Hi LaDean, I think I'm on the mend. How's the weight loss battle going? Sounds like things are coming together for you, Momtomollie. Seems like we're always in a hurry to see the scale move these days. I say to myself,"Patience, patience."

Hi Everybody,

I know about wanting the scale to go down. I was going up the first few days, but actually was back down a little bit this morning. So maybe things are starting to work for me.

I got the book on Intuitive Eating and I am really enjoying it. I am definitely in stage 2 maybe slowly edging into stage 3 I hope. I can really see and understand how and why this works. Just got to get out of diet mentality. I have a tendency to see everything as fattening... or good/bad foods when I eat it. I suspect it will take a while to correct that. After all I've spent 42 years learning all this stuff that I now have to unlearn. Kind of feel like the old saying, "Just when I thought I learned all the answers, they changed the questions". LOL I have been drinking too much coffee and will have to back off on that tomorrow and start drinking more water. Actually the only reason I've been drinking so much coffee is I'm trying to stay warm. We moved to northern part of SC last year from south FL and honest to goodness I just haven't been able to get used to the cold weather yet. I don't know what I would do if I lived in the places some of you live where it is really freezing cold right now. Although, I would love to see snow. I am originally from central TX and we didn't get snow too much where I lived so I do love the snow. DH grew up in IN and it is no big deal to him; he could care less about it.

mom2mollie - glad things are coming together for you. It is nice to be free to eat when and what we want. According to he book, you can learn from your little one about eating intuitively. She is so lucky to have a Mommy who will be able to let her grow up eating this way so she'll never have to go through the diet routine.

carol - hope you get to feeling better really soon.

Hi LaDean, CherryAutumn and everyone else.

Oh, Patty, you wouldn't be doing too well here in WI where it was below zero last night!!!!! The wood fires are blazing, however, and it's pretty toasty here in the house. Which book are you reading? There are lots of IE books and one that I haven't read from England is Beyond Chocolate. I've read so many that I can't think how this one would be much different but I do get their newsletter which is kind of interesting.

Well, I'm going to try this again. Had it half done before and lost it out in space some where.

Carol, No I would not be able to stand your weather in WI. Too cold for me. It got down to 27 here last night and it is 46* right now and I am so cold.

I am reading Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribola & Eysa Resch. I didn't know of other IE books. What have you read? I am on an IE Yahoo Group and they were talking of books by other authors. I thought I might look them. I read a post by one lady who said she had a read some book by someone named Judy Wardell and that she had learned that those days when she doesn't want to eat because she is busy doing other things... that it is okay.

I really needed that right now, because I am going through this thing right now of struggling with "dieter's thinking" stage. I think "I really need to eat something". "I should eat this or that because it is healthy for me". Or when I really want something not a "diet food" (diets would call it junk) I find myself thinking "you can't eat that because it isn't good for you. It is not healthy". Did that this morning with something I really wanted to eat in place of breakfast and I struggled with the "it isn't healthy food/not good for me" thing. (I think they call the Diet Police or Food Police Voice or something like that patrols and watches what we eat and makes us feel guilty when we eat it.) Well, I stood in the kitchen and I argued with that voice and then I heard this other voice say... "Trust what you've been reading. Trust your body that you really want it. I ate one serving and had my cup of hot tea with it. Guess what. I wasn't hungry any more and didn't need the whole bag. Later when my DH was hungry he got himself a bowl of cereal. I've been hungry for butter beans and cornbread. DH doesn't eat either so I fixed me a can of beans and made up the cornbread and cooked just enough of it for me and ate about 3/4 of it and put the rest down the disposal. Satisfied. I think the big deal for me is learning to trust that it is okay to eat something just because I want it and get that "Diet Voice" out of my head.

Can you share with me some of your struggles? I'm sure it would help me. Maybe we can help each other.

