Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was a naturally thin child and teenager. I ate when I was hungry, stopped when I was full, NEVER thought about food outside of actually eating it, and was a thin/normal weight. ****, I never knew how much I weighed in my teens because I never had reason to step on a scale except for doctor's visits. If I recall, I was a steady 105-107lbs all throughout high school (but again, that's a guess, because like I said, I had no reason to weigh or care). There were no good or bad foods. Food was just food. And that was it's rightful place.

Anyway, after high school, for some reason I decided I could stand to lose 5lbs. This was bizarre to me, because I always found dieting, calories, and the like, laughable. I overheard a girl about my age talking about the book "Skinny *****." I read it. Worst mistake of my life and has ruined my relationship with food up til this day. Being an impressionable 18 year old, I took it's advice to heart.

I went on my first fast. I did well. I made it 36hrs, but the shaking, and HEART PALPITATIONS, led me to eat. My first binge. I had never binged before that day - then again, I had never before starved myself either.

Over the next few years I gained about 20lbs through bingeing. At the end of 2010, I was desperate. I tried calorie counting for the first time; that only made it worse. I felt guilt around food, and shame. Eating used to be a neutral activity, now I feared it.

I found intuitive eating by sheer accident. I implemented it into my life because it was what most resembled my former normal habits from when I was a teen. I lost 25 lbs, through IE, from Jan 2011 - July 2011. However, I still binged occasionally.

I still live by IE because I believe it is the only correct way to eat and that's in line with human nature, rules be damned. But I have not yet gotten rid of my obsessive food thoughts. It's now a bad habit, a curse, and torture. I still feel guilt. I still know calories (I wish to god I never knew a damn thing). I still check my thighs in the mirror several times a day. It's DRAINING.

I want to be normal; I want to be free. I want to be the way I used to be. I'm thin, but I am no longer naturally thin. I wonder if I'll ever get it back: the peace, the lack of hyper-awareness. It's not natural and that's why I am in distress.'

I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT FOOD ALL DAY.

I wish I had your care-free years. My mother put me on my first diet when I was 7. I don't know how to live without paying attention to "good" or "bad" food and body image.

Maybe you could keep a food journal, it would help you become more aware of your perception of food and you could consciously begin rejecting those thoughts.

Or you could do the 1-day test. Each day, every time you think about food negatively, mark it down on a little card. Tally up each card at the end of the day and use it to track your mental progress.

The most ironic thing about all of this obsession is this: I am slightly thinner now than I was in high school, yet because in high school I was neutral about food and weight (I really did not care one iota), I was FAR more comfortable living in my body. Now, I am not. I see flaws everywhere. Things that bother me today (my legs) I would have shrugged off and carried on in my 'normal' years.

I measure my days as good or bad based on how closely I followed my hunger/fullness signals. I spend a good portion of the day envying others who are normal about food (aka, children, because I'll be damned to find an adult in this country who doesn't have at least one food hang-up).

When I was naturally thin, I used to favor sleep over food. If I had to get up a 6am for school and was hungry, I would sleep as late as possible and skip breakfast. I was never worried about going hungry - I just instinctively knew food would always be available somewhere, so who cared? I also never followed the 3 meals a day rule. I had no rules.

I want my brain to stop circling the tapes. I want no awareness, period. Thinking about why I have negative thoughts just devotes more brain power to a bad habit. I want it gone! But the more I want it gone, the more I think about it. Vicious cycle. There's nothing wrong with me except the habit I have formed. That's why I find it so easy to chill out on vacations. My habit formation is broken from the environment. I become more normal because my routine is off. My brain does not associate so and so place with my obsessive thoughts, therefore, it's very easy to play old me for the time I am away. Once I return home though...

I would advise you to just RELAX about it while you still have the luxury of doing so. If you focus too much on it you might develop an eating disorder and at that point you'll no longer have the luxury of not thinking about food. Right now you are at a good weight and you can afford to not think about food, and just eat naturally.

I think most people wish they could turn off the part of the brain that is so food conscious. Are you still struggling with binges? IE is IMO the "best" eating plan (I know people will disagree with me) so at least you're already doing that. What is your school/work/home routine like? Can you think of any activities that you enjoy that are totally unrelated to food/body image (trust me, I know it's REALLY HARD to find these, since everything from sports to photography and shopping blend those lines)?

I don't binge anymore (I quit. Could not take it anymore and forced myself to stop), but I do overeat occasionally. Overeating to me means, eating way past fullness, or starting eating when not hungry to begin with just because my mind wanted it (habit). Nothing to do with caloric content. The old me might have overate once in a blue moon, and when I did, there was no guilt. It might have happened at a sleepover or a party. No big deal. I would unconsciously eat again when I got hungry and move on. Not so much these days. These days, the GUILT consumes me. It feels like nothing short of having committed a crime.

