Calorie counting vs. Intuitive eating.
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I currently am using both to help me lose weight. Before i joined MyFitnessPal, I thought that I did use to eat intuitively. But then after logging my meals, I was horrified to know just how much I was eating! Before, I would tend to eat seconds, and I thought that I ate relatively healthy, which I did for the most part. What I didn't realize was that even by eating healthy foods, you can still overeat and still load up on excess calories. I have to use MFP everyday to keep me on track, but I don't always log consistently. I have learned through the use of MFP to identify real hunger cues, and how to not mistake them as "boredom" hunger cues. It's tough logging my caloric intake daily sometimes, but I know it's what will help me in the long-run, so I don't mind it too much. So far I've logged in for 105 days straight and have lost 12 pounds!!! I just need to lose three more to reach my goal weight.
Good luck, and do what works best for you!! 2 -
Chunkahlunkah wrote: »So if intuitive eating doesn't work for you...At which point do you think it's off? I tend to think that people have their own set appetite. So if your appetite is an amount of calories that with a "light/moderate" level of activity equals an overweight number, then intuitive eating can't work for maintaining a healthy weight. (Unless you can up your activity *and* not experience an increased appetite that outweighs the additional burn.) That's a tough hand!
Do some of you feel like you naturally have a large appetite? Or for you, is it more eating when not hungry and eating past fullness that takes its toll? Or something else?
I don't get the "you're full/satiated/whatever you want to call it" signal until well past when I should. So, I need to make sure I only put the right amount of food on my plate because if I put too much food on the plate, it'll get eaten.0 -
I can lose weight with intuitive eating. The trouble starts when I hit my target weight. At that point intuitive leads to weight gain because I am no longer focusing on my diet. I can and have gain 20 pounds before addressing my weight.
Now I am a calorie counter for life. I do overeat every once in a while, but I do stay in control. I weigh every day. Another thing I used to be against. I set my goal weight at 3 lbs above my actual target. When I hit it I go on a mini diet. A 3-4 days later I am back on target. So with the scale and the calorie counting I remain focused on healthy living. It also gives me the confidence that I can treat myself every once in a while to very in healthy food.0 -
Chunkahlunkah wrote: »I find these different answers very interesting. Intuitive eating has generally worked for me for maintenance because I'd eat when I'm hungry, and then I'd stop when I'm starting to feel full. I'm lucky because the point when I feel full happens to be the amount of calories needed to maintain my weight (so long as I'm at least "lightly active"). I'd eat like that maybe 90% of the time. The other 10%, I'd eat when not really hungry or eat past fullness. It didn't do enough damage overall, I guess, to alter my weight much.
So if intuitive eating doesn't work for you...At which point do you think it's off? I tend to think that people have their own set appetite. So if your appetite is an amount of calories that with a "light/moderate" level of activity equals an overweight number, then intuitive eating can't work for maintaining a healthy weight. (Unless you can up your activity *and* not experience an increased appetite that outweighs the additional burn.) That's a tough hand!
Do some of you feel like you naturally have a large appetite? Or for you, is it more eating when not hungry and eating past fullness that takes its toll? Or something else?
Not to hijack. I could start a separate thread about this, OP, if you'd like. I'm just really curious to learn about what it's like not being able to rely on IE and why that is.
First of all my actual hunger signals are erratic and bear more relation to habit than to actual need for food. When I'm habitually eating more, I get hungrier. When I'm habitually eating less, I get less so. Just now I habitually have lunch at 12, so I get hungry at 12. In past years I used to eat lunch at 1, and that's when the hunger started.
Obviously I also get more hungry if I undereat or eat things that aren't filling, but the basic hunger signal is not that reliable. And at the other end of the scale, I will stop feeling hunger at times when I really need to eat, ie I am feeling faint or nauseous from not eating.
So I don't trust hunger signals. My granny and Auntie were also significantly overweight, so I believe there's a genetic component to this. I've inherited an unreliable appetite. It's not environmental in my case, as my parents and brothers do not tend to the same problem and were all normal weight as I was growing up. They have all become a bit overweight as they got older, but in a much more limited way - overweight but never obese, normal middle aged spread - whereas I was overweight early on and obese from my early thirties.
