Hi Beginme! It's nice to see you!

I had that mental block about scarcity for a long time. I have started to overcome it, but it took quite a while.

By following my natural hunger I have pretty much fallen into 3 meals a day and somewhat what they now call "IF" or 16:8. Which for me has always been not eating after dinner and not being hungry for breakfast until late morning.

I also started exercising about an hour 2-3 times a week and I have been doing that for about 3 months. It's a new record and I think it will last because I finally built up the strength to go running and I have been doing the couch to 5 k program. I am pretty excited about it and am really enjoying my newfound strength and fitness. I am really looking forward to the fall and running in not 90 plus degree weather. I have been lifting weights as well for about 4 months and that has been awesome. I love being stronger and I have not injured myself (knock on wood) and a lot of my chronic back/neck aches pains tension problems have gone away.

I finally reached my original goal weight a couple months ago and I have maintained it so far.

Things are really different for me than they were. I don't feel the compulsion to eat when I am not hungry very often anymore. I still work on "feeling fat" when I eat what I think is too much, even though now, what I think is too much is way less than what it was.

It's a lot easier for me to stop eating when I feel full, and full comes sooner than it used to.

I let myself feel hungry a lot more than I used to. I think that is one of the biggest differences. For a while there, for some reason I couldn't let myself feel hungry ever. It was way too uncomfortable. Not physically, but maybe emotionally or mentally. I also had to stuff myself at every meal to feel OK. Now, I look forward to hunger because it means a delicious meal is coming up soon and I don't want to stuff myself because it will feel bad and it will take much longer to feel hungry. Food tastes SO MUCH better when I am hungry. I love it.

Anyway, that is just a little update on me. I hope everyone else is doing well! :)

Why are you SO hungry some days and not others?

I have no idea. I think maybe some of it is hormones for me. Ovulation, PMS, that sort of thing. It seems to balance out with less hungry days as long as I listen to my body. I was SUPER hungry yesterday. One thing I have to be careful of is letting my mind tell me how much I "should" be eating. It's easy to fall into that trap. Yesterday I realized that although I usually only have 3 meals, that yesterday I needed a snack and a late night pbj. I don't know why, but I was definitely hungry.

Well, I'm over that so it must be something else.

Bumping this up.

Nothing new to report, still following IE principles combined with intermittent fasting. I'm constantly plagued by thoughts of weight loss but not engaging in any dieting. I'm trying to come to terms with just being fat forever. Because I have really good habits - I exercise, I eat loads of veggies, I don't drink soda, I don't drink juices, I hardly ever drink any alocohol, I don't put sugar in my coffee, I don't eat late at night, I don't eat many sweets, I don't eat out often, and I make really good and healthy food at home. I basically live a healthy life. In order for me to lose weight I will literally have to drastically cut my food intake and that leads to nothing but chaos. So I'm gonna be fat. Healthy, but fat.

That sounds like me, Palestrina.

Except I have had an autoimmune disease for 40 yr. so I am not exactly healthy. ha

I am still on my IE journey. My weight has been stable for at least a few months now and I am really happy with that. The thing I finally seem to be getting over these past weeks is all the rules i put in place for my eating. I never realized how many unconscious rules I had regarding eating. Having to wait a certain amount of hours between meals, or eating events, having to eat vegetables with every meal, no juice ever, no more than one fruit with my breakfast... no dessert and certainly no more than ONE dessert per day... too many to list. These past couple of weeks I have just been eating when I am hungry and whatever I want. If that means I am craving donuts, then I eat donuts for lunch with a few bites of protein for my blood sugar and I don't worry about having to eat a meal first and THEN donuts. I know, I know that IS the crux of Intuitive eating and I have been working on this for 5 years now but it takes a long time to get over all the unconscious internal food programming.

I think something that has helped me is that I have had so much practice only eating when I am hungry that I pretty much can't eat if I am not. I also have moved away from needing to feel full and now just feel neutral or satisfied when I am done eating and what has really helped with that has been tossing any timing rules out the window. I realized that when I was only allowing myself to eat after a certain amount of time that I was eating more than I needed to before being done because I wanted to have enough. I also feel like I have finally been able to move away from undereating drastically at meals in an attempt to stop when satisfied. I would say most times I eat I now feel just right when I am done. I am still working on slowing down my eating and being mindful, that seems to be the hardest for me still.

I cannot believe how long this process has taken for me, but it is really nice.

I haven't been able to exercise for about a month now because I reinjured my ankle and I had to be at work at my standing all day job so home time was sitting around time to recuperate. I don't have that job anymore so hopefully now I can being healing. But even without exercise I feel ok.

Anyway, that is me for now. How is everyone else doing?

Thanks for that, Pinkhippie.

Originally Posted by carolr3639:
Thanks for that, Pinkhippie.

Sure! I hope my experiences are helpful to someone down the road.

This week I have been working on eating without looking at my phone or reading a book. I realized I am missing out on really tasting my food for so many eating experiences. Now that I am only pretty much eating delicious foods I love, I want to focus on it. It's hard! I keep finding myself midway through the meal already reading a book or on my phone before I realize it because it is so automatic now.

I have been thinking about playing classical music when I eat at home to help remind me. We will see how that works. :)

I lasted one day on a low carb diet. When will I learn. I have to go to the dr. next week and be weighed and have my blood pressure taken. That's what got me started.

@pinkhippie that reminds me of something I'm journaling about currently. I'm setting a set of "Single Task Challenges" for myself. I'm remarkably horrible at it. I challenfe myself to do things with minimal or no distraction. It is so difficult to iron clothes without listening to music or going for a walk without listening to a podcast. I feel like I need more stuff like this in my daily routine.

Sometimes when I eat mindfully I too get this antsy feeling of hurrying up so I can do something else or check my email or something. There is something about that little bit of boredom though that I think is good for me and I try to sit through it. It always ends when the meal ends lol. I think I'm realizing that eating is not all that interesting so maybe that's a good thing.

Keep the comments coming.

I just reread the first book I liked on IE.............The Overfed Head........should have reread it a long time ago.