Glad to hear everyone is having a good day. Me as well, had an amazing salad for lunch with arugula,prosciutto and avocado with my special reserve balsamic vinegar dressing. That was a few hours ago and I just realized there was no carbs in it. How about that.

Wannabe, you salad sounds absolutely delicious!

I got into a stupid fight with my husband this evening and I was for a minute going to run off and devour some ice cream and chocolate. And it was a strong drive, like I didn't care that I wasn't hungry or anything I have been working on. But, in my book I am reading (Eat what you love, love what you eat) she mentions eating when you are angry and resentful. Its what one of the work shop participants said and it really struck a BIG chord with me as when I do eat emotionally it is often due to anger and resentment.

"Ive noticed that when I am feeling resentful about something, I'll reach for food as sort of a compensation. But if someone offered me food on those terms, I'd never accept it. Just imagine someone saying. "listen, I've decided to treat you unfairly but I'm happy to buy off your feelings with this plate of goodies." Yet that's precisely what I am doing each time I'm angry and I reach for food to soothe myself."

So, I kept imagining my husband coming in and saying "yeah I'm acting like a total jerk, and Im going to keep being a total jerk. Here is some ice cream everything is better now right?" And I didn't eat anything. Later after we worked everything out and I wasn't emotionally hungry any more I thought about what I really wanted and a cup of tea sounded really good and soothing so I made that.

Another thing this book says that I also feel is important to me is it says to:

Eat with the goal of feeling better than when you started.

Obviously emotional eating does NOT feel better after you are done eating. Sugar does not feel better then when I started. So, so far this book has been worth the price for me just in these two paragraphs.

That's inspirational Pinkhippie, very good to know. I've always known that I am an "emotional eater" but since starting IE I can finally start to understand what that means. I'm starting to identify the process of how I convert my uncomfortable feelings into food and fat stress. And catching ourselves eating in the midst of high stress/frustration/anger or whatever emotion is crippling us at the moment has saved me several times from jumping into a vat of fudge.

For example, a few days ago my toddler was really irking me. I'd been chasing him around all morning to get dressed and go out to the park. He'd squirm away, giggle and hide and let me tell you, an hour can go by and I've only managed to put on one sock and shoe. I was getting aggravated and the rest of the morning did not go well either, I couldn't reign him in at the park, he cried and screamed at the grocery store, he pulled stuff off the shelves, he tried to run off in the street, he squirmed and complained when we had to stop at the bank and do all our errands. Basically it was an annoying morning, not at all peaceful or productive.

We came home to lunch and I was still aggravated, and very very hungry. He would throw his food and.... anyway I was in condition to sit and eat after I put him down for his nap. Usually I'd eat with him but I didn't want to eat while I was so worked up, eventhough my body was screaming with hunger. I knew it was real hunger, but I also knew that I needed comfort and relief from my high level of angst. And I did not want that, I had a lovely meal planned and I wanted to enjoy it, not use it to comfort me. So I put him down for his nap and then waited, took a few breaths, laid down on the couch for a bit and regained my composure. Then, I sat down to eat and I'm so glad I waited even though I had gotten a little too hungry by then. If I had eaten while I was still anxious I probably would have regretted it after wards and felt like I had eaten for the wrong reasons.

Oh yes I can relate to that. I have had some crazy days like that. I know a lot of my emotional eating, especially in the early years of childhood is purely stress. It usually used to be that as soon as baby was down for a nap I was eating some kind of treat as quickly as possible. I do the same thing for nap a lot of times with waiting to eat lunch. Sometimes I eat lunch with the kids but more often I try to wait until my toddler is down for her nap and the 4 year old is occupied with quiet time to eat my lunch. I find eating in a peaceful environment is so much better and its so much easier to concentrate on my food and enjoy it.

That was a great idea to lay down and relax before you started eating. I will have to try that on stressful days.

Im still working my way through the book and another thing that I have been applying that I found helpful is that she says to set your intention before you start eating. Like how full do you want to be? I find that really helpful. It helps me not overeat if I consciously tell myself that I plan to eat until the hunger goes away but I don't feel that uncomfortable stomach stretching. She uses the typical hunger scale but I think sometimes those are confusing.

