What have you done to make friends? Making friends as an adult is a very tough thing to do. Do you talk to people in your class? Do you ever reach out to anyone to hang out? Do you attend social functions? I know it sounds difficult but you have to put yourself out there in some way. Do you do any activities like a sport, join a choir, go to church, attend parties, do volunteer work, put yourself in charge of something etc?

This is spot on. One of the hardest things to shed is our food beliefs. For me that was CARBS. It's been drilled into me that carbs are evil!!! Part of me still believes it, I can't shed that kind of thinking over night. It's a process. I was a low carber for years and years and years.

So here's the kicker. Being a low carber does NOT mean I ate low carb. I couldn't stick to that if you paid me. But I had copious amounts of guilt over every carb I ate. Every time I ate a carb I scolded myself, hated myself, regretted eating it. I blamed every carb for why I was fat. Ugh, those potatoes! Ugh those chips! Ugh that pizza! Ugh that dessert! Ugh that pasta!

So how is it that I've been able to lose 19lbs in 6 months by eating all those foods? By dropping the BELIEF that they are evil. I still can't believe I gave those foods that much power over me.

Well I am just like Wannebeskinny with the feelings about carbs. I think what has enticed me to always go LC is the quick weight loss you can get going LC. I always start off strong with LC and can't last more than 2 weeks and then gain it all back...so no it isn't a quick WL for me. I am heavier now than I have been in years from all the yo-yoing, plus my cholesterol is sky high. I keep beating in my head to "wake up" and see what I've done with all this diet mentality.

As weird as this sounds, every time I get a diet or negative self image thought in my head I vision myself karate kicking it out to the ocean! I love the beach and can calm myself by having a vision of myself sitting on it listening to the waves but sometimes those negative thoughts keep rolling in with the waves and I keep tossing them back into the ocean. Hopefully one day they'll stay out there! I told ya..weird!

Also, I'm rereading the book Intuitive Eating by Tribole and read something yesterday that clicked with me. It was talking about how the" Japanese promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy eating. Make all activities pertaining to food and eating pleasurable ones. How ironic this advice is for Americans, especially dieters, who have come to see food as the enemy and the eating experience as the battleground between tempting foods and willpower to avoid them".

That is so me. I've read so many times how food should just be fuel and give your body the right fuel..blah blah blah. I've never given myself permission to just enjoy the food but always thinking about if it's the "right" or "wrong" food I'm eating. Maybe some progress!

Wow I have missed a lot! Lots of activity in the IE thread. That is awesome!

Locke: I have a hard time making friends as an adult too. Actually, I have 2 friends from childhood that I am still friends with but we all live across the US from each other. I have made no other good friends since then. I have my husband and my kids. In a way, having kids makes it harder for me to make friends. Its hard to be good friends with people who have radically different parenting styles than mine. Anyway. I feel lonely too. I have my husband, but its not the same as a close friend I can hang out with and talk to sometimes.

I have reached a new place in IE for me. I eat when Im hungry, I don't panic if I feel like maybe I ate past satisfaction. I eat exactly what I want and don't feel like I am obligated to finish it all. I have slowed down my eating just by actually chewing my food more. After my stomach ailment I realized I really don't chew my food very well at all. I eat standing up sometimes and don't feel guilty about it. I dont' have ANY rules about eating right now. I havent weighed myself in weeks, but my clothes still fit. If I put on an item of clothing that doesn't look the best on me, I no longer think " If was thinner this would look better, or I am too big". Now I think" hmm this clothing item isn't flattering, its not the right one for me." My first thought is not that there is something wrong with my body, but that there is something wrong with the clothing. This has been kind of huge. Oh, and I also don't think about food all day anymore. I don't see hunger as my enemy or as a friend. I see it as a communication from my body and I also don't spend all day waiting to be hungry. Do I feel a little hungry? Well then I eat until I feel satisfied. I don't wait to be MORE hungry because I realized that actually really stresses me out and makes me feel deprived. I feel free and I love it. Also, keeping myself fed seems to cut down on emotional eating. For me, when I am not eating enough it makes emotional eating easier because I am hungry but because I am eating for emotion I eat way more than I really want.

Anyway, that is me right now. It is hard and scary sometimes. I sometimes think about trying to not eat as much or just count calories for a few days. But I do not do it because I am done with any form of diet and restriction. My goal has actually been to eat as much as possible the past week or two. I don't eat past satisfaction because it doesn't feel good but seriously having the goal of eat as much as possible as often as possible removes a restriction I didn't even know I had which was actually always telling me "eat as little as possible as few times a day as possible." I look at it as a healing process, eventually I won't feel like I need to eat as much as possible. I hope I made a little sense, I feel like I rambled.

