Intuitive Eating Support Thread
 

Hello Intuitive Eaters and welcome to our ongoing support thread!

Welcome to all newbies to Intuitive Eating! If you're new to this concept have no fear, we are all here to support each other as we continue to learn and explore the principles of IE and learn how to eat when we're hungry and stop when we're full. Here is an explanation of IE taken straight from the Intuitive Eating website run by the authors of "Intuitive Eating"

What is Intuitive Eating?

Intuitive eating is an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind, and body--where you ultimately become the expert of your own body. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings, and gain a sense of body wisdom. It's also a process of making peace with food---so that you no longer have constant "food worry" thoughts. It's knowing that your health and your worth as a person do not change, because you ate a food that you had labeled as "bad" or "fattening”. 



The underlying premise of Intuitive Eating is that you will learn to respond to your inner body cues, because you were born with all the wisdom you need for eating intuitively. On the surface, this may sound simplistic, but it is rather complex. This inner wisdom is often clouded by years of dieting and food myths that abound in the culture. For example, “Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full” may sound like basic common sense, but when you have a history of chronic dieting or of following rigid “healthy” rules about eating, it can be quite difficult. To be able to ultimately return to your inborn Intuitive Eater, a number of things need to be in place—most importantly, the ability to trust yourself! Here is a summary of the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating, from our book, Intuitive Eating, 2nd ed, 2003. With these principles, comes a world of satisfying eating and a sense of freedom that can be exhilarating!

Intuitive Eating Principles

1. Reject the Diet Mentality. Throw out the diet books and magazine articles that offer you false hope of losing weight quickly, easily, and permanently. Get angry at the lies that have led you to feel as if you were a failure every time a new diet stopped working and you gained back all of the weight. If you allow even one small hope to linger that a new and better diet might be lurking around the corner, it will prevent you from being free to rediscover Intuitive Eating.
2. Honor Your Hunger. Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Otherwise you can trigger a primal drive to overeat. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant. Learning to honor this first biological signal sets the stage for re-building trust with yourself and food.
3. Make Peace with Food. Call a truce, stop the food fight! Give yourself unconditional permission to eat. If you tell yourself that you can't or shouldn't have a particular food, it can lead to intense feelings of deprivation that build into uncontrollable cravings and, often, bingeing When you finally “give-in” to your forbidden food, eating will be experienced with such intensity, it usually results in Last Supper overeating, and overwhelming guilt.
4. Challenge the Food Police. Scream a loud "NO" to thoughts in your head that declare you're "good" for eating under 1000 calories or "bad" because you ate a piece of chocolate cake. The Food Police monitor the unreasonable rules that dieting has created . The police station is housed deep in your psyche, and its loud speaker shouts negative barbs, hopeless phrases, and guilt-provoking indictments. Chasing the Food Police away is a critical step in returning to Intuitive Eating.
5. Respect Your Fullness. Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you're comfortably full. Pause in the middle of a meal or food and ask yourself how the food tastes, and what is your current fullness level?
6. Discover the Satisfaction Factor. The Japanese have the wisdom to promote pleasure as one of their goals of healthy living In our fury to be thin and healthy, we often overlook one of the most basic gifts of existence--the pleasure and satisfaction that can be found in the eating experience. When you eat what you really want, in an environment that is inviting and conducive, the pleasure you derive will be a powerful force in helping you feel satisfied and content. By providing this experience for yourself, you will find that it takes much less food to decide you've had "enough".
7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food. Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.
8. Respect Your Body. Accept your genetic blueprint. Just as a person with a shoe size of eight would not expect to realistically squeeze into a size six, it is equally as futile (and uncomfortable) to have the same expectation with body size. But mostly, respect your body, so you can feel better about who you are. It's hard to reject the diet mentality if you are unrealistic and overly critical about your body shape.
9. Exercise--Feel the Difference. Forget militant exercise. Just get active and feel the difference. Shift your focus to how it feels to move your body, rather than the calorie burning effect of exercise. If you focus on how you feel from working out, such as energized, it can make the difference between rolling out of bed for a brisk morning walk or hitting the snooze alarm. If when you wake up, your only goal is to lose weight, it's usually not a motivating factor in that moment of time.
10. Honor Your Health--Gentle Nutrition. Make food choices that honor your health and tastebuds while making you feel well. Remember that you don't have to eat a perfect diet to be healthy. You will not suddenly get a nutrient deficiency or gain weight from one snack, one meal, or one day of eating. It's what you eat consistently over time that matters, progress not perfection is what counts.

