I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who are eating "mindfully" or "intuitively" and are obese. Especially emotional eaters. Most will tell you that they were listening to their body. Your mind can send powerful signals.

We've evolved (or devolved, depending on your perspective), to the poi9nt where we need to regulate ourselves because we can no longer depend on intuition.

Yea I heard that too and it was really annoying. I found the whole thing annoying. I listened to it on Bluetooth in my car and I still heard the smacking sounds yuck.

I too was not impressed with the "I lost 10lbs and look at me now" statements. I refuse to believe that my set point is 199lbs and that no matter what I do my body will fight to stay there. "Set point goes up but it doesn't go down," "someone who's lost weight burns less calories than someone of the same weight that was never heavier" and "when your mother said life isn't fair this is what she was talking about" were some other statements that really turned me off. She offered no hope.

Geez, I had the exact same thought. I thought I was just distracted by the ill fitting dress and the dry mouth. Because I'd already come around to mindful eating, I knew what message she was trying to get across; but there's no way I'd have an a-ha moment from that clip. People hear "diets don't work" and they think someone is telling them not to even think about losing weight when that's not what it means at all.

I am not a fan of the video and did not find her or her information that compelling.

If I listened to my body's signals, and I mean REALLY LISTENED HARD, I wouldn't fit through the door and my diet would be mainly Oreos and Fritos.

Intuitive eating isn't for me, personally, though I'm sure it will work wonderfully for some others. I think people shouldn't be afraid to try it, but also shouldn't be afraid (or feel like a failure, or feel broken) if it DOESN'T work for them.

I love it! And, me too.

Sorry, but I couldn't resist. That talk was a downer!

Okay but seriously now... her point of staying at a "height weight" for too long makes a lot of sense, which is why 85% of people usually gain their weight back within 5 years time, and then some. (I think she made a point of a 7 year time frame, though.) I think she's on the right track... but for those of us (*raises hand*) who never really practiced dietary habits, it's very hard to eat mindfully. Plus, if you're of my mindset that processed foods containing sugar and salt are extremely addictive substances, then it's hard knowing when to put the fork down, as they say.

Anyway, I did enjoy her talk though. I think she does make a lot of sense and I think the most important thing to walk away from that talk that everyone can agree upon is the underlying theme of self love that we seem to lack in our society today. It seems that there is so much pressure placed on people to look a certain way. If we don't look a certain way, then it is implied that we are not entitled to love.

Actually, while watching this, I thought about a beautiful, sexy young woman whom I know of who has a lot going for her. She's very cute and intelligent and talented, yet she is obsessed with her body. She admitted in so few words that she suffered from eating disorders/body dysmorphia, and it just breaks my heart to think that she cannot see what I and other people see in her. I would *love* to have her body, but for her, she doesn't think it's good enough, for whatever reason she has in her mind.

But then that got me to thinking... well, aren't I being hypocritical? Perhaps there's a person out there who is 100lbs.+ heavier than me right now who'd LOVE to be at my weight... who would love to take me by the shoulders and shake me and go, "What is wrong with you? You are beautiful!"

So I think it's very important to (as the old saying goes) learn to love ourselves before we ever even start the diet/lifestyle change game. If we can't love ourselves with the 10 extra or 200 extra pounds, then how are we going to love ourselves when we reach our goal weight? What then? We have to have perkier boobs next, or hair extensions, or a gap between our thighs or flawless skin, etc.? That's why for the past year or so I've been working on *why* I want to be thinner; it's because I feel awful. And when I feel awful, I cannot be a service to other sentient beings the way I would like to, let alone myself. Once I got to that point, making the decision to try to slowly change my "bad habits" appeared to be something that I could actually do and succeed at. Sure, I'm not sure if I'll ever be a size 12 or smaller again, but at this point, I'm not sure I even care if that happens. I just want to be healthy and use my body to serve the world in the best way I can. And I think that's what matters most in this life-- not makeup and jewelry and fashion and getting a 6 pack. All those things are nice time wasters, but... when it comes down to it, does it really matter? When we look at heroes like Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandella, do we really care what they look like or how big their waist is or what designer shirt they're wearing? Of course not. They were beautiful because they were beacons of light and hope, not because they were properly photoshopped on Vogue.

Anyway, that's my rant. Take it for what it's worth. But to summarize: I agree with mindful eating *to a point*, but I still think the most important key to losing weight and staying healthy is self-love. I think there is a fine line between the two-- at least in terms of how she was describing mindful eating in her talk (i.e. a more physiological stance rather than a spiritual one).