The other aspect of it is psychological, or philosophical. I've never liked the phrase "eat to live" or "food is fuel". To me it seems a bit like saying sex is only for procreation and art exists to cover holes in the plaster. I love food. It isn't just fuel, and I could never see it that way. It's a profound joy, a sensual pleasure. To me, intuitive eating means cutting off that whole aspect of food and transitioning to a mindset which ignores the pleasure aspect and never allows me to eat something just because it is delicious, without also having the excuse of being hungry. And that idea makes me sad. It's not just a question of whether I can make that change - it's a question of whether I want to.2 -
My eating is intuitive.
I counted for a year while losing then a couple of months after to establish maintenance. I basically shaved calories off portion sizes; I didn't find I needed to change what I ate.
Right from the start I thought of calorie counting as training wheels- something that would teach me the portion sizes I needed, not as something I would have to do for life.
It was getting my activity level back to its previous level through planned exercise that was more challenging- l had never exercised and never liked gym at school even.
I have maintained for 7-8 years and only counted for a few short spells since.
I only had 30 lbs to lose to get back to a weight I had maintained easily, with a few naturally adjusting ups and downs of a few lbs, for four decades.
It was my calories out that changed when I gained weight- got a grandchild and bought a car so it was a 4 hr drive to visit rather than 7+hr on public transit. My walking and biking declined as I took to life behind the wheel.
Much like @Chunkahlunkah my hunger and satiety levels coincide well with the calories I need to maintain an average active lifestyle. If I become a sloth, or my activity level increases, I do a mental adjustment to compensate. It is about 200 cals either way. ( petite and older so maintenance is around the 1500-1550 mark I guess)
Cheers, h.0 -
I started at more than 300 pounds. I'm dropping about half my weight. It's not possible for me to intuitively eat nearly half the calories I've been eating for most of my adult life. How people eat intuitively depends on several factors including, but not limited, to their well rooted eating habits. People feel real physical hunger at higher than appropriate calorie levels if they are used to eating a lot, and that's only the physical part of it, on which intuitive eating often focuses.
Like @CattOfTheGarage, I believe food is more than fuel and it always has been. Otherwise, culinary arts and food rituals wouldn't have developped. I don't want to feel bad for eating something I want when I'm not hungry. I tried that, and it was as limiting for me as restriction diets. It sucked the joy out of food, and food is a joy for me.
I do employ some parts of intuitive eating, but it works more like an adjunct not a replacement for calorie counting. Sometimes when I'm not hungry and don't have any particular food wishes, I allow myself to have a low calorie day. It works nicely because there will always be another day where I'm more hungry and/or want something particularly calorific, so I can use these extra calories there.
They key for me is to use an assortment of strategies and not depend on just one. Calorie counting alone without attention to satiety wouldn't work for me. Intuitive eating without calorie counting wouldn't work. Restricting certain foods sometimes because I need to make that choice for the day works, restricting foods as a rule doesn't. Being hungry sometimes is okay for me (a big no for intuitive eating), but other times it's not. I sometimes go through phases of intermittent fasting because it's fitting at the time, but I don't stubbornly try to uphold the rule when it's not fitting. There are days where skipping meals gives me an advantage for calorie control, and days where skipping them sabotages my efforts. There are weeks where a strict calorie number with a known loss prediction gives me structure, but there are weeks where I need to focus on something else so I keep my calorie goal flexible setting it to maintenance and being happy to achieve any kind of deficit with a variable unpredictable weekly loss. Sometimes I do stop logging for some maintenance breaks, but I keep weighing myself daily and have a very low calorie fast day if my weight goes even slightly above a predetermined number.
Basically, I'm more for intuitive strategy deployment based on the situation than intuitive eating on its own. I just have enough experience by now to know what feels easiest for me in most situations.
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I was thinking about this today.
Well... I was thinking about alcoholism. How many recovering alcoholics attend AA meetings. For the support. For the structure.
I think I might be the equivalent of an alcoholic, except with food.