Love the principle of "honoring your health"! Also, #7 is a biggie for me:

7. Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food. Find ways to comfort , nurture, distract, and resolve your issues without using food. Anxiety, loneliness, boredom, anger are emotions we all experience throughout life. Each has its own trigger, and each has its own appeasement. Food won't fix any of these feelings. It may comfort for the short term, distract from the pain, or even numb you into a food hangover. But food won't solve the problem. If anything, eating for an emotional hunger will only make you feel worse in the long run. You'll ultimately have to deal with the source of the emotion, as well as the discomfort of overeating.

Love the new support thread and post Palestrina, thanks!

I have probably been working on #7 for 2 years now. Like really working. I have come so far with that I can hardly believe it. Yesterday I was annoyed at the kids, frustrated with my day, and tired. After they went to bed my old thought pattern would usually be ice cream! Yesterday I thought, "I can't wait to get out and walk! I really need it. It will really make me feel better." then I realized what I had thought and I considered my old coping strategy of ice cream but I wasn't hungry and it didn't sound good. Unfortunately, I'm not sure how I finally started to get to this point. White knuckling it to just not eat when I felt upset never worked. I did a lot of emotional work and have even changed things in my life, such as asking for help when I need it and asserting my wants and needs with my husband. Also been getting in touch with buried anger. It's been hard but made a huge difference.

The next really big challenge for me is mindful /slower eating and stopping before I'm stuffed. I think these two things go hand in hand. Im not sure why it is so hard to eat slowly and mindfully. It feels like torture to me. It also makes me feel really anxious like I need to be doing something else and hurry up and eat. So that is my thing I'm working on right now. Today I successfully ate my lunch slowly and peacefully. I noticed that I stopped and felt full much sooner than I normally would just because I was taking my time and not reading and wolfing my food which has been my usual way of eating and felt almost impossible to change. But I think I'm ready to make it happen. :)

It's great we're all reflecting on the principles. We all have things that are easier and things that are harder. Pinkhippie, mindful eating is my favorite part of IE, it didn't come easy at first but I quickly succumbed to the joy of it. Because that's what it is, it's joyful me time. It sounds to me that you may have some negative emotions tied up with eating, maybe a little guilt? Maybe you feel that eating is not important and you're minimizing the pleasure and respite it can bring. For those of us who have created a lot of stress around food it's understandable that we want to separate ourselves from the pressures of eating. Perhaps you're separating yourself because you think you shouldn't be enjoying it, that it's frivolous or invalid.

Gosh I'd love to watch people really enjoy themselves eating food, on tv! I watch the real housewives, sex and the city and other shows like that and when it comes to the dinner scenes nobody's eating. Nobody. It's like food is just a prop. I'd love to watch a scene where a woman is sitting and eating her meal and enjoying herself. We need that.

I don't mean to speculate on you specifically Pinkhippie, just trying to see if I can hit on any questions you haven't asked yourself yet. I may be completely wrong.

By all means, feel free to speculate. That is one of the values of a support group like this, sometimes people on the "outside" can see what we cannot. I welcome any input.

I did notice a slight feeling of guilt while I was eating slowly. In my head was pretty much this litany. " I don't have time to eat this slowly, I have things I should be doing, the kids are going to need something in the next five minutes, this is taking too long, etc..." Usually I eat my dinner faster than anyone else and then I jump up and start doing the dishes and packing away leftovers. My husband does a lot of the dinner dishes and cleans the kitchen after dinner, but I try to help him by doing some dishes and putting away leftovers before he can. I USED to be one of the slowest eaters in my group of friends and with my husband. Kids have changed me. I think I always feel like I don't " do enough". I also get really mad when Im trying to relax and eat slowly and a kid comes to harass me or they need something so Im trying to get my eating done as quickly as possible.

So, I think my problem may be two fold. 1. I feel like I don't really deserve to sit and eat slowly, I still have negative feelings about food and I do feel guilty, therefore I distract myself by reading a book and eating as quickly as possible, and 2. Im anxious that while I am trying to eat mindfully, a child will come and stress me out.

Next time I sit down to eat, I am going to focus on what I am feeling and thinking to try to be more aware of what is really going on with me and food. Thanks for your thoughts Palestrina, they were helpful. :)

I'm like you in that I'm not sure when my mindset changed. But I've purposely changed "I'm feeling stressed out/bored/happy/sad/angry - must eat now!" to "Be in the moment - what are you feeling/thinking, and what might be a good response?" So, that's that mindfulness you're speaking of, below.

Part of it is to do something that will help me, or at least not hurt or hinder me, in the long run. Sometimes eating helps me - our bodies need food, after all. Sometimes making that bunch of papers on my desk disappear is the most helpful response. Or dancing with a cat, or rubbing my husband's shoulders.

