Why is it hard to maintain weight for years through intuitive eating?

alondrakar
alondrakar Posts: 67 Member
edited December 21 in Goal: Maintaining Weight
I'm just looking for thoughts. A watched a video by Natasha Oceane on YT who is a huge advocate of IE. Not going to lie, it is disheartening watching someone eat whatever they want in moderation and know that is something I can't do myself without watching the weight creep back up. I don't want to count calories forever.
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Replies

  • Paultb
    Paultb Posts: 6 Member
    Can't say what others need to do but for me, routine is the key. Eating regular meals whether I am hungry or not tells my body not to store calories. If I wait until I am hungry I eat too fast and too much. If meals are more like brushing my teeth - something I have to do, not something that is a pleasure - then overeating is very easy to resist. (Still have to avoid bad foods and snacks)
  • BattyKnitter
    BattyKnitter Posts: 503 Member
    Some people are able to maintain without counting, I am not one of those people! I think of it as a healthy habit, something I have to do every day to take care of my body. Take brushing your teeth for example, it is something you should do every day for your health and it takes 2 minutes twice a day so 4 minutes total. I see calorie counting as the same, a healthy habit that takes me maybe 5 minutes a day so not much longer than brushing my teeth.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    I've been maintaining for years without counting/logging. But, from the experience of logging on MFP while I was losing weight, I got an education on portion size, calorie counts, and what foods are/are not worth the calories to me.

    These things are still in my head every day, and while I don't log in the app, I'm still kind of logging in my head. I know my maintenance calories and try to roughly stick to that.

    So, probably "mindful eating" is a good term for this. It's definitely not intuitive...my intuition says to eat all the cookies in the break room.

    Exactly. And yes, I always have a loose tally going in my head.
  • hesn92
    hesn92 Posts: 5,966 Member
    edited May 2019
    I can maintain my weight and even lose weight without counting calories, but it's definitely not without mental effort. I have to stick to a routine and eat my three meals plus 1 or two snacks that fit within a reasonable range of calories. I limit my treats either to small portions every day, or a larger portion but only once a week or so. From years of off and on calorie counting I have a good idea what foods are good choices and what foods are bad choices. I find it's not much easier than just keeping a damn food diary here on MFP. At least with MFP I know what I can afford to eat and what I can't.
  • alondrakar
    alondrakar Posts: 67 Member
    Hey y'all, thank you so much for your input. I waited a few hours before responding on purpose so that I could get as many thoughts as possible. It was nice to know one of you knew who I was talking about (Youtuber) and so many of you made the act of counting seem less lame. I guess I get overwhelmed more so when I think about cooking meals and not being able to account for them (I know I can.. but it is a lot of work). I then ask myself "can I really do this forever?" Same thing on weekends as my mother hands me my favorite home cooked meals and there's no way for me to track it. Mexican mom's like to add a 'pinch' of anything and everything.

    Again, this really helped in making things less scary for me when I finally hit my goal weight in the next few weeks. A billion times, thank you!
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
    edited May 2019
    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    I've been maintaining for years without counting/logging. But, from the experience of logging on MFP while I was losing weight, I got an education on portion size, calorie counts, and what foods are/are not worth the calories to me.

    These things are still in my head every day, and while I don't log in the app, I'm still kind of logging in my head. I know my maintenance calories and try to roughly stick to that.

    So, probably "mindful eating" is a good term for this. It's definitely not intuitive...my intuition says to eat all the cookies in the break room.

    Exactly. And yes, I always have a loose tally going in my head.

    and me too, I keep a rough tally in my head (6 yrs in maintenance).
  • stricklee11
    stricklee11 Posts: 218 Member
    I've been maintaining for years without counting/logging. But, from the experience of logging on MFP while I was losing weight, I got an education on portion size, calorie counts, and what foods are/are not worth the calories to me.

    These things are still in my head every day, and while I don't log in the app, I'm still kind of logging in my head. I know my maintenance calories and try to roughly stick to that.

    So, probably "mindful eating" is a good term for this. It's definitely not intuitive...my intuition says to eat all the cookies in the break room.