I guess really, all that to say is: I feel like I have reached a level of trust with my body now that I didn't have before. If Im hungry, then I eat. I don't try to tell myself to wait, or that I shouldn't eat that or that I can only have one bite. If Im hungry, and I want it then I eat it because my body is telling me and my body knows what is best for me.

I forgot to address this: I really agree with this. I know that when I feel guilty or fearful about food I tend to eat way more than my body wants or needs and I don't eat in a way that is true to myself. Its amazing how after working on this for more than a year that I still have to consciously be aware of my food beliefs and work to change them in some cases.

I would like to lose about 30 more but just can't seem to do it. I'm glad to have kept off 40lb. What do you think, Pink?

I've never thought of it this way, I'm going to try this! You're right, when we're in the danger zone of making IE the hunger/fullness diet we are often restricting ourselves in a way. So glad to see you're back, feeling better and have reached a new level of awareness in IE.

I think that it can be worth it to weigh a little more than you want to but yet have a good relationship with food and yourself. I hate diet prison and I never ever want to go back there. And for me, it didn't even have to be a conscious diet. I just have all these beliefs about food and restriction that I have absorbed over the years. I weigh more than my dream weight too but I am working on accepting my body EXACTLY as it is right this minute. It's a work in progress.

Thanks Wannabe! I am feeling pretty good right now but as we all know that can change in a millisecond. I really feel like I am in a canoe and I have a destination but I have to keep course correcting as I get closer to it. A little paddle over there, a little paddle over here. And of course, Im trying not to tip over.

Keeping off 40lbs is more success than most dieters on this forum have experienced. You did that!!

Pink, you are only about 10lb over and I would be happy with that.

@wannabeskinny - Thank you for introducing me to this thread i have been following the posts and are all very informative and helpful.
I am starting IE again after trying it for just a few short weeks back in April, things got stressful and i thought I have to "DIET" and fell back to bad habits. So i am giving this an honest try and going to read a few more of the books. i just got Overfed head and started that.
What i learned today is that i just need to pay attention to myself and my body more, it is telling me what i need to do. I have had a stressful week and today for lunch my coworkers asked me to go out for lunch and i thought, NO i cant go, i need to be eating better, i should have the diet shake in my drawer. Then i thought, no i really love to go to lunch and visit with my coworkers and i need to vent emotionally about some things and they are a wonderful support system. If i dont go and stay and eat my "diet" shake i will feel deprived and be crabby the rest of the afternoon, then there is a very good chance i will end up getting some ice cream on my way home to make up for the deprived feeling.
So i went to lunch, it was amazing and we had a great time. My mood is so much better after coming back. I did have to stop myself, a little later than i should have from eating past fullness. i was so busy talking and visiting that i just kept putting food in my mouth. I looked down and thought, why am i eating this? Am i STILL really hungry? the answer was No. In fact i felt a little over full, but i was at least able to identify that and stop before i finished everything on my plate. As soon as the waitress came back i handed her my plate just so i wouldnt end up eating more just out of habit, because i was full. Anyway, glad i have this thread and many others to relate with and not feel so alone in my battle with myself and my emotions.

Welcome Mercedes! You've made an important discovery, that dieting most often ostracizes us from our social lives. Dieting causes us to avoid parties, feel fearful of restaurants and dread the holidays! These are the times that make life worth living! With a little work as practice you will feel confident that you will go to a party, eat your favorite foods without guilt and leave feeling satisfied. Avoiding social situations deprives us of the food of life, making connections with other people.

You will find that many of us here struggle with going back to the diet mentality. It's not peaches and roses with IE all the time but it sure beats deprivation and restriction.

Had a good day until I went grocery shopping. I felt like I wanted to buy every bit of junk food I saw. I did buy a few things and had them when I got home but it was like it was never enough. Not sure why the store really set me off.

I have always wanted to weigh 20 pounds less than I do right now. ( and for a while, 30 pounds less) But, I only ever reached that weight when I was unhealthy or eating disordered. I really liked how I looked though and how my clothes it at that weight, and its easy to be unhappy with how I look now if I compare myself now to how I was. I think its really all a matter of perspective. And keeping 40 pounds off permanently is HUGE. It's more than a lot of people on this board have managed to do. ( no disrespect to the 3fc members, just an observation)