It really is a case-by-case basis, and I've realized there are a lot more choices than just eating! Some of these things seem so obvious, but I can't beat myself up for not realizing them before. :D

Congrats on that. It sounds like a real milestone! As far as the reading goes, I've always read when I eat. I actually will not eat if I don't have something to read! But, for me, I think it's akin to what Palestrina is talking about in her comment above: Reading helps me to enjoy the food, and slow down and savor it. So it's different for everyone. That's what makes life interesting! :carrot:

This is what I'm just starting to find out. It's funny because this is (in my experience) an issue that is unique to food. I'm a recovering alcoholic and I can go just fine without a drink no matter what happens. With food, however, I find that I have to really just roll with the punches and do my best to nurture and soothe myself when I'm upset. It's probably because you have to eat several times a day to keep on living. I guess if I had to drink just one drink several times a day I'd have to just try my best to take care of myself so it doesn't get out of hand. Abstinence doesn't work for food because you can't abstain from eating.

I am in awe of all the progress I read on this thread. I'm new to IE...totally get it, but in no way putting these principals into practice in a consistent way. So, I find myself asking, what's the one thing that could change the tide for me...not fix it all, just get things moving in the right direction? I know food what makes me feel satisfied and healthy and how much ...don't always do it though. Which tells me the "why" is probably my biggest challenge. Can someone comment on how they practice IE to deal with the "why" in real life? Do you try to logic your way out of the fridge? Do you evaluate the reasons post-binge in hopes of doing better next time? My knuckles are raw from all the attempts and failures at white-knuckling it!

White knuckling does not work. IE is overwhelming at first and not everyone starts in the same place. It's hard to reject the diet mentality, and even futile to think of the whys. If you have arrived at IE there is only one reason - you're at a loss with diets, you have come to realize that they all do not work and you're ready for something else, something more realistic.

Each of us has gone about IE in various ways, we find our in wherever we can. I don't know what the right start is for you. Some people start by stocking their food with lots and lots of forbidden "bad foods" (carbs, sugar, cookies, junk, chips, fast food, whatever is your supposed trigger food while on a diet). Others try to find out what real hunger feels like. Others try to practice mindful eating.

For me my start came when I didn't realize what "real hunger" felt like. I knew I was always hungry and always eating. But surely a person cannot be always hungry so I started using the hunger scale to asses. Here is a typical hunger scale:

1. Famished, Irritable
2. Very hungry
3. Hungry
4. Slight hunger
5. Neutral
6. Appetite goes away
7. Satisfied
8. Full
9. Overly full, stuffed
10. Sick, discomfort

So I made a chart and wrote down the time, the food, the hunger level before I ate and after I ate, and any feelings/comments/assessments that went along with the eating experience. I did objectively, not judgementally and over time I got to underestand my hunger patterns.

But as I started that I realized I could not differentiate between real hunger and mouth hunger. So I did something drastic - I went several several hours without eating. I panicked when I felt my stomach grumble but I let it happen and observe all the feelings that came along with it. I had to bathe myself in real hunger in order to understand it physically, like immersion therapy. I only did this for about 10days maybe. After that it became much easier to understand when real hunger was coming on.

Irishbabe,

I'm not sure what you're asking for. Just eat. If you've been restricting your body is probably going to want to make up for it by eating more than you're comfortable with. Just go with it and try, like Palestrina said, to observe your behavior objectively and without judgment. Keeping a journal will help you recognize patterns. If you're afraid of doing this then ask yourself why. Are you afraid to gain weight? The surest way to gain weight is to keep restricting yourself. Stop the food fight. Let yourself eat. Whenever I get off a diet and start IE again I eat a lot for a few days, then it tapers off as my body realizes that it will get enough.

Hey, I really want to practice and get into a mode of eating that's more intuitive...I'm getting close to goal and while I've learned a lot from calorie counting about portion size, I don't want to do that forever. I think intuitive eating is ultimately what we all want to strive for, and I think I'm much better at understanding my hunger signals and not over-eating from calorie counting. But I think IE isn't something I can just magically start at maintainence.

I've already spent the last week relaxing with the counting, just sort of going with the flow, but I want to all out just stop calorie counting for a few days.

So here is my idea... The husband and I are going on vacation for a week tomorrow, and I was thinking of trying, just for the week, to eat more intuitively and by my hunger signals. No calorie counting at all. I already don't believe in "bad" foods or cheats, I just eat what I want and account for it (though seeing my choices written out does keep me from going treat crazy. Now it's one brownie or three cookies instead of five to ten. There's more Accountability) Vacation might be a bad way to start, but we are actually bringing our own food for most of it, all fresh stuff in a cooler, and only going out for one meal a day. I don't want this trip to be "permission to over indulge". But, I don't need " permission" to eat food and try new restaurants. I just want to listen to my body. I figure if I fall back into old habits of over indulging, I can't do too much damage to my body in a week.

