which you did CC your body is not on speaking terms with you yet lol. CC is a very rigid program, one that does not allow for any input from your body. You have been using external guidelines to feed it, and even if you have been eating an adequate number of calories, your body has been feeling deprived anyway because you have been ignoring it for a long time. Your body does not trust you, that's how I see it.

I started IE in February. At the time I had no idea, no freakin clue what physical hunger felt like. I always wanted to eat though, was that hunger? I don't think so, it was a constant need to reach for food. I listened to others who told me that my body was in a constant state of hunger because I was eating carbohydrates so I believed them. But seriously, being hungry and wanting to eat are NOT the same thing.

In the beginning, I had to take some drastic measures to find out what true hunger felt like. I used the hunger scale in IE, 1-10. Please let me know if I can link you to some info about that. I would deprive myself of food until my body started showing physical signs of hunger like rumbling of the tummy, lightheadedness, fatigue, inability to focus, irritability etc. Ok, so THAT's what real hunger feels like. Then I would eat until I was full. This went on for a while.

Then by employing mindful eating techniques I set about learning what it felt like to climb the satiety scale, savoring the food and paying close attention to what my body felt like as it became more and more sated.

I don't know when the actual change took place because it was so gradual, but not only have I learned exactly what real hunger feels like, but I've also learned that physical hunger is a very easy feeling to sit with. It has no emotional charge anymore, I'm not scared of it at all. You will get there too! As long as you honoring your body's hunger your body will honor you. You learn to listen to your body more and more, you learn the language of your body's needs. And soon enough your body will trust you as you nurture its needs. Hang in there, keep listening, respond to your body's needs and it will become crystal clear. IE is a natural process, but that doesn't mean it's an easy process. Just continue to attend to your body's needs, whatever those needs are, eventhough they may not make sense to you (but I've been eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day this week, I shouldn't have another!) no, just keep giving your body what it wants and it will work out.

Don't know if anyone has noticed, but I hit Onederland for the first time in 3yrs. This is the slowest weightloss I've ever experienced, but the most rewarding by far.

That's Fantastic Wannabe!! Big congrats out to you!!

I did notice Wannabe, but I always feel a little weird about the weight thing and IE in our little thread you know? Im not sure if I should ever talk about it. But, congratulations! That is awesome! :) I have also seen some weight loss lately, i think because I have gotten much better at meeting my emotional needs without food. I have had a big thing going on for about 7 months ( my mom has gone missing) and there is nothing I can do so I think sometimes I just check out with food during the day. Lately I have been feeling the emotions at the end of day and just crying and being sad. So, I guess its a good thing to feel my emotions more. :)

Missing? That's not a small thing! Have tr authorities been alerted? Ong I'm so sorry you're going through that, I can't imagine that kind of worry.