Hi all. Have struggled all year losing and regaining the same few pounds.
Am going to try Paul McKennas system (A kind of intuitive eating programme) I've used it before and find it worked in the short term but as with all the eating plans which I have used at times of stress or anxiety it kind of flies out of the window.
I'm going to try and enjoy my life more, day by day, decluttering the house and moving more. If I only eat what I really want I find I eat less, as sometimes I discover that if I try and narrow it down then the truth is that whatever it is that I am craving it isn't really food...

Welcome, Dolores. Have you read any of the IE books? Sounds like you are off to a good start.

I've been on these boards a while, did WW in 2004/5, lost 50lbs, have gained some of that back, want to drop 2 dress sizes this year. I don't call myself fat, but I do think I'm chubby and I'd like to look normal/slim.

I just can't do dieting anymore. OK, I'm not dieted out but I don't want to follow a specific plan, rules, regulations etc etc etc. I want to eat like a slim person. I observe them a lot, ask them about their eating habits etc, so I can learn from them.

I don't have a bad relationship with food - it's wonderful! I love it! Food is my friend, my pleasure, my drug. Every celebration that comes up, every day out, everthing I always think" what can I eat?". Sometimes I drink alcohol on an empty stonmach not to get drunk but so I can eat a HUGE takeaway. I love that feeling of being stuffed full, it gives me a high. I love to go to the supermarket and get a family sized bag of crisps (potato chips in the US?) and some chocolates and a magazine then spend time alone, just me and my stash of food. It helps relax me, it's a treat, it's an enjoyable time.

But it's making me chubby, and if I don't sort it out it will make me fat again. I want to be able to eat ONE chocolate then put the rest away. I want to be able to refuse a bag of crisps cos I don't really want them. I don't want food to be my entertainment anymore. I want to be able to have a good time without putting food at the top of my priority list. For example, when I go to a musi festival one of the most important things to me is what will be available to eat. In the future, I want to be able to go to a music festival and look forward to maybe tasting new foods, but not to stuffing myself all day, and I don't want food to be my number one priority.

My love affair with eating has been enjoyable and wonderful, but it's not doing me any good and I'd like to break it off. I can diet, sure, but that won't address the real problems I have, and I have already found that my love for overeating creeps back in

SO! I have the IE book (Tribole & Resch) and the Paul McKenna book and CD. I did the latter last year with some success, noted that I was eating about 1/3rd less in my meals (and seconds was a thing of the past) but I didn't stick to it cos I wanted my love affair/drug back. I've just started reading the IE book, I reckon I'll be reading and re-reading a few times. I know that behavioral change takes time, practice and patience, I know I can do this if I give myself those 3. But I'd like some support. When I tell people I intend to lose fat by eating only when hungry and stopping when full, they either laugh, ask me how is that so difficult (oh how little they understand) or they tell me the only way to do it is to diet - I've even been told I should starve myself!!! HA!! I'm not silly enough to do that, I know that's an automatic ticket to Fatsville.

SO I'm on this thread. I'm looking for support, ideas, successes, tips and tricks, understanding, anything! I'm happy to share back too of course (I love helping people, I just wish I was better at helping myself).

Oh - and my name is Jenny, I'm 38, live in the UK (south of London), am married to a supportive husband, no kids (through choice) but 4 guinea pigs. I hope the IE threads will keep going, I'll be here if you all will

Welcome, Jen. There is a great group of IE people in the UK called Beyond Chocolate. I get their newsletter. I haven't read their book but I hear it is great. I have actually had that same love affair with food, even when young, and I wasn't fat then. Now I hate that full feeling. There are a lot of posts here to get ideas if you read all the old ones and that would take a long time......about 3000 posts..... just an estimation.

This may not be true for you, so ignore it if it isn't - but I'm not sure that's really a "wonderful" relationship with food. With similar logic, addicts could call their relationship with their drug "wonderful." Your experience may not be so extreme, but I think it helps to realize what's problematic about your relationship with food along with what's good about it. Any relationship suffers if too much is expected of it, and it's expected to fulfill needs it can't.

I only say this because when you don't get high on being stuffed and don't rely on food to relax or treat yourself, you actually start to enjoy food in a whole new way, and it's really a pleasure . And you start to enjoy other things in your life more.

Again, if that's not you, I'm not trying to insist it is! But I think it's an interesting idea for discussion in general ...

I'm reading a book called "Consumed: Why Americans Love, Hate, and Fear Foodd" by Michelle Stacey, 1994. Crown Liquidation Center had a New Year's Day half price sale, so it was $2.12, so I thought what the heck

What is very interesting so far is how many ideas we think of as modern have been around a long, long time.

In response to some calls for food reform of the day, in 1832, some one objected and wrote "Disease lurks behind the fat sirloin, and there is Death in the tureen of turtle-soup. Whenever I go to a dinner party, it seems to me that I see in my mind's eye, the incarnate forms of Gout, Apoplexy, and Fever, bringing in the dishes and coaxing their victims, just to take one slice more."

And another from 1889 "Did you expect to stuff all that [nutrition] jargon into my head? Haven't we agreed that we will enjoy our food? How on earth could anybody enjoy life if they had to keep counting and comparing those hideous things with every mouthful we eat!"

Hi Julie

thnak you for the reply. When I said my relationship with food was wonderful i meant to put over some sarcasm. Food for me IS like a drug, and if I carry on in this way I will get fat.