For a bit of history, I am fortunately not an emotional eater. I was over eating before out of ignorance and just being really unaware of my hunger signals. I didn't drink enough and I had little self control with my favourite foods, maybe cause eating was more regimented growing up. My "diet" currently doesn't eliminate anything from me... Its just shuffled around to get more good stuff like veggies and protiens and less sweets.

Those of you more skilled in IE have any thoughts or ideas on this matter? I'd appreciate it :)

Thank you! Sometimes because old habits are hard to break, I will finish chewing and push my food away and THEN read. It gives me a nice mid point to see if Im close to full, gives my body more time to realize it has had food and I still get to read.

I know just what you mean Locke. Abstinence defintely doesn't work with food.

Have you read overcoming overeating? That is the book that really sparked it for me. I think it also depends on where you are arriving from. Are you arriving from restrictive dieting or compulsive free for all eating or veering wildly between each? I think for me I first worked on accepting my body just as it was, because I realized my body thoughts really made a difference on what and how much I ate. Then I worked on like Palestrina said, REALLY feeling hunger. I think that is a really important step because until I did that, I didn't even know what hunger felt like. Then I legalized all foods. And then I did a lot of emotional eating work. I found some books at the library that were like workshops and I did all the exercises, and I think that really helped. I started becoming more aware of my emotional triggers and the book that really helped me because I think I read it at the right time was Eating in the LIght of the Moon. It helped me put together everything I had been working on. But for me, seriously, reading is what helped me. I have read SO many books on IE. Overcoming Overeating, Thinside out, Beyond Chocolate, the original IE book, Emotional eating books, etc...

I think its a great idea to try eating according to you hunger and preferences. I think the problem with "trying" it out is if your body and you both know that after vacay it is back on the diet, you might end up going a little hog wild because you might have the last supper mentality. Therefore, you won't get an accurate idea of how IE will work for you. But, that is just a possibility, I don't really know what will happen for you individually. It depends on so many factors. I think at the very least you should try it and observe how you feel during the process. You might learn some valuable things about yourself if you can try to be like a scientist, and not judging if you feel you ate too much or whatever.

As for me, I continue my mindful eating work.

I have gotten much better at slowing down and savoring my breakfast and lunch but dinner is a much easier time to eat unconsciously and quickly. I realized another reason I don't like eating mindfully and slowly is that it feels like work. There is a part of me that says " I eat to ESCAPE work! Not to create more work, I deserve to zone out and eat and enjoy myself, not work!!" But, this time, I have committed to doing the work and changing my eating habits, so I recognize that yes this is work and it is for the good of myself and my body in the long run so just do it.

I have been more in touch with my body since I started doing it. Im also eating less than I normally would because I recognize my full/satisfied signal before I have eaten my whole bowl or plate.

Senseandsensibility,

Many people find that when they first start IE they overeat. This is especially true if you have been restricting. IE is a process and what/how you eat when you start isn't necessarily the case for the rest of your life. Going on vacation and blowing your diet is part of the dieting mindset. I do think that any time is a great time to start IE, I just imagine that you might have some difficulty if you find yourself eating more than you're used to or you think is appropriate. If you do I suggest just being objective and understanding that you've been depriving yourself so of course your body is going to want to eat more to begin with.

It usually takes me 1-2 weeks to get over the junk food munchies phase after coming back to IE from a diet. Your hunger levels will eventually even out and you'll find a good balance. You just need to stick to it even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Edit: Check out the "Most skinny people don't eat much." thread on this forum for a good overview of the diet mentality and how it keeps people fat.

I got fat shamed on the street today. By a jerk guy who yelled some mean things as I walked by. So I was just walking down the street, fresh out of the salon sporting a new haircut and feeling cute. Suddenly I hear someone call out "oh the fat girls think they're cute now? You THINK you're cute girl!" and then laughter ensued and some other stuff between him and his friends that I couldn't make out.

I wasn't upset about the fat part though. I was upset that anyone felt the right to call anything out to a woman whether it be an insult or a cat call. The nerve of someone, a complete stranger, to make any remark to me about my body or my attitude or worse, my self confidence. I can't be angry at a moron, his personality is his own punishment. I'm just shocked and glad that I didn't feel soooooo bad about being called fat that it made me wallow in self pity.

And my new haircut and highlights is super cute!

Oh snap!!