I don't think I'll ever be able to not watch myself. I think I would literally have to reprogram my brain. Maybe some EMDR. Lol
So when I get to maintenance I'll set a weight and allow myself a variation of 5 or so pounds. And when I go over I'll have to pay more attention to tracking. And when I'm within range I can relax and keep it in the back of my mind.
I'll also always have to mentally focus on being healthy. That next 5k, that next backpacking trip, canoeing, ect.
That doesn't sounds like a bad life. 2 -
I don't think I will need to count, measure, and track when I get to where I want to be. Even though I still want to lose some lbs, I do now stop eating when I'm full, which is not necessarily what I counted out or have on my plate. I'll just establish a maintenance range and use that, I think. Calorie counting was helpful to me in the beginning because it reigned me in regarding portions, made me more conscious of the quality of my food / nutrition, and it made me see that sometimes I ate because I was stressed out or even bored. But I don't think I will need the meal-by-meal monitoring to maintain in terms of measuring cups and a food scale.
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It's a problem if "whatever I want" means "whatever I want in whatever amounts at any time with no regard for nutritional value". If "whatever I want" means "enough food to keep me going until next meal, and food I like to eat", it's not a problem.I think the problem is for some people intuitive eating means "let me just eat whatever I want".
I agree. And I don't think about being mindful as something negative.I think it's possible to do, but you have to be mindful of what you are eating and how much of it you're eating.
"Mostly the same meals" can be a lot of different foods. A wide variety of (real) foods provides a wide range of nutrients, and when you are well nourished, it's easier to not overeat. You don't have to worry about calories when you eat a wide variety of real foods and use common sense when you serve yourself.If you're someone who eats a lot of different foods day to day it probably wouldn't be as easy versus someone who eats mostly the same meals and knows off hand what a serving of it looks like and how many calories are in said serving.
I advice doing both until you have implemented good non-overeating habits and you feel certain you can eat and maintain without counting. At any rate, weigh yourself regularly and be prepared to take action when needed.I'm not in maintenance yet, but eventually, in maintenance I plan to stop calorie counting. I've lost and maintained weight loss before. My problem comes with me slipping into old overeating habits, which calorie counting would stop, but I'm going to try just being mindful of what I'm eating and how much.1 -
Chunkahlunkah wrote: »I find these different answers very interesting. Intuitive eating has generally worked for me for maintenance because I'd eat when I'm hungry, and then I'd stop when I'm starting to feel full. I'm lucky because the point when I feel full happens to be the amount of calories needed to maintain my weight (so long as I'm at least "lightly active"). I'd eat like that maybe 90% of the time. The other 10%, I'd eat when not really hungry or eat past fullness. It didn't do enough damage overall, I guess, to alter my weight much.
So if intuitive eating doesn't work for you...At which point do you think it's off? I tend to think that people have their own set appetite. So if your appetite is an amount of calories that with a "light/moderate" level of activity equals an overweight number, then intuitive eating can't work for maintaining a healthy weight. (Unless you can up your activity *and* not experience an increased appetite that outweighs the additional burn.) That's a tough hand!
Do some of you feel like you naturally have a large appetite? Or for you, is it more eating when not hungry and eating past fullness that takes its toll? Or something else?
Not to hijack. I could start a separate thread about this, OP, if you'd like. I'm just really curious to learn about what it's like not being able to rely on IE and why that is.
I think it is more complicated than feeling full. There is an interpretation of the way your body is feeling that may be false.
I was sleep deprived and had headaches for years. I felt better when I ate something so I concluded that I was probably feeling hungry and should eat more. That interpretation of the feeling was wrong. I really needed more sleep or to drink more water not eat more food. I was never a binge eater but it doesn't take a lot of extra food every day to gain weight when you are sedentary.
If I see the calorie numbers in my food diary I can say to myself that yes I have eaten enough, drink some water, wait 20 minutes and move on. I'm not guessing if I am hungry or not. I'm not undereating or overeating.1 -
Chunkahlunkah wrote: »I find these different answers very interesting. Intuitive eating has generally worked for me for maintenance because I'd eat when I'm hungry, and then I'd stop when I'm starting to feel full. I'm lucky because the point when I feel full happens to be the amount of calories needed to maintain my weight (so long as I'm at least "lightly active"). I'd eat like that maybe 90% of the time. The other 10%, I'd eat when not really hungry or eat past fullness. It didn't do enough damage overall, I guess, to alter my weight much.