    This is how I hope to be once I hit maintenance. I think this is part of what we learn using MFP/logging calories. If I go to a restaurant that has no calorie count, I can already guestimate which dishes will have more and which ones won't. This is especially true when you use the recipe calorie count option for homemade meals. I also think keeping a daily log teaches us how to tell if we're eating because we're hungry or {FILL IN THE BLANK}. It even teaches us to stop eating when full to "save" calories for later.

    Like OP, I don't want to have to log food in my diary forever. But I do expect to have to continue for at least a year or two after reaching my goal weight.
  • reversemigration
    reversemigration Posts: 170 Member
    edited May 2019
    This is how I hope to be once I hit maintenance. I think this is part of what we learn using MFP/logging calories. If I go to a restaurant that has no calorie count, I can already guestimate which dishes will have more and which ones won't. This is especially true when you use the recipe calorie count option for homemade meals. I also think keeping a daily log teaches us how to tell if we're eating because we're hungry or {FILL IN THE BLANK}. It even teaches us to stop eating when full to "save" calories for later.

    Like OP, I don't want to have to log food in my diary forever. But I do expect to have to continue for at least a year or two after reaching my goal weight.

    So true. It's also good for thinking about portion sizes when eating out, particularly given how much upward creep there has been over the last few decades. I can reach satiety and quit, rather than just eat it because it happens to be on my plate.
  • staticsplit
    staticsplit Posts: 538 Member
    I log as guesswork a lot of the time, because I tend to eat sandwiches in cafes, or go out to eat with friends, or whatever. If I can make an informed guess that the tuna melt sandwich I had was probably around 500ish calories, then I know vaguely how much to budget for the rest of the day.

    I logged for like 50 days and then took a little over a week off counting for curiosity's sake. Almost immediately I started shifting back into bad habits--not eating until 1 or 2 pm (which for me is an eating disorder mindset rather than IF per se, it doesn't set me up well mentally), grabbing random fast snacks from the cupboard rather than having something more balanced (having 2 muffins for dinner is fine now and again, but for 3 days in a row?), snacking and nibbling and a couple of quasi-binges. Because I didn't know how much I was eating, in my head I'd start spiralling and thinking I ate 4000 calories, even when I probably didn't.

    Much as calorie counting can be a mild annoyance, I seem to be a lot more even when I'm counting, even if I take a day off here and there or I'm very loose with my logging. It's enough to keep me mindful.
  • HoneyBadger302
    HoneyBadger302 Posts: 2,085 Member
    I "intuitively" maintained my weight well into my early 30's. Ate what I wanted, when I wanted, and in quantities I wanted. If I was putting on a couple extra pounds, I'd just trim back on the known "bad" things like fast food.

    THEN, I got the "dreaded" (but much better paying) desk job. Done with school, and no more hiking around a campus. Sitting on my bum all day, and still having to go home at night and take care of "life" stuff. Any workouts had to be now added to my day, and were no longer a part of what I was already doing, but ANOTHER thing on my to-do list.

    The weight crept on and up.

    Basically, what it boiled down to, was my appetite and "hunger" levels were well tuned to my (then) active lifestyle. Once I got the professional job and the life that went with it, my activity levels plummeted (comparatively) but my appetite and hunger signals did NOT change.

    In fact, I think they have yet to change....now, I have to keep an eye on things, and if I want to lose, I need to track things, because my body still sends signals that were in line with my old lifestyle, not my current one. "Intuition" doesn't work anymore, that's basically all there is to it for me.
  • DX2JX2
    DX2JX2 Posts: 1,921 Member
    I'm a little more strict in maintenance than some as I still weigh out my lunch and snacks but beyond that I just keep a running tally of intake in my head. It helps that my maintenance program has been to generally only consume 50% of my maintenance needs through late afternoon (gross of exercise calories).

    This means that I don't usually have to bother counting or tracking anything I eat for dinner/dessert because I have enough calories left to cover whatever, especially once exercise calories are factored into the mix.
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