How many people do you think I consider to be intuitive eaters?

This is not a plan that would work for me right now. I had to stop myself from pigging out at dinner and that's regular food, not even sweets. If I ate anything I wanted to eat, I'd have had 2/3 of a meatloaf for dinner and about a dozen cookies or half a cake every single day. No joke.

It's hard for me. I have to keep reinforcing good habits until they're my thing. I'm there now. I'm not making cakes and cookies every day or two. But I still think about it and have to tell myself, "No," so it's not a done deal.

I were more like you and had it all figured out, no problems, no trouble, no worries that I might screw it up.

Did you ever have to struggle with it?

I don't have it all figured out, I don't think anyone really has it all figured out. I've struggled a lot and for many years. I was a binger for 20yrs. I'd make up excuses to pop out of the house before dinner and use it as an opportunity to go through the drive thru and order enough food to feed a small family just for myself. Then I'd eat it secretly in my car and drive to remote parking lots to get rid of the evidence and then drive home and eat dinner with my family. If I had to be around people on a daily basis and could not escape to binge I would feel shaky and end up crying. Nobody knew what was wrong with me. I would pick a fight with my husband or roommate just so that I could storm out of the house and go eat. So yea, I've lived with out of control binging for over 20yrs of my life and I know what it feels like to be crazy around food. I may not be skinny now and I may not be losing weight fast enough to win any contests but IE saved my life in a way that is hard to explain. It's just pure heaven now not having to struggle with binging anymore. My weight problem seems manageable now, being around food is effortless and all my fears are gone. It's nice to not be in constant fear around eating and food.

I've struggled with this all my life. IE saved me from it. That's why I'm passionate about it. Nobody should have to feel crazy around food.

To above- the IE approach wod have you asking yourself WHY would you eat they much meatloaf? And why would you eat all those cookies. Is it to feed stress? Then you need to work on different coping methods for stress which do not involve food. Or were you just extra hungry? Perhaps you didn't eat enough for lunch and shod try better next day.

For me IE is part of my plan, but only the asking why and learning new coping skills. I also over eat because I simply love food and have no self control if something tastes delicious. I'm an instant gratification kind of person, so I have to temper it by putting a cap on my eating as I can feel hungry even if eating 3000 calories a day because sugary/carb heavy foods make me crave more and make me hungry too.

Well, you certainly seem like you've found all your answers and have it all figured out.

I never snuck around or had a fear of food, but I'd still love to hear your story.

If you ever want to share how you went from overeating to being so controlled and sensible, I'd love to hear it.

I want more meatloaf because it tastes good. I love meatloaf. Most non-sweets I just eat until I'm full and quit. But there are some things I have to say, "No more!" to and force myself to slow down.

I make something I call Edamame Succotash (I made it up and it has no name.). I love it and can stuff myself full for very few calories. So, that's easy. I don't have to say, "No more!"

But meatloaf and a few other things are a struggle. After half an hour, I'm good and all proud of me for stopping. But it's still a struggle in the moment, when the food on my plate is gone and there's still hot meatloaf sitting on the rack. It's hard.

It's not stress. I wish I had an excuse. I just like meatloaf and want seconds. Well, my period is due. I do tend to want more food around this time. It might be playing a part. But I always want more meatloaf, lol.

It's not like with white pasta, though. It's not a craving.

I just have some bad habits that need breaking. I think.

I don't know. I just focus on mostly healthy foods and try not to eat too much of them. That's enough for now.

Can we get back on topic of all-or-nothing thinking? There are other places for such a debate but it's no longer relevant to this thread.

Future Do you find that you struggle with all-or-nothing thinking in other areas of your life too or that you tend to be a perfectionist? Or maybe label things in a black or white fashion such as good or bad? My therapist keeps pushing me to look at the world in tones of gray rather than just black or white. She's asked me to challenge thoughts that over simplify a situation. I'll give an example: good day vs bad day. They aren't opposites since they both are days. A day is 24-hours so chances are there was a mixture of good and bad in that time. So if there were good moments during the day is it fair to label it a bad day? Even good days have disappointments. Either way it was just a day, how you choose to label is how to choose to feel about it.

Same goes with food. There aren't good foods or bad foods. They are just fuel for our body with pros and cons.

I know I like things to be really simple which is why I like to simplify the world in one-or-the-other, black-or-white, good-or-bad, all-or-nothing. They make the world less complicated and easier to process. But it's very easy to get out of hand because this view doesn't reflect the world we live in where everything is gray.

Future I struggle with the all-or-nothing, becoming obsessive about food the first week and then wanting to quit, thing. I have done both calorie counting and counting weight watcher points, and I find (for me, this isn't the case for everyone) that the calorie counting makes this mindset worse for me than the WW points. I am not sure why, but I think some of it has to do with the fact that most fruits and veggies are "free" on WW. With calorie counting, I feel bad if I go over my daily amount even if I'm legitimately hungry (no cravings) and eat a piece of fruit which I know is GOOD for me. But if I go over, even by 50 calories, I feel like I've failed and then I just say, screw it, I'm eating ice cream. There's definitely opportunity for this mindset too in WW, but it doesn't seem to affect me the same way. I'm not saying that WW is better than calorie counting, some people (both of my sisters included) are really successful with it. But there are other options for counting food that could work for you too, and might be worth looking into.

It's also important though to figure out why you have this mentality in the first place. I get in this mindset because I am a perfectionist who hates disappointing people. And instead of talking about the problems in my life I tend to binge watch netflix and eat everything in my pantry, which led to the weight gain. Knowing that I have these tendencies and that I am a major stress eater is helping me to have a better relationship with food. If you can have a tough conversation with yourself and figure out why you feel this way about food and dieting, you will be much more successful in the long run. It's not easy to figure these things about, but definitely worth it!

GordonGirl I get that. My mom typically does WW for this reason but I've always been a calorie counter. That's why I've always preferred Spark People over My Fitness Pal. With SP I'm able to set a caloric range for the day (mine is 1300-1600). This allows me a 300 calorie breathing room to still lose weight but not feel like I'm a failure. With MFP just 1 calorie over the goal it would turn red and I felt so awful I'd do anything (include massively undereat) to avoid it.