Thanks for the responses!!! Hmmm... Sounds like IE maybe isn't for me then. I had worried that a trip would be a bad time to try. I'm not planning on doing IE to start binge eating or to over eat, or to blow my diet. I'm not really on a diet as much as a lifestyle change. I litterally want to eat the same things I'm eating now, I already eat junk food, desserts and treats occasionally, and just use the trip to just see if I can naturally follow better portion sizes without counting it. But I don't think I realized everything and exactly what IE is. I thought it was eating slower and gaging what you eat by your hunger signals, using self control in front of your fav treats so that you enjoy them without taking more then necessary. Hmm... I think I'll try and do this my own way in a slight combination and call it mindful eating or something. Since we're bringing our own foods, most of my meals will be the same as at home, I think dinners at restaurants are where I'll really get the practice in healthier choices and portions. It's my goal to be able to learn to listen to my body and keep it healthy without counting and that's what I'll have to do, through trial and error if need be! Thanks for everything!!!

(P.S. what a jerk that guy was, Palestrina! You're right about his personality being his own punishment, and glad you kept up your confidence. I bet you were rocking it ;) even the worst of people don't comment unnessarrily to strangers on their body unless they're looking good, no matter what comes out of their mouth. Even the comment "you think you're so good looking" means he literally noticed you were good looking cause you personally recognized that!)

Nobody does IE in order to overeat and binge! It sounds to me like you're in a good place to start IE. IE is not some special club that you have to be exactly like everyone else in order to do it. Start with where you're comfortable. If you want to eat according to your hunger signals then you should do that! Even letting go of calorie counting is a huge deal, imagine how freeing it can be to not have to do that and relying on your body's senses to feed yourself! And no matter what WOE anyone follows mindful eating is good for the body and great for the mind.

I think the girls were maybe trying to warn you that sometimes the beginning of IE can bring about some unexpected hungers. It doesn't really sound like you've depriving yourself from a lot of foods but if you have been doing things like eating an apple when you were craving a cookie then yes, IE brings your cravings right up front and in your face. IE views controlled diets like a tightly pulled bow and arrow. The harder you stick to your diet the tighter you pull the bow. And then comes a point usually spurred on by stress, frustration, or the start of IE and that bow snaps and the arrow shoots. It's something to be aware of but definitely don't leave if you feel you need support while following hunger cues.

The thing about IE is that it has so many good principles, that even if you don't adopt all of them, you can benefit from the others.

For example, I use Make Peace with Food, Respect Your Fullness, Discover the Satisfaction Factor, Honor Your Feelings Without Using Food, Exercise, and Honor Your Health. These have helped me immeasureably in my own Way of Eating goals.

As far as restaurants go, I'd like to say I had a good restaurant experience at Ruby Tuesday a couple of days ago. They have "Fit and Trim" choices on their menus, and I had the Chicken Bella, with a side of Roasted Zucchini, and the Unlimited Salad Bar. Yum! I ended up mixing peas, edamame, and tomatoes from the salad bar with the chicken and Bella cream sauce - very filling! Even the rolls that were brought to the table were delicious - the best of any restaurant rolls I've tried. I didn't eat all of them, just part of the amazing-looking herbed outside, and it was even better than it looked. :D

Best wishes on your continuing health journey! :hug:

Palestrina,

That's horrible. People can be such jerks. If it's any consolation people who do that sort of thing usually just do it to distract from their own insecurities about body shape or achievements. It's just sad that it happened right after you did something for yourself and felt so good. You were probably carrying yourself proudly and those buttheads took the opportunity to tear you down. I'm glad you're not letting it doubt how cute you are.

SenseandSensibility,

Whatever you want to do is fine. IE's not just using hunger/fullness signals. It's a whole philosophy about dieting, body weight, food choices, nutrition, etc. It's based on the idea that your body knows best. So when you said you wanted to start IE I assumed you wanted more than to dip a toe. Try it out and see how it suits you. I was just concerned before because if you take a full plunge into IE it can be really difficult and scary at first and I wanted to warn you that that's natural.

I'm intrigued with IE. I've only heard about it here on 3FC for the first time in the last few days.

When I read through the 10 steps it seems like I had been inadvertantly learning and practicing a few of them already in the last few months since I started my weight loss journey. For example, I learned I really do need to eat when I am hungry and the results I found were remarkable. I started to eat more when I felt hungry and stopping naturally when I was full. Not only did I continue to lose weight but I did it by eating more and feeling satisfied. Plus I discovered I was still losing the weight at the same level as when I was doing my weight loss diet. So I ended up eating more and continued to lose weight! This really astonished me and I decided my body was smarter than I was so I needed to really get in tune with it.