"You Need To Lose Weight; Your BMI is in the Obese Range". That is what my GYN told me today. This was a new dr that I've never seen before. As she was telling me this all I could think to myself was "does she think I just don't care that I'm fat or that I don't know I'm fat? Really...I'm overweight..geesh I didn't know that". Left feeling down. I know she meant well and didn't push any diet on me..just said eat less and exercise more. It's amazing how quickly a dr can make you feel bad though. I've been struggling with diet mentality anyway.

I hate going to the doctor. I've moved around a bunch in the past several years and every time I see one it's a new one. So I always get the 'you're obese and you need to lose weight" talk. Like I haven't been struggling with my weight for years. Like I don't know that I'm obese, that my joints hurt, that I'm not considered attractive by 99% of people. Like I don't know how bad it is for my health, my spirit, and my mind. At my last physical I explained to the doctor that I had lost about 50 pounds in the last year. "That's not enough, she said. You need to eat 1200 calories per day. You've been obese your whole life it's time to do something about it." She knows nothing about my eating disorder, my struggle with alcohol/drug abuse, my self harm, my history. All she sees is a weight on a chart and she's programmed to say that diet and exercise are the key... even though statistically speaking people almost never keep it off. So yeah I just ignored her. She doesn't know me. Listening to my heart for 15 seconds, weighing, measuring my blood pressure... Those don't give physicians enough insight into a body. It's up to me to know myself. Doctors are good for treating people who are sick. I'm not sick. I'm not broken.

I sympathize. I have lost 40lb with IE and would never consider dieting again though I should lose another 25. I weigh around 155 and am 5ft. 4in.

I don't like being told by a doctor that I need to lose weight. I quit one doctor because of that. They probably feel that it's their job to talk to you about it. In a lot of cases, it depends on why you went to the doctor. Some medical problems are made worse by weight and it needs to be addressed. The doctor I have now never mentions my weight unless it goes down, so I know he's looking at it and comparing it to the last visit.

How do you guys explain IE to those who don't really care to understand it?

Today I had breakfast at 10, didn't really get hungry for lunch until around 6. I told my friend I needed to go grab something for lunch and she went into this long-winded speech about "you're putting your body in starvation mode! that's so bad for you to wait that long before you eat! You need to eat no more than every 5 hours"

Now she is one of my close friends, and i love her to death, but she is really entrenched in the diet and "healthy" mentality.

I explained to her that I just eat when I'm hungry and don't when I'm not and she still argued about how I need to stop eating my meals so late..blah blah blah.

What should I say? She wasn't interested in hearing about any of the principles of IE

Just say "yea you're right" and move on. Don't try to force the issue if she's not listening. Remember that there's nothing that she can do to force you to eat and there's nothing that you can do to change her mind about dieting. Lecturing you about when to eat is not really about you, she's just saying that to reinforce her own dieting principles for herself. Diffuse the situation by remaining neutral and not veering into debate.

Hopefully this will discourage her from lecturing you about eating. But if it continues then you have the right to put a stop to it. It would probably lead me to take a more aggressive stance and say something like "my eating habits are not something that I want to discuss with you or anyone if you don't mind" or "I appreciate that you're looking out for my well being but we can't have matchy matchy diets, I eat how I like to eat and you eat how you like to eat. we're not twins" I know that's a bit harsh but say what you have to say to get her off your back.

I was involved in an uncomfortable dieting discussion last week and I didn't participate much. My friend has started a weightloss plan, she signed up to a gym and has a personal trainer and dietician. All she talks about is fitness and diet. Her dietician has put her on an eating plan that requires her to eat mostly protein and vegetables and claims that she has a 2hr eating window in the evening for eating carbs. She claims that her body can only process carbs during this window and not at any other time of day. Obviously I think that's kind of silly, eating windows sound like scary business to me but she's paying a lot of money to undergo this training program, who am I to argue with her? I have to respect that other people will choose methods that work for them but I can't let that deter me from what I'm doing nor does it prompt me to lecture them about altering their course. It does not go unnoticed though that all she talks about is food and nutrition and fitness, while I talk about food and nutrition less and less and less now if any at all.