Hugs,
Patty

Hi Patty. I think the book that explains what you are asking is The Overfed Head by Rob Stevens. Most IE authors make the point that if you ate nothing buy so called junk food you would get tired of it. Gwen Shamblin in The Weigh Down Diet tells you to try to eat nothing but chocolate for 3 days and after that you won't be able to look at chocolate for awhile. I don't think you need to be that drastic. I think you can have a small portion of dessert every day and still eat lots of other good food. Think of all the things that you really like that are considered "good". For me it might be tuna and celery spread on crackers, tomato soup made with just tomato juice and milk (soy milk for me but regular is fine), vegetable sandwiches (I put vegetablesm such as cauliflower or broccoli, on bread and add barbeque sauce, onions, mustard, pickles or whatever and it's better than a burger), salad made with spinach, strawberries, sweet onions, chicken and almonds, ect. I sure you have your own favorites. But that doesn't mean you can't have small portions of anything. My biggest problem is that I get talked into another diet and then can't stick with it and feel so guilty. Maybe you have that problem, too.

Another thing you might think about is what you ate as a kid. There are lots of good things my mom fixed that I avoided since my 10 kids didn't like them. Recently, I've started making some of them again...... like meatloaf. ha!

Thanks Carol. I appreciate the info. I've been looking at the group on here called Whole Foods Lifestyle. I think it is feasible to eat IE using the Whole Food Lifestyle. I think what you are saying confirms my theory.

I am just being too wild on this and I am eating things not good for me. I think the freedom from guilt is good, but I want to lose weight and be healthy doing it. So been thinking that I need to follow a lot of the IE ideas and some of them are difficult... i.e. giving up the scales for a week. I'm not sure I can give it up longer than that. Besides IE is about learning to do things in a way that works for me that I can live with... no rules to break.

I've been thinking about the way I ate when I was younger, too. My Mom was a sweet eater, but I wasn't. I guess because it was so available to me. Mama could fix healthy breakfast at time, but she would rather have a sweet roll. I didn't care for all the sweets so I chose to eat nothing. I do like sandwiches which I ate at school for lunch, but dinner was just the regular 4food group meal. We didn't snack all that much either I don't guess or I know I didn't. My problem now is that I do like to snack at night. Some how I've got to learn to like healthy snacks to eat or give them up.

Hope you are feeling better. Did you say you have 10 kids? How did you have time to eat or any thing else? I babysat in my home for many, many years, but I got a break at night because they went home and left me with my 3 which I must admit were a handful. See ya later and stay warm and healthy.

Hugs,
Pat

Hello, I just found this group and think it's what I'm looking for. I've been looking for a low-stress approach to weight loss for about a year now, and am currently working with a nutritionist (doctor) and in the end I think it's pretty close to this "intuitive eating" approach.

I'm tired of being at war with my body and with food - there has to be a saner way, and I'm ok if it's slower.

Looking forward to getting to know all of you,
Sarah

Hi Sarah - welcome! :welcome3:

Patty - Yes! The whole foods lifestyle is very compatible with IE. I do judge foods, but it has nothing to do with "guilt" but I just don't want to eat refined junk - I want to eat food.
The whole "guilt" concept makes me sort of mad. I keep seeing recipes and foods that are referred to as "guilt-free." I think that's sad. As though their alternatives are supposed to induce guilt. What is that for? Are we really supposed to be motivated by guilt and fear?! No, thanks - not for me. I am still recovering from a religious indoctrination that used guilt and fear as control factors, and I am certainly not going to extend that into my dietary habits. I just want to eat real food. Not much. Not more than I need. Pretty simple, huh?

Well have a great day everyone - I'll check in later!

jo

Hello Sarah and WELCOME!!! Glad you are here. I too like the low-stress of IE. I think the one thing IE does is help us to come to terms with our eating. I can better understand why diets don't work for very long even when they do work. We all have a tendency to rebell and we don't like (I know I don't) it when someone invades our space where we think they don't belong. I think if IE is going to work me, it makes me design the way "I" want to eat, when I want to eat it and how and what I to eat it. It gives me that freedom.

I never liked eating breakfast... didn't have time for it and grew up with sweets for breakfast which I didn't care for. Now through IE if have learned that I do like breakfast because I like a healthy breakfast. I love oatmeal with berries and yogurt. I am also learning that while I do like a good dessert some times, I really prefer the healthier foods. i.e. When we go out to eat especially to some place like Ryan's or Golden Corral, I love starting with a salad, I eat a lot of veggies with a meat of my choice at the I want and I usually end with a few bites of a dessert only if they have what I really want. What always amazed me in the past was that I usually saw a weight loss, not a gain after eating that way. So why didn't I eat this way? That is what I have to figure out, but the nice thing is that IE says I can eat this way and I am learning with a little bit of tweaking that it will be and is healthy.