So if intuitive eating doesn't work for you...At which point do you think it's off?
Hunger signals. I don't think hunger signals in humans are necessarily naturally calibrated to keep one at a healthy weight (evolutionarily people benefitted from eating when food was available and being able to not eat when it wasn't, for a time). For some they seem to be anyway, and that's great for them. Even if they naturally were, though, I think it's easy to override them and get confused.
I find that I have a really hard time distinguishing between true hunger and wanting to eat, which in a way is good because hunger itself isn't ever really an issue for me (I fasted yesterday and was a little bugged by the desire for food, but it wasn't particularly hard and I didn't feel crazy hungry or anything). However, I tend to want to eat when I am in the habit of eating and not stop eating when food is available and on my plate -- I don't naturally distinguish portions by feeling I've had enough/shouldn't eat more (although sometimes after the fact I might wish I'd eaten less).
I also find I very easily eat to schedule (really any schedule, but I like the 3 meals one). When I graze all day I eat way more (or even if I just add in snacks). If I stop that and eat 3 meals (or 2) I quickly adjust and am okay with the timing.
So I work with how I am and don't worry about trying to teach myself to intuitively eat. If I'm reasonably active and eat 3 meals and don't snack (expect maybe a planned snack on a big workout day) and am mindful of portions and don't eat when doing other things/without thinking, I can maintain pretty easily without logging, but IMO that's quite different from intuitive eating. If I decided not to worry about structure or watching portions and just eat what I feel like when I feel like it, I'd start overeating again and gain and gain and gain.
For me, it's not about appetite at all. I can happily eat a huge amount of calories, but I had no issues eating 1250 when I did.2 -
Chunkahlunkah wrote: »So if intuitive eating doesn't work for you...At which point do you think it's off? I tend to think that people have their own set appetite. So if your appetite is an amount of calories that with a "light/moderate" level of activity equals an overweight number, then intuitive eating can't work for maintaining a healthy weight. (Unless you can up your activity *and* not experience an increased appetite that outweighs the additional burn.) That's a tough hand!
I would eat until I'm sick. And have done so, repeatedly. I don't trust my body's signals - they tell me to eat and eat. Perhaps I could do some exercises to try to recalibrate, but to be brutally honest I'm not interested in doing that.0 -
Haven't read the whole thread but here are my thoughts based on my own experience: it's important to attend to portion sizes when you're weighing and eating meals; if you do that, your brain will learn what a portion is and you'll internalize it. I know, for example, what an ounce of almonds or other nuts looks like and the size of it in my hand. Our brains are good at learning things like this. I think prepackaged and premeasured portions can work against you in this regard -- we learn by repetition.
The theory behind intuitive eating is that if we learn some simple rules surrounding mealtime: eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, take your time eating, eat things you like -- that will solve the behavioral problems surrounding our food consumption. These principles overlap with the mindful eating approach. A lot of us are overweight because we eat to fill emotional needs, out of boredom, etc.
I stopped calorie counting at one point a couple of years ago. I continued eating reasonable portions of food. I found that my calorie counting and learning portion control kept the weight from creeping back on -- mostly. My long term goal is: go into maintenance and not have to calorie count, monitor my weight and go back into calorie counting if it creeps up by five pounds. I'm more confident I can do this than I was a few years ago.
Intuitive eating is a good tool. I think some people can use it alone, and get good results. But people are different. I see intuitive eating/mindful eating as more of a useful maintenance strategy for myself, but until I reach maintenance and know that I've fully internalized portion control, I will need to continue to count calories.3 -
endlessfall16 wrote: »
It's futile to match appetite with hunger. My "intuitive eating" is that, when I need to cut back, I just eat enough to feel ok with my hunger (not the same as to feel full). Overweight comes from a lot of time eating for fun and eating past this "I am ok with this hunger feeling" point. Feeling fullness most of the time you eat is way too much since it can take a lot to feel full.endlessfall16 wrote: »I eat like that and plan to do that for the rest of my life to not gain weight as the first goal. I'm already within my healthy weight range and feel no urgent to lose much more but generally if I can try a bit harder to create more deficit -- lose 5-10 lbs over months, good for holidays, that's never a bad thing.