I deal with the same thing with my husband only with him it's "blood sugar". I just tell him that food doesn't taste as good when Im not hungry so I want to wait until I am so I can enjoy it more. I tell him I don't want to waste the food by eating it when Im not hungry. He still thinks I'm crazy though. There have been a few times that I just don't mention to him that I haven't eaten. It really is easier that way.

So I wanted to update on Eat what you love love what you eat. I thought the first part was excellent as it dealt with emotional eating, how to tell if you are hungry and how to stop when you are satisfied. It had a good chapter on self care as well.

But then it went into nutrition, it actually used the words fat and calories and portion size. She suggested that if it didn't make you feel deprived, to choose the healthier option, the one with less fat and calories. Maybe it would be a good book for someone afraid to plunge into IE who doesn't have disordered eating but for me it was extremely triggering. It also had a lengthy section on exercise. If I didn't already have a well established exercise routine that I really enjoy that chapter would have made me feel pretty hopeless. By the time I went to bed last night I was contemplating counting calories again. Im really disappointed in that book. Just wanted to let everyone know in case they were considering it for reading. I kind of had a feeling with it including recipes but the reviews were so good I decided to check it out.

But the first part really was good and I got some helpful insights out of it so it wasn't a total waste.

It was a diet book in disguise? Well don't worry, at least you got something out of it. A lot of people believe they do IE and then they restrict something. I suppose this works for some. I hope that it works for me one day, not that I want to restrict but I would like to make the healthier choice and not feel deprived. I actually do this now, but it has to feel right. Sometimes I make my breakfast and think "I think I'll like this omelette fine without any cheese in it" and it turns out that it's true. If I really want the cheese though I go for it.

Yes see my problem is, after so many years of deprivation and denial, that I will TELL myself I really do want the healthier option and believe it in the moment but deep down its not true, and then later on will have a total rebound boomerang effect into what I consider "not healthy". Also, the nutritional science was very against what I have been reading a lot lately. It was all low fat and told you to make the switch to skim milk as soon as you can and to try to never eat saturated fat and that MARGARINE was better. I mean obviously nutritional science is totally controversial and contradictory these days but I thought it just seemed really misplaced in an emotional eating/ intuitive eating book. Especially because I have discovered I actually feel much better and more satisfied when I make sure to eat more fat in my diet. So yeah it was kind of a diet book in disguise. Eat what you want, but try to make it the healthier option, listen to your body, but THIS is what you SHOULD be eating. That is just not a workable solution for me.

Hello all!

I've been MIA, primarily because I've been so busy lately. I went from no jobs to two jobs in the space of a few months, and it has been quite an adjustment. I must admit, however, that I am enjoying being out in the "real world" again. I'm meeting lots of new people and it has been really good for me, after spending years caring for an elderly parent.

There are other benefits as well. I would say the most significant for me, as it relates to food, is my inadvertent return to an eating pattern I haven't experienced since I was a young parent. I think the reason for this is that my physical level of activity is higher than it has been in quite some time. Even caring for an elderly parent didn't require a lot of prolonged physical activity, as my duties were primarily administrative in nature. I was fortunate that we had adequate resources to engage other caregivers for the more physical aspects of care. Sure, I had to do some of it, but not on a consistent, day-to-day basis.

Both jobs require me to be on my feet almost all the time, and I am also moving constantly. This is quite a change in my lifestyle and even though it's not the same as regular sustained aerobic exercise, it's so much more than I have been doing in the past that its affects have been significant. I am not only moving more, but eating less. Why? Because I only eat when truly, absolutely hungry. I'm too tired to even THINK of eating at any other time.

This is exactly how it was when I was a young parent. I am amazed at the similarity in my eating patterns, and I am even more amazed at how quickly I reverted to it once my physical activity increased and my free time decreased.

I am now in a truly intuitive eating pattern. So much so that my interest in even discussing food has dropped to zero. Which is why I haven't even been on the forums, nor do I intend to continue.

But I did enjoy "meeting" so many of you on this journey and I wanted to come back just to update as well as to say goodbye. I haven't had time to read over the posts but I do see lots of activity, and I hope that all of you have continued success on your own journeys. I am convinced more than ever that diets don't work and I believe all of you know that as well.

I wish all of you the best.