This in turn made me start to think about things like enjoying my food more and trying to distinguish between true hunger and emotional hunger. I am still working on this and have a ways to go.

I started my weight loss journey this past January. I have always been a yo-yo dieter and eventually would gain it back plus a few more lbs. What was different this time was I had decided that I would start living and being the person I wanted to be instead of waiting until I lost the weight to become that person. It was a kind of revelation to me and a lot of the psychological drama of being fat and having so much to overcome sort of dissolved right away. Now I try to live as the person I want to be instead of waiting until I lose the weight to become that person. It feels like I am in training to learn how to be me and may sound silly but it has been opening up new ways of thinking and discovery about myself.

I know I have a long way to go and so much more to learn and discover about myself. But for the first time ever I have actually enjoyed my weight loss journey and look forward to it.

I don't know if IE is right for me but I like a lot of the principles and much of it makes sense to me. I think I may still be lingering in the 'diet' mentality and not quite ready to shed it or let it go. Even thou I feel and know in my gut that it just doesn't work for me to 'diet'. Not that I want that diet mentality, maybe I am just not ready or haven't pondered it enough yet. At least I have only discovered IE so I really don't know enough about it yet. I do know that if and when I feel its right for me and I am ready to change I will.

Since I started this year I have lost more weight than I ever have before and I know it has to do with the way I approached it this time around. But something in me has changed as a result. I now know that I am on the right path so instead of worrying about losing the weight it feels more like I am looking at a rainbow and in awe of it. I don't know how to explain that its just how I feel.

This weekend I had a really relaxed approach to eating, but not a mindless one. I indulged quite a bit but I also got in quite a bit of exercise. I'm re-reading Overcoming Overeating, my favorite IE book. I like the casual approach to eating that the book recommends. I feel like some of the IE books (I'm looking at you Overfed Head) are diet books in disguise. I ate food this weekend- delicious holiday food- sometimes too much. However, after overindulging I felt like exercising. I completed a seven mile walk- the longest walk I have ever taken- over this weekend. I felt great afterwards. Today I felt the old dieting demons in my head start whispering as I began a stressful work week. I'm choosing to ignore them.

I find celebrating food is so important to this approach. My mom made a comment about how much ice cream I'd eaten over the weekend. Guess what, ice cream is delicious and I'm not going to feel guilty for eating it. Hooray for ice cream! I'm tired of pretending that I don't like food and I'm certainly tired of feeling guilty for eating it. Whenever I do IE I tend to feel guilty for the amounts or types of food I've eaten. I feel like I should be leaving stuff on my plate all the time, or not eating for several hours. I'm. Done. With. That. I'm going to eat to eat.

YOu go Locke! That is great to read. Ice cream IS delicious! I am interested in your thoughts of why the overfed head is more "diety".

Palestrina I cannot believe someone said that to you! I really admire your attitude about it. I would have broken down crying because I am pitiful like that when it comes to the words of others hurting me.

I have been having a lot of trouble with dieting thoughts and some dieting behaviors and Im SICK OF IT. I feel like I am either unconsciously restricting or unconsciously overeating and I can't seem to just settle in the middle. For my weight that means a fluctuation of about 7 pounds. I was in the restriction phase where I felt like I was very rarely hungry but now for the past 3 days Im in the snap back rubber band overeating phase where I feel like I need to get up at night to eat. And I almost NEVER do that. It's exceedingly rare. And yet, part of me feels like a failure if I can't get to the weight that I was before kids and accept the weight I am at now. I feel like I am giving up. I just keep swinging on the pendulum. I think I am going to read Overcoming overeating again as well. That is also MY favorite IE book. It worked for me the first time when I was single and in my twenties. I almost immediately was able to eat intuitively and kept if up for years at a happy healthy weight until my second baby. I feel like its so much more challenging being a married mom of 3 kids. I guess thats good, its letting me really know what my issues are and its helping me work on them. Its just frustrating, and a bit discouraging.

Thanks everyone for letting me vent.

Overfed Head approaches IE as a way to lose weight. While the author says he's not sure how much weight you'll lose he is basically saying that you should do this way of eating to lose weight. For me, I feel really sane around food only when I completely take weight loss out of the picture. That's why I like OO's approach. OO wants you to live like you'll never gain or lose another pound no matter what you do. To me, that's the only way to be completely relaxed around food and eating.

OO's message is simple. Eat what you want to eat, at the time you want to eat, and in the amount you want to eat. It's IE in its purest form. No "gentle nutrition" is necessary. Your body will naturally gravitate towards foods that support good health. At the same time you have to work on taking care of yourself, facing your problems, and figuring out why you reach for food when you're not hungry. Overfed Head is all about NOT EATING when you're NOT HUNGRY. It's a totally different, white-knuckling approach.

