I feel like I need to stop calorie counting and move towards a more intuitive style of maintaining. The restriction is not working well for me anymore and it's causing me a lot of anxiety and I need it to stop.

Trouble is I'm afraid and there is a lot of comfort in counting for me. Two weeks ago I stopped counting on the weekends and that is going very well. For right now I plan to just stick with that and when I feel comfortable maybe try it through the week.

So my question is just for those of you who've done this. How did you go about it exactly, what kinds fears did you have and how's it going?

OP, I stopped but am back to it now. I have gained ten pounds in twelve months. To be honest w you though, I knew along the way I was overeating. I think it CAN be done --carefully and thoughtfully. Good luck and let me know how you are doing.

I would assume a reaonable estimate would be 12.....I have dieted and stopped counting calories about 12 times; each time I BALLOONED up larger than ever before, eventually realized my problem, and started counting calories again...........

I then stopped countingm ballooned up, started again...........

I am hoping this is my last time!!! I hope I NEVER AGAIN stop counting calories.

After I lost 65 lbs on calorie counting, I took a "break" for a couple years with no counting and did just fine. I simply ate intuitively and used the common sense that I had learned while calorie counting about portion sizes. I'm not doing that any more because late last year I decided I want to lose the last 15-20 or so, but it's absolutely what I'm going to do again when I reach my final goal and go back into maintenance.

This is hard to answer because intuitive eating is more natural for me. I don't know how I do it, exactly. But I'll try. I think you know I'm not maintaining, but I lose intuitively, so I think that kind of counts.

I tend to eat in a fairly monotonous way. I have the same thing for breakfast, snack, lunch, and another snack every day and base it around a nutritional principle.

Breakfast: Always a carb and a protein
Snack: Always a protein and/or a carb
Lunch: Always a protein and 1-2 veggies
Snack: Always a protein and/or a carb
Dinner: Usually a protein, 1-2 veggies and maybe a carb

I really do not ever vary from that unless one night out of 60 I'll have pizza for dinner. I may have popcorn, an ice cream sandwich or chocolate chips for an after dinner snack.

Eating like this, I have to be mindful of portions and of course basic nutrition. For instance, protein is a lean piece of baked chicken, not fried chicken. A carb is going to be a complex carb and never smothered in butter. But baked chicken and a small side of spaghetti is ok now and then. A full plate of spaghetti is not.

Does that help at all? It works great for me and I do not feel like I'm on a diet at all. Every now and then I'll pull out a scale and/or measuring cups to check myself or I'll use measuring cups to serve myself, especially any pasta. But I don't count the calories, just the portion size.

One more very important thing...I watch craving triggering foods. I have to keep the chocolate in check and every now and then I have to swear off it for a while. Like um...now. Gotta do that! I'll start tomorrow.

If you think your actual eating is fine and its only the security blanket of counting that you are concerned with, Id suggest two things...

1) Add a Friday to the weekends of no counting...then a Monday...then a Thursday...etc. Taper out of it essentially.

2) Create a plan to prevent failure. Ex: if your weight changes by xlbs in whatever timeframe you will starting counting again. This allows you know the tool is still avail to you if you really need it.

Oddly I quit counting calories around last summer/spring and just kept up with my workouts...and my clothes still fit! I stopped weighing myself so often...I weighed last week and before I was 170 but now I'm around 173...which oh well could be alot of things
Maybe just keep a diary of WHAT you eat instead of calories for a while? then, when you say I haven't have any sweets for XX time you can look in your diary and see that yes, you had a cookie yesterday (for example) and it might keep you on track that way?

I've thought about doing the same but it scares me too. Sometimes I feel a bit too obsessed with it all. I still weigh EVERY day at exactly 8:30am.....Why? I'm in maintenance, why do I feel like I might gain 5 pounds overnight? I still weigh every single bite of food and log every single calorie into an online food diary. EVERY DAY!

Then again I feel like I've worked hard to lose what I lost, and it's good to "guard" that loss, if that makes sense LOL

So I don't know.....is this the time to slack off and go with instincts? Or will that just lead to more and more carelessness. Ugggh.....

XTY has a good point there......Maybe watching the weight and at a certain point you realize that maybe its not working out and you need to change things or go back to calorie counting again. I just might do that. Technically I am 5 pounds UNDER my goal weight anyways so I have room to "play around" and see what happens.

I just stopped a few months ago.

I recommend the book On Eating by Susie Orbach. I am following that and it's really working for me. It's basically eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full, but she gives some great advice about doing that. This never would have worked for me before but after nearly two years of calorie counting, I think I was pretty aware how much I should be eating.

I don't count calories in maintenance. However, I do need to have a "red line" weight. If my weight creeps up above that number, I have to count calories in order to lose back under it. I cannot lose weight without counting calories.

It works pretty well for me in general. I find that I can maintain without counting for a relatively long time period. Inevitably I will gain a bit, then I count, drop the weight, and repeat. I would much rather do that (the yo-yo dieting on a very short string) than count all the time, which drives me nuts. I can only handle counting for a couple weeks at a time.

I *do* post what I ate here though. I don't weigh or measure it, I don't count its calories, but I write down what the food items were. I find that the fact that I'm telling someone what I ate makes me less likely to eat junk.

I stopped calorie counting in early November and have gained 3 lbs. I'm trying to work out a WOE that doesn't involve CC anymore mainly because I'm not cooking for myself exclusively any more. But if that scale goes up one more pound next month, I'm going back to CC.

Hm. Hard to tell. I stopped counting because I felt it was either that or ending up anorexic-bulimic, so it wasn't exactly the same thing. On the other hand, after so much time counting and always eating the same kinds of foods, I guess you get to 'know' what you can eat freely and what you have to be careful of (I know for instance what green beans + omelette + rice + a yoghurt amount to, roughly--yeah, I also know I have quite simple tastes in terms of meals ^_^;--so I don't really need to count anymore). Hope this helps.

I just read through this thread and found out what I have to do to not feel totally restricted and geeky (calorie counting and writing everything down) vs gaining 8 lbs. (which I did when I stopped counting/writing for a year).

Thanks Jessica!

Dagmar