@endlessfall16 I'm fascinated by this! It's so different from how I experience hunger. When I'm maintaining, I truly do feel full each time I eat. Not stuffed, but a "starting to get full" feeling. The distance between that feeling and being uncomfortably full isn't that far for me, so it's like a built-in check against overeating. It doesn't feel good to eat too much, so I don't. And when I did overeat, what would usually happen is my body would send out "less hungry" signals for a day or so after, so I'd eat less those days.
What you describe reminds me so much of my brother! He was progessively overweight/obese/morbidly obese from the ages of 10-20. He started losing weight when he was around 19. In about 2 years, he'd lost over 100 pounds. He's kept it off for almost 15 years now. Not long ago we were talking about hunger and eating, and he said something similar to you. He doesn't eat until he's full, because the point when he starts to feel full would be far too many calories and would cause him to gain weight. Instead, he eats what he's learned is the amount of food that creates the weight he wants.
That experience is profoundly different from mine. I get impatient with "normal" weight people who act like losing and maintaining weight should be easy for the obese. They're extending their own experience of hunger/satiety signals. Maintaining a healthy weight is more challenging, imo, when it's about eating "intellectually" (i.e., "I know this is the amount I need to eat for my weight") than when it's about eating "intuitively" or viscerally (mindless because the body tells you stop eating). The intellectual method requires constant vigilance. Or, if not vigilance, at least a constant adherence to self-constructed habits.
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Or something in the middle - have 3-5 breakfasts you like and are within goal calories and keep the stuff on hand, same with snacks and lunches and dinner. If you know A=B=C = XX, you can eat what sounds good, but stay on track. Maybe have a quick-add of a few hundred calories a day to experiment with.0
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Thanks to everyone who responded to my inquiry. Thoughtful responses, each that I'd like to respond to. Right now I'm behind on a deadline though and need to attend to that first. I really need to develop better time management skills. It might sound odd, but I'm taking inspiration from you guys and have decided I must take a "doing what works" mindset towards time management. Left to my own devices, I procrastinate way too much. My mind's reaction to "time pressure" appears to be dulled, with it not really kicking in until very late in the game! 0
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Or something in the middle - have 3-5 breakfasts you like and are within goal calories and keep the stuff on hand, same with snacks and lunches and dinner. If you know A=B=C = XX, you can eat what sounds good, but stay on track. Maybe have a quick-add of a few hundred calories a day to experiment with.
Yes, this reminds me of something I do sometimes. In my pinterest I have collected a few recipes that I know the count for and sorted them by calories (up to 600 calories). When I use this, all I need to do is pick something I really want to eat, then use the other "blocks" to complete the rest of my meals with little to no jigsaw work. I also know roughly what my usual non recipe meals are worth. I use this method when I don't feel like thinking.
This is how it looks:
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Chunkahlunkah wrote: »endlessfall16 wrote: »
It's futile to match appetite with hunger. My "intuitive eating" is that, when I need to cut back, I just eat enough to feel ok with my hunger (not the same as to feel full). Overweight comes from a lot of time eating for fun and eating past this "I am ok with this hunger feeling" point. Feeling fullness most of the time you eat is way too much since it can take a lot to feel full.endlessfall16 wrote: »I eat like that and plan to do that for the rest of my life to not gain weight as the first goal. I'm already within my healthy weight range and feel no urgent to lose much more but generally if I can try a bit harder to create more deficit -- lose 5-10 lbs over months, good for holidays, that's never a bad thing.
@endlessfall16 I'm fascinated by this! It's so different from how I experience hunger. When I'm maintaining, I truly do feel full each time I eat. Not stuffed, but a "starting to get full" feeling. The distance between that feeling and being uncomfortably full isn't that far for me, so it's like a built-in check against overeating. It doesn't feel good to eat too much, so I don't. And when I did overeat, what would usually happen is my body would send out "less hungry" signals for a day or so after, so I'd eat less those days.