Again Welcome. I'm fairly new here myself and this doesn't seem to me to be a group as active as some, but you will get good info to help you if you stick around. I have learned a lot from those who are here and active. Looking forward to getting to know you.

Patty

Hi Jo:

I know what you mean about the guilt. I sure want to get rid of that. I'm not sure all food is bad so much as how we use it makes it bad. I think you can binge on just about anything. I have been thinking how I have done in the past with most foods. i.e. I have in the past bought something like a bag of candy I wanted. I would eat several pieces (maybe even would be considered a binge) but once I ate what I wanted (not the whole bag) I turned to DH and said, "That's it. I don't want any more of it". Some of those things, I have never thought of again and at this moment I can't tell you what some of them were. They are not part of my life now. I've never eaten them since. May or may not ever again. I saw some thing in the store the other day a candy and I remember thinking that I used to love those, but I have no desire to ever eat another one; I haven't in years. Why? I have no idea. I think this is where IE will help me. If I wanted it, I could have it and move on... no guilt. There is one food that I never buy and may never buy again only because in the past I could eat the whole bag in one sitting. Talk about a binge that was a binge. I will eat them at parties where I can't eat many, but never eat them at home.

Strange you mentioned the religious recovery from guilt and fear control. I have been doing some of that myself. I grew up in a church that knew nothing of salvation just a social group and then I got into a group that you were saved, but you were constantly in fear of losing it and feeling guilty. I listen a lot to Joyce Meyer on tv now and I am reading her book Beauty For Ashes. The wonderful thing I have learned in the past few months is that God's Love is Uncondtional. My relationship with Him has nothing to do with me doing everything right or feeling guilty or fearful. I don't. It is not about doing things right to keep from feeling guilty or being afraid. I have decided it is all about me just loving the Lord and trusting Him to love me whether I do everything right or not. I don't have to fit into the "box" other people have designed for me. I am at this point trying to learn to love myself and to be good to me. I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself. I can't love others the way I'm supposed to if I don't love me and I can love me if I think God is mad at me all the time because His love is conditional. Just my opinion for what it is worth. While learning to get free in my way of eating, I am also learning to get free in other areas of me life as well.

Have a great day.

Patty

Amen to that, Patty. "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works lest any man should boast." Eph 2:8,9 "And I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." John 10:28. Salvation is forever.

That's right Carol. That says it all. Hope you're feeling better and having a great day.:) This has been my first day of Whole Foods Lifestyle w/IE thinking and it has been a very good and successful day.

Hear, hear!
I am in total agreement. I'm reading a book called People Pleasers, and it falls into the whole category of doing things to make other people happy, including eating and losing weight, etc. And also confusing other people's expectations with God's expectations-- they happen to be a lot different. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. So there is no such thing as "good" or "bad" foods (those labels REALLY irk me-- it takes our focus off of the REAL things in this world that are truly Good or Bad), but just good and bad attitudes toward them (moderate enjoyment versus gluttony). Good stuff to think on.

We ate out yesterday, and I took your advice from last week-- ordered a small appetizer and a salad, not a whole entree (even shared my appetizer with everyone). Then was able to eat some baklava at the end of the meal (a fave of mine) because I had saved room! mmm!

It's curious how things develop-- don't know how, but does anyone here ever revert to the "scarcity mentality"? Meaning if there's something delicious in front of me, I think "I have to eat it ALL, because I don't know when I'll get more of this delicious food, so I have to enjoy it all NOW." The trouble is, the more I stuff myself with it, the less I enjoy it. I guess that's what this whole IE thing really is about. Just telling yourself, "It WILL be there later, and if it's not, big deal! It's just food!" I think this came from the fact that when we put something in the fridge growing up, it was fair game for my dad, so it might not even be there when we came back to get it. So we had to eat it ALL or risk losing it. And for a kid, learning how to be moderate with treats is important. My husband is so much different than my father in that regard, and I used to make fun of the fact that he would leave a tablespoon of something in the bottom of the jar if he wasn't hungry enough to finish it (would drive me nuts!). But now I see the wisdom and moderation in it, and often try to leave a bite, just to remind myself that I don't have to eat it all.

