Welcome back to all the people who used to post on this thread!
Having a family member who's hardcore dieting, going to the gym, and losing weight can really do a number on your head.
One of my sisters has lost 40lbs by dieting and working out with a personal trainer, and her loss has resulted in a weight GAIN for me because when I saw how much she was losing, I tried to do similar things. This meant tracking in MFP, hating it, and ending up eating much more than I would have if I hadn't done such a ridiculous thing.
It's amazing how fast your weight can go up when you're trying to follow a diet during the day, then throwing in the towel every night and "eating over it".
This morning I came to my senses and will be staying far away from MFP. I also put my scale away because my not-helpful habit of daily weighing was getting too frustrating and discouraging.
I don't follow IE exactly because I find it too easy to turn it into the "stomach hunger diet". I use some of their principles, but mainly I do best when I non-diet, which is not worrying about food or what or how much I'm eating, and just try to go about my life thinking as little as possible about it.
Even though my sister is all gung-ho at the moment, I'm still not convinced that dieting and the gym will be sustainable for her in the long run. Maybe they will be, but they haven't been in the past.
I just need to figure out how to not let her success mess with my head.
Truffle, I deal with that same thing, other dieters! Sometimes I feel like I can handle it and other times it does trigger me. How do you not think about food? I find that to be toughest of all.
Well I'm back. Dieting makes me crazy. I lost about 20 pounds but I got tired of always being hungry and thinking about food. DREAMING about food. I feel like there has got to be a way to make healthier eating choices and lose weight without calorie counting or other extreme types of dieting. /sigh
Welcome Amy! Remember that IE is not a diet plan. It is what normal eaters do, you know those people who seem to eat whatever they want and are still a happy healthy weight? We all know a few, I know soooo many, my husband, my son, friends and family who don't follow diets but follow their own bodies instead. At some point I realized, what the heck am I doing taking advice from niserable failed dieters???? IE helps us understand what normal eating is all about! It's not easy to get advice from normal eaters because they don't know they're doing something amazing, they just... eat and don't think about it. So good for you, get away from dieters!
Everything you said here is so spot on omg I was actually thinking about this the other day while I was pondering why the HECK IE/hunger-directed eating isn't more popular. And i remembered it's because the masters of it - actual hunger directed eaters - don't even realize they're doing anything noteworthy!
In fact most of them have been brainwashed by the dieting industry to think that they have nothing to contribute to the "how to beat obesity/be a healthy weight/etc." discussion, because they're just "lucky to have fast metabolisms & not have to worry about calories/carbs/etc like the rest of us do." When the reality is the reason they don't have to worry about that stuff is because they've been practicing the secret to a healthy weight without dieting pretty much nonstop since birth.
I was going to make a thread asking if anybody else was trying to lose weight without calorie counting and then I found this... I forgot it had a name. This sounds like a good way to begin a lifestyle change rather than a diet. I decided to not go back to MyFitnessPal (at least not yet) because I find it tedious. I also tend to get obsessed with the numbers and my diet ends up becoming pretty limited. I will have to read more on intuitive eating but just from quickly googling it I think I've found what I was looking for, especially since I tend to eat out of boredom or because I feel the need to finish everything on my plate.
If you don't want to invest in the real intuitive eating book yet, or if you want something more barebones (especially if you don't think your eating is emotional but more just habitual) then it could benefit you greatly to read this free ebook:
If you don't want to invest in the real intuitive eating book yet, or if you want something more barebones (especially if you don't think your eating is emotional but more just habitual) then it could benefit you greatly to read this free ebook:
It's pretty corny but has some pretty amazing stuff. I actually wish I found it before I bought any intuitive eating books.
Yay, thank you! I was hoping to find something like this. Will definitely give it a good read.
Since I just began yesterday I was wondering if anybody else is unsure of when they are really hungry? I will feel like maybe I am but then I make myself wait another 20-30 minutes to make sure that's it's not just because I want something to do or because I'm just used to eating when I don't need to. I think getting used to feeling obvious hunger and fully understanding what that is will be something I'll have to work on/get used to.
Truffle, I deal with that same thing, other dieters! Sometimes I feel like I can handle it and other times it does trigger me. How do you not think about food? I find that to be toughest of all.
I guess I should have said it in a different way. It's not that I don't think about food. It's just in a natural way, in passing--not in that obsessive way it turns into when we're calorie counting or doing low carb or something.
I'm REALLY being triggered by the two sisters that are dieting and losing right now. Earlier this year I had lost a total of 22 pounds, but right now, thanks to my feelings of being "left in the dust" by my dieting sisters, and the really hot weather we've been having, my weight has been ZOOMING back up.
