Jelma Glad you are here and look forward to getting to know you.

Hi Trish and everyone!

I'm OK, thanks for asking. Just been quietly reading. Not much going on with me. I must be doing IE well because I'm not stressing over food and don't really have anything to say about it. LOL! Now as for the weight ... well, that's another story. It is what it is. I just need to watch my portions if I ever want to get the weight off. That's the only way I can ... and I know it.

Carol, hope everything goes OK for your hubby!

Have a great one everyone!

Blue,

i hear you about the portions... live and learn =S

Hi Everybody,

Had a fairly good IE day yesterday. Better than the day before.

Blue and ALO I too need to watch my portions more as well. Need to pay more attention to eating slow and recognizing that "satisfied" feeling rather than rushing through my meal to get through. That is when I seem to overdo portions.

I am still dealing with that stupid "diet mentality" voice talking to me that I'm trying to ignore. I hope there comes a day I am free of that stupid voice.

I need to get back to those 4 Golden Rules I was following before the holidays. For those who don't know what those are...

(1) If your hungry eat.
(2) Eat what you like [IE says what you love], not what you think you should eat.
(3) Eat slow and savor every bite.
(4) Stop when you start to feel full. I prefer when I feel satisfied.

That is such a simple way of following IE and so easy to do. It should be. I think I've been so "diet focused" for sooooo many years that maybe subconcously I have a really difficult time believing those 4 simple rules or ideas will work. But I know they will because they worked for me in the past. I've just got to those thoughts right out of my life and start to trust those 4 little GR again. Yes it is slow losing weight, but hey isn't losing slowly better than not losing at all or maybe even gaining more?

Sorry, guess I'm giving myself a good talking too.

Y'all have a great week end and I'll catch y'all later.

Hi all. Dh is still having more tests because they can't figure out why he is having chest pain. The cardiologist doesn't think it is the atrial fibrilation. His bp and pulse are good and he gets lots of exercise. He is a veterinarian and a farmer and plays all kinds of sports including snow boarding. They did the 24 hr. heart monitor and will do a stress test Mon. Lots of running to the dr. and it is an hour away. Still freezing rain here. I like to stay home. IE is ok just now.

Carol... You know what I've come to realize in my short 24 years of life? That somtimes being an adult sucks =S
I'm sorry you and your husband have to go through this.

Speaking of DH's... Yesterday (Jan 22) was our first wedding anniversary =D I can't belive it ^_^

Portion control is something I have been working on lately. I fight the old habit of filling my entire plate, lest I forget my satiety and eat to clean the plate. I figure I can always go back for more if I am still hungry... although I don't want to make a habit mindlessly of going back for more, either. I guess the key is remembering to be "in the moment."

Welcome, Katterina. Looks like you don't have far to go. That's great!

Hi all! I'm new to this thread. I was wondering if anybody was doing what I was doing. It seemed most people were counting calories or following a specific diet plan. More power and all the best to them. But it's not something I could do, I realized.

I don't want to focus on food. I was somewhat addicted to eating. The worst part is my body was giving me signals to stop and I wouldn't listen. Feeling uncomfortably full, regurgitating back food (not on purpose), etc. I just wouldn't stop.

Since the beginning of January I've just focused on listening to my body, for once. That and I just started running yesterday (hoping to keep it up or at least run as many days I can). And so far I've lost 15 lbs. I've been eating three times a day, only as much as I need, stopping when my body says enough. When I do eat, I try to choose the most healthiest thing available to me. I keep healthy food around me to choose from so I don't have to plan, plan, plan. I don't believe planning out what I'm going to eat for the whole week is the way to go for me. Life is too short and unexpected to plan and count calories. I want to train myself in such a way that even in an emergency situation I know what to eat, what's good for me and choose accordingly. I appreciate my body so much more now. I'm not afraid to go hungry for another hour or so until lunch time anymore. Grazing what got me into this obesity mess in the first place, whether I was hungry or not. Psychologically, eating every three hours or so puts me back in that binging mindset, that I have to be eating something constantly.

Basically, I'm just taking this one day at a time. I'm glad there's a thread for intuitive eating.

Carolr So sorry you are going through all this. You are in my thoughts and prayers.

ALO Wishing you and your DH a HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

katterina and Lucky Charm Glad to have you two here.

Katterina I too am working on portion control although we are supposed to learn to stop when we are starting to feel full. It seems that lately portion control is what I need to work on.

Luckey Charm CONGRATULATIONS on the 15 lbs lost. I am in agreement with you. I don't want to spend all my time focused on foods, writing, counting planning in advance. I also want to be able to go with the flow of what is going on around me and just learn to eat only what I need to satisfy me and no more. I want to enjoy what I eat not be afraid of it for some reason or other.

Trish: THANK YOU

Katterina: Seems like you've been doing IE for a while. Congrats and welcome =D

Lucky Charms: You hit diet rock bottom: THAT'S GREAT! I dare say we are all here because we came to the same conclusions you did. Welcome =) It's always nice to find a group of people that make you feel that you are NOT crazy for not dieting, even if we need to lose some weight.
If you haven't read Intuitive Eating 9th book) I would highly recommend it. I find that I reread parts of it all the time and discover new things.

I've noticing lately that I am past the food experimentation part and I am more settled with IE: noticing my body's reaction to food, WAITING TO BE HUNGRY BEFORE I EAT (this is a big one) and stopping mid way through my food.
I went through a pasta face and an ice cream face and a chocolate face and now they are fading away. I can take them or leave them. I feel I am making progress, I am very happy about it

Yesterday I ate a sandwich and some nacho chips (less that ten) and my belly got SOOOO swollen because of the bread and the salt. And the coolest thing was that my mind understood it was just bloating that would go away, instead of beating myself up and calling me fat.

Other thing about body image: we went shopping the other day with my friend. I bought a size 5 (yes, size FIVE) dress, I fit into a size 6 skirt but had to buy size 13 jeans!!!! WTH?! How does that make sense anywhere? So I decided I'll just buy whatever fits me well and looks nice instead of worrying about labels.

ALO22, that size thing seems strange. I fixed a big dinner today for company and could only eat a few bites. I need to do more of that.

ALO22 - Great job and terrific on the size 5. You are doing great.

Last night we went to our small groups class and Pastor had bought small subway sandwiches and different flavors of 1 serving bags of chips for us to eat. His wife cut one in half and took half and I took the other half. I got a bag of regular chips. There was I time I would have eaten a whole bag and probably wanted more. I didn't even eat half the bag of chips and really should have stopped eating the sandwich after eating 3/4 of it but being at church I didn't want to waste. Probably need to work on that. Any way, I brought the leftover chips home and poured them into DH bag of chips. However, I felt that I experienced a real accomplishment for me. I usually don't eat at any of these things for fear of getting into a habit or of overdoing, but I wanted it and thanks to IE I felt free to eat what I wanted of it and enjoy it. And I did with no guilt. Came home and was satisfied and didn't feel the need to eat any snacks.

pattygirl63, lol, it's funny, I've had a variety of successes, but yes, I distinctly remember how crazy it felt the first time I had chips (really good, thick ones) with a sandwich and realized I just didn't want anymore, even though they weren't all gone. Chips are crazy

DH had a stress test yesterday and did fine. They can't see any blockages but they put him on a beta blocker and liptor. His sis wrote him tonight and told him her experience so maybe that will be some help. She was put on liptor ten years ago but doesn't take it anymore. She says to eat less red meat, fat and to eat a little oatmeal. She is overweight so these things helped even with that. My Dh is good at losing weight and is working hard at it right now. He just never keeps it off but then he is only about 30lb over.