Sorry-- long post. Just had a lot of thoughts this morning. I love Monday mornings. I get to catch my breath after the whirlwind weekend!

The house is now on the market! We still have things to do, but we're ready for visitors. Having your house on the market but no showings feels like having a party and no one shows up... heehee. Just have to trust God's timing.

Thanks for the welcome!

I really found this thought-provoking : "does anyone here ever revert to the "scarcity mentality"? Meaning if there's something delicious in front of me, I think "I have to eat it ALL, because I don't know when I'll get more of this delicious food, so I have to enjoy it all NOW." The trouble is, the more I stuff myself with it, the less I enjoy it. I guess that's what this whole IE thing really is about. Just telling yourself, "It WILL be there later, and if it's not, big deal! It's just food!" "

It's really true for me in so many cases. I'm trying to break it but it's a habit from long back. Along with it is "that's my share" for desserts, etc - like if I don't have my fair share there is something wrong with the universe. Whether I love the food or not, am hungry or not.

I am finding the more I force myself to leave even one bite behind the easier it gets to let go of some of that. Sometimes it's a VERY little bite I leave, however!

Well there are two ways to have the scarcity mentality. One being as you described and the other to not eat much of the thing at all and to try with almost a reverence, to save it and make it last as long as possible.
That's what I began to do when I bought a carton of Molasses Tipsycake ice cream from the health food store. It was 1. expensive 2. made from goat milk - YAY! 3. not as sweet as regular ice cream 4. tasted like molasses. WOW, it was by far the best ice cream I had ever had in my entire life. And I don't eat sweets! I don't like sweets! I guess there are exceptions though. I had two wonderful bites and put it back in the freezer. Then, I brought it over to a friend's house the weekend of thanksgiving. What a big mistake. He ate it ALL. No more Molasses Tipsycake. I went back to the health food store to get more. No more Molasses Tipsycake. I went back the following week and then just last Saturday. No more Molasses Tipsycake.
There must be a moral to the story here. But I'm not sure what it is. In any case, I didn't have to be concerned about eating too much Molasses Tipsycake.

Oh, Jo, you are so funny. Maybe you should google molasses tipsy cake. ha! I know that scarcity mentality very well with 10 kids and a husband to compete with. Patty, could you tell us about your successful day? I think it was yesterday. It's good to hear how IE works in the life of a real person. By the way, I haven't been very successful lately.

Hi Mom2mollie, Sara, Jo and Carol,

I gues we have all had our experiences with scarcity mentality. I have actually asked people to remove a food we were all snacking on because I knew if they didn't that I was going to eat it all.

I have actually had 2 good days now counting today. After all the years of not eating breakfast as a child and thinking that was how I wanted to do now, I discovered that I actually love eating breakfast which is oatmeal with some kind of frozen berries and flavored low-calorie yogurt. I use Fit & Lite because it has 0 fat, 0 added sugar & 40 calories. Just my preference. There are some yoplait flavors that I like that I might try some time. I am actually happy eating this everyday and actually look forward to it.

DH likes to eat the main meal between 2 & 3 in the afternoon. Yesterday I had a salad with pulled pork and only enough BBQ sauce to color it. Today was tacos which I take mine and make it into a taco salad. Later in the day if I am hungry I might have another salad and put it on WW tortilla or make me a sandwich. I have taken cottage cheese and made a little dessert out of it by using non-sweetened cocoa and sweetner. Tonight I took a small helping of peanut butter and added a small amount of maple syrup just to flavor it and made me a WW PB sandwich. The strange thing is I have eaten a lot less today than yesterday. Seems I am starting to get satisfied with what I eat. Oh sometimes I eat a handful of nuts for a snack. I had a friend back in TX who ate only 1 bite of something every hour to lose weight. The only time he actually sat down to eat a meal was when we all ate together our went out to eat after our Bible Study meeting. So I figure if I eat the oatmeal for breakfast, eat our main meal early afternoon and then just snack every few hours as needed/desired but be sure they are snacks and not full blown meals that I will not be hungry and I will be more in control of what I'm doing. I've resolved in my mind (today) that if I only lose on average a lb a week that at least I will have 50 lbs gone by this time next year and I'll be healthy. I changed my goal to a more realistic goal for my age etc to 130 lbs although DH thinks I would look good at 150 lbs. We will see how that goes. I have time to decide that later. ;)

Any way that is what I've been doing yesterday and today. Try to make most of my choices healthy some times I have a little something I want, but that is how IE works. Talked to some of the people over at Whole Foods Lifestyle and a lot of things we choose to eat is just that our personal choice. I got the impression that some of them may use the IE principles with their WFL.