I've put back on 11 of the 22 I had lost, and I need to bring this to a screeching halt before I end up worse off than I was originally.
I got up this morning and revamped my Spark People page because I had intentions of seriously tracking--but before I even made my first entry for the day, I asked myself, what am I doing? I don't want to get caught up in the hassles of tracking again. Drives me crazy, like Locke said.
Everything you said here is so spot on omg I was actually thinking about this the other day while I was pondering why the HECK IE/hunger-directed eating isn't more popular. And i remembered it's because the masters of it - actual hunger directed eaters - don't even realize they're doing anything noteworthy!
In fact most of them have been brainwashed by the dieting industry to think that they have nothing to contribute to the "how to beat obesity/be a healthy weight/etc." discussion, because they're just "lucky to have fast metabolisms & not have to worry about calories/carbs/etc like the rest of us do." When the reality is the reason they don't have to worry about that stuff is because they've been practicing the secret to a healthy weight without dieting pretty much nonstop since birth.
You're right, natural intuitive eaters are discredited actually. There is way too much credit given to dieters, and the diet industry about how to be healthy. It's very unbalanced.
Yay, thank you! I was hoping to find something like this. Will definitely give it a good read.
Since I just began yesterday I was wondering if anybody else is unsure of when they are really hungry? I will feel like maybe I am but then I make myself wait another 20-30 minutes to make sure that's it's not just because I want something to do or because I'm just used to eating when I don't need to. I think getting used to feeling obvious hunger and fully understanding what that is will be something I'll have to work on/get used to.
You're welcome I devoured that book in two hours so it definitely shouldn't take long.
That's extremely common and normal for beginners. I went through it too when I first started. This question (or similar ones) helped me the most in figuring out whether or not I was physically hungry: "Do I earnestly believe that my body needs nutritional nourishment right now? Does my body really need the energy that only food can provide?"
For some reason just asking myself those kinds of questions directly made it easy to see when I really needed food and when I was just BSing around looking for something to do (OR having an urge to binge). Also another super helpful thing is the hunger scale. There are lots out there but this one might be very helpful to you because it has descriptions:
Also what I started doing about two/three months ago, which I should've started WAY earlier because it's so incredibly helpful, was that I downloaded a journaling app on my phone, & basically started a food journal but centered around the concepts of hunger directed eating, NOT dieting.
So I put the time, where I would currently rate myself on the hunger scale, whether or not I'm having thoughts about food or binge urges, what I ate when I did get hungry, etc. I don't bother about quantities of food and definitely not calories or anything like that. All I really focus on is whether or not I ate according to my hunger, how full I got, etc. And mentioning what I ate is mostly out of curiosity to see what types of foods I enjoy eating when I'm listening to my body. I like to keep it really bare bones and simple. Here's yesterday's entry.
Also don't be alarmed at how little I ate yesterday, for some reason I had a really low appetite but usually I eat more than that lol.
I'm so annoyed at my dessert today! I treated myself to dinner at one of my favorite Italian restaurants, dinner by myself is rare and I try to enjoy it. So i love this place, really good authentic northern Italian cuisine and good service. The prefix was super cheap, $20 for an appetizer, entree, dessert and coffee(I'm in NYC and that's basically pennies here lol). The meal started off with a delicious piece of homemade bread dipped in olive oil. Yum. The appetizer was a bowlful of mussels in a garlic and white wine broth. The entree was spaghetti with spicy Italian sausage in a creamy tomato sauce. Brilliant! Loving every bite so far. Then they brought out dessert which was supposed to be banana bread pudding. I was imagining a little cup filled with toasted cubes of bread, warm, soft and cinammony. What came out was a scoop (like an ice cream scoop) of pale goop. At first I thought they'd given me a scoop of tuna salad, that was the exact color and texture of this thing. It looked like tuna but it tasted like a banana. It was very weird. And it was cold. Who wants to eat cold bread pudding!??? I pushed it away and enjoyed my cup of coffee.
Sorry if this doesn't have anything to do with IE. I'm just mad about my pudding lol.
The hard part about being on this site is the yoyos. It's hard to watch the diets gets stricter and stricter with every regain. People are gluttons for punishment. Stay strong ladies and enjoy your food today.
You're welcome I devoured that book in two hours so it definitely shouldn't take long.
yumsoup, I found your choice of verb very interesting.
I'm sorry I haven't been contributing very much here; I don't really have a lot to report, other than I am loving being unemployed!
I don't know if I should call this a goal, but what I am looking forward to is the morning I wake up and am able to walk without pain. Even wearing expensive orthopedic shoes when I was on my feet didn't completely eliminate the pain, although I had little pain while actually working - at least, until the last month or so. I have never had aches and pains like I've had since I started that job 15 months ago. Fortunately it's not keeping me from walking.