I haven't gotten to watching the video yet, so can't/won't comment on that, but loved reading the comments and was especially struck by Dakini's aha moment: Thanks for that

i haven't watched the vid yet (ducks head) but to me mindful eating only means when i eat my carefully thought out, portion controlled diet plan i make sure to focus on my food, how it tastes, and the pleasure i get from it instead of popping something into my mouth while doing a thousand other things and not savoring the experience.

If i mindfully ate how i did when i was 100 lb's heavier, i still would be eating FAR more calories than i do now

Well, first I had to wrap my head around how a "naturally thin person" thinks. I.E., those people that naturally can take just a handful of potato chips and have it hit the spot. Or for whom 1 slice of pizza suffices and that eating 3 or 4 slices would never occur to them. Once I got that, it made sense to me. I dunno why but I'm glad it did.

I had something weird happen to me today. I suddenly craved cauliflower. Never happened to me before.

Yeah, I think that's by far the biggest difference between naturally thin and overweight people -- not set point, not metabolism, not any immutable biochemical destiny. It's what food means and doesn't mean to them. We crave fullness, they don't. We experience food as solace, they don't. We derive a type of pleasure from food that they simply don't.

JMHO Freelance

Yuppp. While I don't have that naturally-thin mindset, I can understand it - most of my family/friends are like that, including carb-lovers. My 117 lb, 5'6'' aunt maintains easily at nearly 50 years old, never tried to lose weight and she's a total carb-lover, but isn't obsessed with the act of eating all the time like I can be. Perhaps in another environment, I could have grown up not-chubby, but various family/environmental combined with the love of eating past-hunger resulted in my higher weight. Ah well! Fortunately, its one of my few "vices" (I don't feel any slight affinity to cigs or alcohol)

I'll never be that way (satisfied like how a "naturally thin" person eats) i just exercise a lot of self discipline BUT i agree with the later part in that since i eat mostly clean, i find i crave good healthy food much more and enjoy healthy foods i would have never touched before and that's a good thing!

I didn't watch the video. I'll be honest. I don't know what she presented in it, but obviously it was spun in the wrong light. I honestly think there is a lot of sense in Mindful and Intuitive eating. For anyone who is frustrated and not seeing results, I definitely recommend this book called "The Overfed Head" by Rob Stevens. You can download the pdf for free if you google it. It really laid out exactly what mindful eating is all about and why we are so sure we can't be satisfied with less food.

I'm not far into my journey, but I'll just tell you how it's gone for me. I've been trying this since December 27th and I've lost 6 lbs in 3 weeks, so 2 lbs a week. I seriously feel like my life has been changed. I have *become* one of those women who is satisfied with a few of something, or 1 slice of pizza. Once you realize the difference between actual physical hunger and unrelated cravings, you CAN do this! When I am paying attention to my body and how I feel while eating the food, it actually becomes really easy to realize when you're satiated before you hit that full mark. I've come to really dislike the feeling of being full. I can literally eat whatever it is that I want and KNOW that I won't overeat because I trust myself now. I don't count calories now, I just trust that I will know when I'm full and it has worked for me, even with my favorite foods!

The book really explains how we have issues with food that are caused by years of dieting and how to over come them.

Of course you guys are completely free to do what you want, but I'm just saying, don't discount this completely. If you're curious, check it out. Read the book(PDF). It might change your mind.

I know it's easy to discount what I'm saying because I'm still new to this idea, so if it continues to go well for me, I'll be sure to update when I get where I'm heading, weightwise. =D

Yes, that's right. My set-point was 281lbs!

What a load of BS!

One one hand, there are some really interesting TedTalks, but on the other hand, many of the scientific talks are too simplistic. By setpoint,I believe she is referring to the feedback system which regulates our bodies. There is certain no defined "setpoint" for weight like there is for body temperature, for example.

Even if the brain triggers hunger falsely, the brain does this all the time with other signals too (the hypothalamus may stimulate the adrenal glands under non-threatening circumstances, for example) It is our job to recognize the flawed nature of our own brains. Often, the brain's misleading hunger signals will resolve itself after some time on a normal diet. Time passes and certain characteristics (such as the instinct to overeat) are no longer useful for our survival, and we must be smart enough to realize that and not be tricked by our own biology.