Ok, I see what you are saying. I think that is one of the harder things about the Overcoming Overeating book. It is more to help you get a healthy relationship with food, weight loss could be a byproduct but it should NOT be your goal. You have to give up the fantasy of the thinner/smaller body. I think that has been my problem. I feel in general like I do have a much better relationship with food and honoring my hunger and I feel like I should be back to my previous weight. Because I am not the failure feelings creep in and so does the dieting mentality. It does mess with my head for sure.

Thanks for the explanation, I think that makes perfect sense.

Have you read When Women stop Hating their Bodies? It's by the authors of Overcoming Overeating and I think they wrote it first. It sounds interesting but Im not sure if it has any new insights.

Pink do you follow Isabella Foxen Duke? isabelfoxenduke.com
She goes beyond IE in terms of dealing with food. Her schtick is to not give any thought to food at all, especially nutrition. Her approach is "just eat" line of thinking. I know for me when the need to eat at night arises it is partly due to undereating during the day but it is also a signal of stress that is not dealt with well enough.

I can't believe it either that the street harrassment didn't affect me. But other things do. For example, last week I saw my friend who rigorously dieted, she's lost close to a 100lbs in a year while I'm still stuck at this weight. She tried to give me some of her old fat clothes, that really hurt. I mean it really hurt. I'm sure she was just being nice, but it triggered me.

I'm home visiting my parents now and I'm feeling anxious around food. I'll be here for the next 6 weeks and I have yet to go shopping and set myself up eating wise and when I do everything will be ok. But in the meantime I'm trying to acclimate again to my mother's eccentricities around food. I snapped at her big time today. I ate a soft boiled egg and left some of the egg whites - I don't really like egg whites and never have since I was a little girl. Of course she said what she always said "you didn't eat the best part of the egg, the whites is where all the nutrients are." I was too jet lagged to get into a fight but I did snap at her "Mom, you've known me since I was a little girl, must you make the same comment every time I eat a stupid egg?" I really am sick of it. I've been hearing that my whole life, and it isn't even true! The egg whites are pure protein, the yolk has the actual nutrients in it. And it's been proven that eggs are not bad for you!

Otherwise I'm eating well, my appetite has been very low since the long trip and I'm eating very light as I get over the jet lag.

Tingly jaw
 

I have been binge free for almost a year, I am a few weeks shy of 1 year. The beginning was hard, but eventually the desire to binge completely dimished.
The only thing I'm battling now is a pins and needle feeling around my chin and jaws. It doesn't happen everytime I eat, but when it does it is mentally exhausting. I know it sounds weird, but it happens a couple hours after I eat something. It's extremely frustrating and I am not sure if it is a residual side effect from my previous bingeing disorder?
I don't have MS, anxiety, diabetes, or any nerve conditions. Has anyone else experienced this?

Update: went to my Dr. and the facial tingling that I get is from ocular migraines. It's unrelated to binge eating disorder.

Palestrina,

That sounds exhausting. <hugs>

Brooke,

I've never experienced that. If more serious causes have been ruled out I'd just chalk it up to one of your body's idiosyncrasies.

Locke, I honestly never thought about Overfed Head in that way, but what you're saying makes sense.

Speaking of, Rob Stevens seems to have gone off the grid. You can no longer access his book or his website. Makes you wonder.

Palestrina, I used to follow Isabellefoxenduke, but then I felt like all I was getting in my inbox was spam, constantly wanting me to do her workshop and also advertising for her friend, so I unfollowed. Maybe I should go check out her site for a refresher.

That would have really hurt me too with my friend and the clothes. I already have a friend who is thinner than me and she will give me stuff that is too big but she is always careful to say that it "doesn't fit right". Not quite the same thing with your friend who lost 100 pounds though. That sounds hard. your mom sounds difficult too. My mom is a huge trigger for me as well, but for different reasons. I often find that I cannot eat around her and have to do all my eating later. When I lived with her I would just sneak eat in my room at 2 am and such.

Brooke, glad you found out what it was. That is a bummer about the migraines though.