Just don't get discouraged. We may not be perfect all the time, but as Sara's signature says it is about Progress, not Perfection. I like that and hope I can remember it.

Catch y'all tomorrow.

I'm very much liking that idea of having a little bit of whatever we want.

It feels so weird to be trying to lose weight and yet "allowed" to eat absolutely anything. The strange thing is that it's not just cake and cookies that you want with this thinking.

I too love a good oatmeal breakfast. Yum. I have been making muesli the last few days and find it's even better.

Today I was running errands around lunchtime and thought I could have absolutely anything for lunch - what did I want. I made myself figure out what I wanted before I stopped -- I'm sure before I'd have just grabbed something at the first place I passed. Or in "dieting" mode would have searched out a salad. I went to a japanese noodle place and had a big bowl of ramen soup with a side of stir-fried veggies. I left about 1/4 of the ramen and didn't touch the rice, ate all the veggies. It's so liberating to feel not only could I have that, but I can have it again if I want it, so no need to go crazy.

By the way, that molasses ice cream sounds really good. I've never had goat's milk ice cream, but I love goat's cheese, and my favorite yogurt is sheep, not cow's milk, so I'd be game to try it...

Hi all,

I am posting to subscribe. I have enjoyed reading everything. Hi Meta!

:welcome2: Kathleen. I did something really rare tonight......I left food on my plate!!! Maybe I am learning something. My mom was really big on not wasting food. I even made an apple salad tonight so I could use up my last very ripe banana! It's just a hard habit to break. My family gave me a hard time because we have always taught the kids not to be wasteful. I didn't mind. I just couldn't eat another bite!!

I really need to start paying attention to my body. We are in the middle of an ice storm. Many have lost power. Ours was out for awhile but we have been fortunate in having power most of the time. The problem being i have reverted back to my comfort foods. -- Biscuits and Gravy, Chicken Nuggets, Mashed Potato, Hot Chocolate, Just Plain Chocolate,... anyway you get the picture. I have not even been all that hungry just anxious and trying not to think of my anxieties. I am going to try to make a clean start tomorrow. Have any of you ladies had to deal with a problem of very low self-esteem or maybe even non existant self-esteem? I know that part of this eating plan is to not put yourself down or judge but i do it constantly.

Kathleen - hi and welcome - I'm new too

Carol - good job on leaving food. This is something I'm working on. I've always cleaned my plate, and it wasn't even a rule at my house growing up. I have a hard time not finishing something, even if I don't love it. Now I try to set apart a portion I wont eat at lunch and at dinner. I don't always make it, but I try. I'm probably at 60% right now. I think it's an important behavior to have.

CherryAutumn - I struggle w self esteem issues constantly. I suspect that I always will. I've made big progress, had big backslides, and am considerably farther along today than I was in the past. One thing that has helped me progress a little is having clear and written goals for the week that are achievable (no 7 days of exercise type things). And then meeting those goals, setting new ones. Seeing that I can do it, have done it, even in just achieving baby steps helps me see I'm capable of change, of accomplishment.

Do you have anything that helps you?

Hello all!
Kathleen, welcome!
CherryAutumn, I heard about the ice storms and power losses on the news. Hope all's getting better there.

The thing about dieting is that it is fraught with opportunities to fail, i.e., opportunities for self-flagellation and subsequent low self esteem. THat's why I like IE so much. I fail so much at dieting, that it contributes to my low self esteem, and it's a vicious cycle. So... it's a learning experience, honestly, and instead of repeating those old tapes in your head that say, "I'm a failure at this" play some new tapes like, "Mmm this tastes good and I will enjoy a bite, but I control the food; the food does not control me. I control my diet; a diet does not control me." Or something. Each of us really has to find what clicks, and keep repeating it, especially when we least feel it. :)

I remember reading the Weigh Down, and she uses the verse, "He must become greater; I must become less."