I'm aiming to remove that link that overeating = fun. I don't want food to be my drug, I want to find other ways to relax and enjoy myself. I have at times managed it, so that when I do eat something "bad" then I eat less of it and do really enjoy it. I want to be able to eat a smaller amount and enjoy it more.

I didn't manage that last night - the chocolate monster got me But I won't give in! Still got the rest of the IE book to read, and I realise that changing habits can take a while. I'm in this for the long haul.

Wow, Julie, I didn't know food fetishes went back that far. Sounds like a really interesting book.

Interesting conversation at work today ... i was in the office kitchen making my lunch and got chatting to a guy i don't know that well. We talked about how cold it was and how that makes people in general eat more.

he stated that he finds that he gains about 3kg (about 6-7lbs) during the winter and it "just comes off again" in the summer. i asked him if he's ever dieted and he said no, never.

Hmmmm ..... I'm enjoying the IE book, learning a great deal! Carol thank you for the beyond chocolate tip, I've signed up for the newsletter and will likely get the book, it has outstanding reviews!

Julie I loved the quotes, especially the one from 1889.

Not much new today but wanted to say hi and how is everyone doing? I have kind of stayed the same for awhile but I'm very thankful that I have kept off 30lb for 6 mo. Could be worse but I'd like to lose another 20.

Wow - keeping off 30lb for 6 months is good going. There are people on diets who'd bite your hand off if you offered them that.

Well, I'm into the first few days of the rest of my life. I'm beginning to de-programme myself from the diet mentality, which I didn't even realise included "healthy/careful eating". I am starting to wake up to how ingrained the dieting mentality is. I looked into the history of dieting too, the big start seemed to be the 1960's (although dieting ideas have been for about 100 years before that) and notice how that co-incides with people in general (in the developped world) getting fatter. I feel like I'm shouting "HELLOOOO!!! CAN YOU NOT SEE THE LINK??!!"

There is a ceral company here in the UK that is pushing a diet called "the slimmer jeans challenge". The idea is that you have one "balanced" meal a day then replace the other two meals with a bowl of cereal. Their cereal of course. This isn't a healthy way to eat, it'a a marketing ploy. I feel like asking anyone who is doing it why they are letting the ceral company tell them what to eat. They wouldn't let the cereal company tell them what to wear, when to get up, how to think so why what to eat? Rant over

I'm feeling quite elated and happy about this IE thing. It's similar to the diet start elation I have felt before (you know that feeling .. "this is THE ONE! I can stick to this, it's easy" etc etc. But this time it's different. it's difficult to put into words how I feel this time .... happy yes, excited yes, but alos part of me is saying "will this REALLY work? Will I be slimmer?" I suppose that's diet mentality creeping in ... my real aim I suppose is to stop eating anything when I am not biologically hungry.

Success this week .... on Tuesday I bought a BLT baguette from the sandwich van at work. I ate it mindlessly, but luckily noticed just before I polished it off that I was actually stuffed, at number 8 on the hunger scale (I use the scale from the Paul McKenna book, 1 being faint from hunger and 10 being nauseous from eating too much. I start eating around 3 or 4 and stop at 6 or 7. number 8 is "stuffed"). I stopped eating there and then. Old me would have polished off the last bite regardless, and also old me would have looked at that baguette even BEFORE I'd started eating it and said "that's not enough". I often do this - i think it's a hangover from doing WW points, where the pointed meal on my plate didn't "look" enough.

So onto the next day ... I bought the same baguette but ate it more mindfully ... hey presto only half of it was needed to fill me up! Result!!

OK ... sorry this is long ... I'm so happy to have found IE and this thread ... it's good to have company on this journey, I know it will be a long one (I've been through behavioural change before .. I know it takes patience and consistency) ..... how is everyone else doing?

I've been in a kind of picking mood today.........don't feel like a meal....just bites and tastes. Anyone else ever feel like that? I've been cooking 3 meals a day for company the last week so now I don't feel like cooking. If someone would just tell me what to make I'd be fine. Ha!

Definitely. Sometimes I just want small, simple and/or light things. And it isn't even necessarily about cooking laziness (although sometimes it is ) - sometimes that's really what I'm *hungry* for. So I try to go with it.

Plenty of other times I'll be hungry for "real food," so to speak - hearty, cooked food. So it all comes around.

My husband is a natural Intuative Eater and sometimes I ask him what he wants for dinner and he says he's not really hungry and just wants a bit of toast. He might then go on to have a yoghurt and a couple of other picky things. He says he sometimes has "not hungry" days and doesn't worry about it.

Hi there! Just wanted to let y'all know I'm still here reading the posts everyday. Don't usually have time to post.

Still trying to eat intuitively, and I know it's working. Last night we stopped for dinner at a fast food place (we usually eat organic, vegetarian, whole foods, etc., so this was definitely different). The food tasted blech, and I realized I wasn't hungry because it didn't taste good.

When it still tastes good, I keep eating. When it starts to not taste good anymore, I quit. Trying to keep monitoring my hunger, the food's taste, my emotions, etc. It's always a learning process, and is taking years, I'm realizing! But I didn't gain any over Nov/Dec, so that's awesome. My mom gained 6 lbs, and MIL gained 3. Their thinking is tainted by the "diet mindset" and they are both always on a diet. Wish I could help them see there's a different way, but that thinking is a product of our culture...