What you describe reminds me so much of my brother! He was progessively overweight/obese/morbidly obese from the ages of 10-20. He started losing weight when he was around 19. In about 2 years, he'd lost over 100 pounds. He's kept it off for almost 15 years now. Not long ago we were talking about hunger and eating, and he said something similar to you. He doesn't eat until he's full, because the point when he starts to feel full would be far too many calories and would cause him to gain weight. Instead, he eats what he's learned is the amount of food that creates the weight he wants.
That experience is profoundly different from mine. I get impatient with "normal" weight people who act like losing and maintaining weight should be easy for the obese. They're extending their own experience of hunger/satiety signals. Maintaining a healthy weight is more challenging, imo, when it's about eating "intellectually" (i.e., "I know this is the amount I need to eat for my weight") than when it's about eating "intuitively" or viscerally (mindless because the body tells you stop eating). The intellectual method requires constant vigilance. Or, if not vigilance, at least a constant adherence to self-constructed habits.
So, how many of the meals that you truly feel full do you have in a day? And how many days in a week? This number is important though.
I only eat large, carefree meals on Friday, Sat, Sun and Thursday lunch. These meals are large but short of making me sick, of course. In the other time I eat "artificially" to get rid of uncomfortable hunger.
Unlike many people, I do not look for any kind of hunger/full signal. I rely on my thinking and reasoning. If I have a very large meal on Sunday night, there's no way I can get into any health issue from eating too little on Monday.
Getting rid of the hunger feeling in short term can be easily done, too. A simple sandwich or a couple of hard boiled eggs will sooth the hunger for a few hours, but intellectually I know that it's not enough if I am to do heavy activities. If I'm worried I can always bring along a couple trail mix bars. Bottom line: no need to get full every meal; no signal necessary.
"The intellectual method requires constant vigilance. Or, if not vigilance, at least a constant adherence to self-constructed habits."
Interesting that you think so. Maybe for the first few weeks when I was still discovering the rough estimate of the amount of my eating that equalizes my activities, I needed to be conscious of the meals and meal time. But now it is default that I eat light on Monday, Tue, Wed and so on. I don't need to think about it. My body isn't asking, per conditioning, like you are conditioned not to get up at 1am to grill a steak or a breakfast skipper not eating in the morning.
The amount of calorie consumption and expenditure don't have to be precise. I can err in either direction a little. So what. If I see that I gain a lb or two (over the course of weeks), I just need to reduce my full meals a little (or skip one) and that should be enough. There's no adverse effect on the body when the weight fluctuates within a few lbs.
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JustDoIt987 wrote: »I know that many of us are here because intuitive eating does not work for us ( eating whatever you want when hungry and stopping when full ) and I agree , calorie counting is great and I lost weight easily , BUT do you guys really do it for the rest of your lives ? Checking out restaurants menus, thinking about calories etc? I am maintaining now and I literally spend 85% of my day thinking about calories / food. I get nervous when I cant find calories of a particular restaurant online and make a big deal out of it. I am thinking about switching to intuitive eating
What works for you guys ? Intuitive eating or calorie counting ?
I will likely always monitor calories, but in the situation of a restaurant where I wouldn't know the calorie count, I would do one of two things:
I wouldn't care and would just eat until reasonably full, or I'd order food that I knew to be on the lighter side, calorie-wise (make smart food choices).
So my answer for the rest of my life? For now, the plan is a loose sort of calorie counting, with my eye on the scale at all times.0 -
JustDoIt987 wrote: »I know that many of us are here because intuitive eating does not work for us ( eating whatever you want when hungry and stopping when full ) and I agree , calorie counting is great and I lost weight easily , BUT do you guys really do it for the rest of your lives ? Checking out restaurants menus, thinking about calories etc? I am maintaining now and I literally spend 85% of my day thinking about calories / food. I get nervous when I cant find calories of a particular restaurant online and make a big deal out of it. I am thinking about switching to intuitive eating
What works for you guys ? Intuitive eating or calorie counting ?
I think you should do it. This is exactly where I’m at right. I was thinking about food every moment of my life and that can’t be healthy. You can do both if you think that would be better. However, I know I don’t want to track calories my whole life1
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