You know over the last few years, I haven't even taken the time out to discover what foods I actually like. Everything I "love" has been deep-fried, covered in milk chocolate or dripping with fat. Why is that? Because I was always operating under the "scarcity syndrome"...like I knew there was a diet in my future, whenever I could get myself "under control". So, I ate and ate and ate the worse things I could find for that lifetime of controlled eating that I believed was just around the corner.

I even sat down and figured out a calorie count system for myself and what I could and couldn't eat over the last few days. I waste so many hours doing this kind of planning, even when I know it drives me crazy to even attempt counting or limiting myself to anything. I last a few hours at the most before I am ready to binge!

I don't know if the future holds a me that is under 200 pounds or not, but I do know that I am done beating myself up over my appetite and that I am ready to discover what I really do love.

If that makes any sense.

Makes perfect sense to me....
I am so over beating myself up for not sticking to the "diet" I was currently on. I've done this over and over and over for the last 40 years and I am DONE.

Intuitive Eating really appeals to me right now....

Peach

If I read this right you are in the "diet thinking" mode. Maybe you are like me in that you are afraid of gaining. I remember reading some where about someone who was afraid of IE because they would gain before they start losing. While I do still look at foods and rate them as "healthy or unhealthy/junk", I don't look at them as "legal or illegal". I think that is what we have to do. I'm still new at this myself but here is an example of how I am doing it. When I go out to eat, I order as many healthy things as possible. If I want or am in a place where I have to eat what we would call junk or not so healthy food, depending on what it is I use the 4 bite rule or the leave some of it rule. I went out to a restaurant with DH for hamburgers. I got the hamburger no cheese with all the works, got cole slaw and a cup of soup. I ate half the soup, about 1/3 the cole slaw and 3/4 the burger and I always order wate with lemon and add sweetner. I like snickers. I buy the bag of bite size and I have 1 helping which is 4 and I have that everyday. I was excited recently to learn they have come out with a Snickers dark chocolate. Haven't seen those in bite size yet, but when they do I'll get it. Don't like dark chocolate, but can learn to.

So maybe you could eat healthy and allow yourself one or even two things every day that you really do want. This way you would get rid or the deprivation and also lose that guilty, beat yourself up thing you are doing. Just a suggestion, but I hope it works. Designing a way of eating that you enjoy will bring you success. And you may be like I was for a long time, I don't think I thought I could be successful, because I thought I wasn't worth it or deserved to be thin. I am hoping that IE also helps me lose that stupid attitude. Just find a way to be good to yourself. My Mama used to say "If you don't take care of yourself, nobody else will". So learn to take care of yourself, you deserve it.

Peach, what your wrote really rang true for me.

You wrote : "I knew there was a diet in my future, whenever I could get myself "under control". So, I ate and ate and ate the worse things I could find for that lifetime of controlled eating that I believed was just around the corner."

That's it in a nutshell - for the past many years I've either been on a diet or "off" one but 'stocking up' knowing I'd be back on one soon. So eating everything in sight, especially everything I thought I couldn't eat "on" the diet.

I wrote a post in my blog today about a similar topic - I called it "scary and hard" because that's what I think this change is for me - scary and hard - but also VERY liberating and sane.

Jen - we are on the same wavelength! I am DONE with dieting. I've always felt like the failure when it comes to dieting or regaining the weight I lost. It's so heartening to learn that I am not the failure, the stupid diet is! It just doesn't work for me. That's the end of it.

Patty - thanks so much for your encouraging words. I will take some of what you said into consideration, particularly the water thing. I want to drink more water...and my body is telling me in many ways that it needs more water and less sugary drinks.

Sarah in Paree - I read your blog...such good words. I am thinking that I will start one, too. You are so lucky to have Dr. Hope there to help you!

I had my own small success yesterday. I tend to eat a great huge meal but there is something inside of me - a ritual, almost - where I have to eat at like 10 or 11pm, right before bed in order to get comfortable and fall asleep, no matter how much I ate for dinner or how full/satisfied I am. Well, yesterday I stared at my "last meal" before bed and I asked myself, "Peach, do you really need this? Do you even want it?" The answer was no! So, I packed it up for lunch and went to sleep.

Progress, y'all...