I am just trucking along over here. I have been going for a nightly walk for about 3 weeks and I love it. I would so much rather go for a walk than get on my elliptical for 30 minutes. I think the key has been for me that because of my recent ankle injury I have been forced to take it easy. When I first started I was pretty much just strolling. That makes it much more pleasurable and I look forward to it. I have naturally started walking a little faster as my ankle gets better and my legs get stronger. I don't even take any music with me and I find its a great time to just contemplate life, think, and kind of zone out. Its been emotionally helpful for me and physically. I have been falling asleep faster at night, sleeping better, and I think its been really helpful for relieving the daily stress that gets built up. Its time away from the family and time just for me. I look forward to my walks every night and I will walk even in pouring rain or blistering heat. I feel much more in tune with my body. I have tried walking before but I think I made it too much into I had to feel the burn and I always had to have music. It made it too much of an ordeal and easy to not do. Now, I just open my front door and step out. no headphones to locate or phone to bring and no pressure to walk faster or jog. Anyway, its been feeling good and I just wanted to share. :)

Good for you Pink! I am passionate about my evening walks too. I put my little one to bed and then off I go for about an hour every night, though I don't bother with the rain or shine though, I stay put when it's raining. I don't like to listen to music when I'm walking, only when I dance. For walking I put my headphones on and listen to podcasts. My favorites are Snap Judgement, The Moth, America's Test Kitchen, Radiolab and many others. A whole hour goes by and I don't even feel it because I'm so engrossed in the stories.

I walk 1-2 hours most nights but I do like to push myself. I get such a feeling of accomplishment when I walk farther or in a hillier spot than I usually do. Sometimes I just stroll, but it's always therapeutic. I enjoy the checking out aspect as well. It's just me, my body, and the scenery. The dog loves it too!

Thanks! I can't believe how much it has helped. I would love to walk for an hour but sadly I don't have time at the moment. Its a challenge to squeeze in 30 minutes but I guard that 30 minute time slot fiercely. I was thinking of doing an early morning walk as well so I could get a full hour in but we will see. Great idea for the podcast and walking! I can get a lot of audio books from my library as well and maybe later down the road I will check those out.

Wow, Locke that is awesome! Walking really is therapeutic. I would take my dog but she can't walk that far! lol she is a tiny shih tzu and I end up carrying her about halfway through. ( I so far have been walking about 1.5 miles)

Love reading these walking posts! Interesting how everyone approaches it differently.

I guess it's because by nature I am an extremely analytical person, but I find I do best walking in a very regimented nature. I don't walk outside; rather, I walk on an elevated track at the YMCA. No treadmills for me. Right now I'm walking 3 miles each time I walk, hoping to eventually get it up to 5 miles which is what I did several years ago.

A mile is 18 laps around the track, so I do 54 laps. I don't listen to music or anything else for that matter...I just count the laps. Other people say that would drive them crazy, and I get that, but it works for me.

Wow you are right, we all do things differently. I LOVE walking outside. We have an elliptical that I have tried and tried to stick to but I realized it feels soul killing. I would rather get outside even in terrible weather than be on my elliptical. I don't know if could count laps either. I do have a pedometer that tells me how many miles I have gone and I like that. I did 2 miles yesterday and I was proud. 3 miles is awesome! An elevated track sounds cool too. Our indoor tracks leave a bit to be desired here but we have amazing trail systems

So today at the library I got the Intuitive Eating book. I realized the other day that I have gotten past the good food bad food syndrome and now Im in does the food make me feel physically good? does the food make me feel physically bad? And that is how I make more of my food choices now. So, I think Im ready to read it again. I remember being really triggered by the nutrition part when I read it years ago, but maybe now it won't bother me.

I thought of everyone when I was out for my walk last night, like "hey maybe we are all walking at the same time!" Corny but neat. :)

I've been very intuitive about eating since I've arrived at my parents house. The food here is so ridiculously fresh, my mother has an extensive garden and it's amazing to be able to eat right from the ground. Everything from onions, garlic, arugula, tomatoes, cukes, figs, lemons, peppers, herbs, we're growing our own delicious salads. Eggs plucked right out of our chicken's butt, fish bought right off the boat, milk right out of the goat, we're living off the land here. We're planting an avocado tree so next year we'll have our own. In the states we eat pretty well but when I come here I realize just how much processed food we eat back home.

Not me, I'm in Europe haha! I was sleeping.

That sounds fantastic, Palestrina! Enjoy your trip!

I had something special for breakfast this morning to begin my b'day celebrations. Nutella on super fresh baked bread. I felt like I was 8yrs old again.

I just picked up Nutella at the store a few days ago for when I feel like something a but more rich/sugary on my toast for breakfast or a snack. I haven't had any yet but I love the stuff.

Happy Birthday!

Probably the only reason I've never had Nutella is that I have a pretty strong aversion to the flavor of hazelnut. There are very few food items I don't care for, but that's one of them. I really don't know why I don't like it, but it's why I've never tried Nutella. But I know it is VERY popular, and I am so glad you are able to enjoy it!

But the fresh baked bread; that's another story entirely! It's making my mouth water just thinking about it.