I'm also a nursing student. At clinicals we are assigned times to eat. That is completely against everything I believe about eating. I refuse to eat when convenient to prevent hunger that might come later. This does cause a certain amount of focusing more on food than I would like though. If I refuse to eat because I am not hungry I worry people will ponder if I have an eating disorder. Just tired of it all.

Unfortunately, once we become aware of food, calories, etc., I think it is impossible to go back to that Edenic state of unawareness that many of us had during childhood. Part of this is due to the efforts of the dieting industry itself. Although I'm not one to castigate the "big bad corporations," I do believe that the pervasiveness of diet-related products is so ubiquitous that it is almost impossible for anyone in our society to approach eating completely naturally anymore. Think about it: The bigger the dieting industry has gotten, the bigger our society has gotten weight-wise.

One plan you may want to investigate is No-S (Google it). It doesn't require you to micromanage food to the extent of calorie counting, but it gives some structure to your eating, which may be needed for those who struggle with intuitive eating. I know for me that intuitve eating didn't work because it became like any other diet, i.e., I was constantly asking myself whether I was hungry or not, feeling guilty if I ate when I wasn't hungry, etc. I like the idea of intuitive eating, but my relationship with food is so skewed, that I don't think I can ever really eat intuitively again. I need structure. Right now, calorie counting doesn't bother me, but when it starts to, I have No-S in the back of my mind as my "back-up plan."

To me it is sounding like you may have some serious emotional issues and in my opinion maybe seek some counseling. You're only what? 108lbs according to you and man most of us would kill to be that weight. I constantly am thinking about food and the right food choices and staying away from it when I'm not hungry and yes after 5 months I'm tired about thinking it but I definately have big fat rolls I can grab on with both hands "not pinch" and to me I may be Wrong so excuse me you might be dealing with something beyond just losing a few pound and stopping when you're happy because you're already at a very low weight

Truer words have never been spoken.

I appreciate everyone's comments.

I think the best thing for me though, is go back to basics. If I want to quit something, I need to go cold turkey. No more dieting related forums, no more checking the clock and deciding whether or not it's been a decent amount of time between meals, no more planning my activities around when I 'might' be hungry, no more purposely getting busy to waste time until I'm hungry again. No more feeling guilty or analyzing myself after I've eaten. I've put too much thought into something that should be as natural as breathing, and where has it gotten me? My weight is starting to climb again because of the obsessing (I've just haven't changed my stats).

I have made IE into a diet, which is exactly what it is not. I feel like a smoker that needs to go cold turkey. Eventually, my mind will form new habits.

I wish you all luck in your endeavors.

Teenagers are really impressionable when it comes to body image, it's too bad the media do not promote a healthy lifestyle as opposed to extra skinny models and a "slim as possible" silhouette. Developing eating disorders and an unhealthy relationship with food is extremely easy when young girls are at a vulnerable age.

Skinny isn't everything, though, and this new awareness of food might be something that all people need to adopt as they become adults, so that we can properly nourish ourselves. I do remember having years where I was blissfully unaware of the nutritional difference between broccoli and a chicken nugget, but if I still ate the way I did back then, I'd probably be both undernourished and fat as an adult (especially since your metabolism decreases with age). It's just another sucky adulthood responsibility :P

QuarterLife88, I don't know if you'll read this, but I wish you luck and hope you can find a healthy relationship with food.

Oddly enough, it was finding out about counting calories that helped me develop a positive relationship with food. I like counting calories because it has given me power over something which has had power over me for many years.

Then again I was not thin until now (unless you count the period of my life from birth until kindergarten) and I rapidly gained weight in high school. While I ate as I pleased in high school, I didn't know how to eat to nourish my body.

I've accepted that I'll never eat as a normal thin person. It's just a fact of life for me now if I never want to end up over 200 pounds again.

According to your stats, you are 5' 3" & currently 103 lb. You are NOT overweight, not even by 2 lb (as you have listed 101 as your goal weight). You weren't even overweight at your starting weight of 108. I am also 5' 3" (and a half) and when I was in hi-school I was 103-108. I graduated at 121, therefore I was "extremely fat" in my eyes. Three months after graduation, I was down to 92. NOT HEALTHY. So my life of binging, dieting, exercising to extreme began.

I FEAR THE SAME FOR YOU. Your constant addiction of thinking of food & diet & weight & every little morsel of this thought pattern leads me to believe you have a BODY ISSUE disorder. I seriously think you should consider seeing a counselor and learning how to deal with this issue, because if you don't I fear you will become an extreme yo-yo dieter for the next 20+ years... like I did... and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

~peace to you