Progress indeed, Miss Peach! Good for you! :)

Basically I have never been a night eater until I started taking prednisone. Now someitimes I wake in the night with terrible stomach pains like hunger. I next to never get up in the night to eat. It helps just to have a glass of soy milk before bed. But most of the time I don't. I just never was a night eater. My DH is, however which makes it more tempting. I had a really good day yesterday mainly because I was helping miy DD and SIL cut their wood for the winter. My DH and SIL were cutting and splitting and my DD and I were stacking. I get tired pretty easy especially since we didn't get there until 2am. My SIL fixed lunch and supper which was great. I love when someone else cooks for me. We didn't get home until 12 am so I'm pretty tired today. But I slept nearly 7 hr. straight last night which is really rare for me.

Peach - congratulations on your progress. We are all learning what works for each of us individually. I know of people who are able to diet and make it work for them, but they didn't work for me. It is so good to learn that when it came to me that it was the diet was wrong, not me.

I am really enjoying my new way of eating. It is fun and exciting to know that I can eat when I want and have what I want, be satisfied and not feel guilty or like I've broken a rule. I am learning that I don't want some of the things I thought I did and I am not eating as much as I use to eat. That is really great progress for me.:)

LaDean, Are you there?

How is everyone doing? So far, so good for me. I have realized that intuitive eating and freedom from eating rules allows me to to stop obsessing about food. I still LOVE food and I imagine I always will (but I don't view that as a bad thing anymore). It's just part and parcel of who I am. I just am not obsessed with food anymore...and I truly was obsessed with what I was going to eat, how much and how much weight could/would lose.

Now, I am resting in the knowledge that I will lose and I will satisfy my appetite and life will move right along.

Yesterday's menu went like this. I ate toast and soy milk for bk and then kept busy until 2pm so I was probably overly hungry. I ate a cup of homemade veggie beef soup, toast, crackers, and a small portion of cheesecake. At 4 I was hungry again and thought that was strange but took a little nap and it went away. For supper we had chicken creole on toast and apple salad. I was statisfied with a small protion. I thought it was funny that the hunger went away and never seemed to come back. I rarely drink anything but water... maybe a little juice once in awhile and one cup of soy milk a day. My folks weren't soda drinkers but my DH is. I never go into that. Probably a good thing.

My DIL has lost 20lb in 6 weeks on WW so I have been asking her about her food plan. Seems she eats quiet a bit of bran cereal so yesterday I had bran buds mixed with regular cereal for breakfast and soup for lunch with a little more cereal I was thinking of eating some after supper but I was quite full and couldn't finish my supper of salad, venison, potato and bread. The fiber seemed to help with the hunger all day long.

Carol - yeah those fiber cereals can really fill you up. I have that for breakfast sometimes.

Peach - I am finding that I am able to focus on ENJOYING food (cooking it, planning a meal, enjoying what I eat) so much more now than before. Either I was dieting - and obsessed with food - or eating free-style - stuffing my face with everything without even tasting it. It's pretty interesting to get more pleasure from food while trying to lose weight...

Hi carol. yes i am here. just have forgot to come on. ha ha but i will do better. sounds like everyone is doing so good. i am also. i loss 1.6 lbs last week. and for the year i loss 10.6 good for me. have not gained my 33 lbs back in 4 years and now down 10 more so i feel so good about me. this is something as i have loss before and gained back. so a prayer answered for sure. but also have changed my eating alot. i am going to try that fiber ceral. when i ate protein i was full to. loss my wt on atkins. but just cannot face so much meat again. ww is good. i have all the material. i just do my thing and its good for me. ha going to after first of year do more exercise. i use to be so good with it. then got off it. do walk daily with the dog. i am enjoying christmas and having my goodies. got a whole year ahead of me to get with it. at my age i guess i am taking them now. ha ha have a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL OF YOU.. LaDean

My hunger level has been lower this week maybe due to increased fiber. Can't believe it's that simple. I lost 2 lb this week. I am going to do some more research on this. Anyone have any ideas.......Fiddler, Obi, Jo????

Hi everybody!
Carol, the fiber thing makes sense to me. I find that some kinds of fiber will absorb water and swell, making me feel more full. Especially garbanzo beans! Sometimes I swear those dang things are multiplying in my stomach! Maybe the garbanzo diet could be the newest craze. :)

jo