I am simply sticking with the "eat only when hungry" concept right now. Trying to get into a steady routine of exercise is enough of a challenge; I don't even feel like journaling how I feel or anything like that. I am honoring my hunger and eating what appeals to me most. The last few days have had me eating cereal with bananas for breakfast. My husband and I are going out with our daughter and son-in-law to celebrate their 3rd wedding anniversary, and we are going to a restaurant they absolutely love. Apparently on Thursday nights they have grilled oysters that my daughter raves about, so I'm very much looking forward to that.
It's ok to have goals Southern Maven, and walking pain free is the best kind of goal to have. Goals don't always mean superficial things although I'm all for a little superficiality in my life to help balance all the realness lol.
What I'd really like is to live free of food thoughts. I find myself still judging the foods I eat. I don't know if this wil ever go away but I'm trying my best to eliminate it. I do fine with IE and then trip all over myself when trying to practice gentle nutrition. It's very frustrating.
Hey! Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. The husband and I are moving cross country and it's been -very- stressful to say the least. We also lost our beloved cat that we had for 13 years while in the middle of this process.
Having said that, I've put on a few lbs and I hadn't really noticed. I know that sounds silly, but when you're moving and wearing mostly yoga pants that are stretchy, it slides right on. But my jeans wouldn't come up past my hips.
Now I didn't freak out, but what I did do was ponder. I had been practicing IE to the best of my ability. Eating when I was hungry, an aside from the occassional movie snack, only when I was truly hungry and until the last bite didn't taste as good as the first (full signals still don't really work well for me).
But then I had a thought, can you truly want to lose weight and be a practitioner of IE? Or does the subconscious take over knowing you're not happy with your body? Because as soon as my jeans didn't fit, I went back to eating how I was pre-IE, very uniformed, portioned mono-meals I would pre-make for the week and put in controlled containers. But that's stopping today as I really want a spicy southwestern omelette and some turkey sausage with an english muffin for breakfast.
It was just a passing wondering and I hope all of you are doing well
Hey! Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. The husband and I are moving cross country and it's been -very- stressful to say the least. We also lost our beloved cat that we had for 13 years while in the middle of this process.
Having said that, I've put on a few lbs and I hadn't really noticed. I know that sounds silly, but when you're moving and wearing mostly yoga pants that are stretchy, it slides right on. But my jeans wouldn't come up past my hips.
Now I didn't freak out, but what I did do was ponder. I had been practicing IE to the best of my ability. Eating when I was hungry, an aside from the occassional movie snack, only when I was truly hungry and until the last bite didn't taste as good as the first (full signals still don't really work well for me).
But then I had a thought, can you truly want to lose weight and be a practitioner of IE? Or does the subconscious take over knowing you're not happy with your body? Because as soon as my jeans didn't fit, I went back to eating how I was pre-IE, very uniformed, portioned mono-meals I would pre-make for the week and put in controlled containers. But that's stopping today as I really want a spicy southwestern omelette and some turkey sausage with an english muffin for breakfast.
It was just a passing wondering and I hope all of you are doing well
I'm sorry to hear about your cat, dealing with a loss and a move must be extremely stressful so I would say take it easy, be kind to yourself and try not to worry about a little bit of weight gain.
It's interesting that as women we always fall back on weightloss in order to regain control of our lives. Things must feel chaotic to you right now with all the changes in your life and you see that it's a hop and skip away from worrying about our weight. It's not so much about how we fit in our jeans but how we fit in the world. So I think there is some truth to what you're experience, regaining control of yourself in the one way women are programmed to do. Cut yourself some slack and ride out this short wave of instability, heck try to enjoy it because things will fall into monotony soon enough.
I was listening to a Isabela Foxen Duke podcast today and she said something that resonated with me very much. She said that women are endlessly preoccupied with upping their social status in the one way that we believe is the guaranteed way to be effective - how we look. I'm so guilty of this. I find myself wallowing in thoughts like "my friend is more successful than me because she's thinner" or "if I only I could lose weight my colleagues would take me more seriously" or "I lose so many opportunities because they are given to other thinner/younger/more beautiful women" I can tell you that I easily believe 100% believe that my life would be better if I was thinner... which is ridiculous, I know! But I still believe it and I don't know how to unbelieve it.
I was actually thinking about this the other day while I was pondering why the HECK IE/hunger-directed eating isn't more popular. And i remembered it's because the masters of it - actual hunger directed eaters - don't even realize they're doing anything noteworthy! 
Yay, thank you! I was hoping to find something like this. Will definitely give it a good read. 
I devoured that book in two hours so it definitely shouldn't take long.
