What are your thoughts on intuitive eating?

MissHolidayGolightly

I think the no meat, no processed foods, and no alcohol are the real reasons you'd lose weight on a yoga diet.

rawstrongchick

If left to my own devices I don't eat enough to maintain my weight which is why I calorie count. I think a lot of it depends two things, one what your diet is like - so you eat your volume in calorie dense foods, or do you tend to eat your volume in low calorie foods? And secondly, what's your 'off' switch like? My husband can eat for England and never ever feel full, I can eat a moderate plate for a small female and feel utterly stuffed.

If you tend to chose more naturally calorie dense foods and you have no off switch then eating intuitively is going to turn out a completely different outcome to if you chose low calorie foods and feel full easily.

darrensurrey

I don't know about yogis and all that, but I do think there is merit in just stopping eating when you're full, I can eat a sandwich and feel full and yet I continue to eat a bag of chips, some cookies, something to drink, and a bowl of ice cream. Why don't I just stop after the sandwich? I don't know. That is one of those mysteries of the universe. But, if I could stop after the sandwich, that is the idea of intuitive eating, I feel full, I stop. If you can fully employ this, that is intuitive eating. I have, several times, looked into buying the book. I may, because I'm sick to death of logging my food. If there are ways I can help train my brain to tell myself to stop, I would be interested in learning how.

Continuing to eat - habit. Change your habit by forcing yourself to not eat after the sandwich. Distract yourself. Play QWOP.

Also, eat more slowly, put down your cutlery after each bite. Enjoy the flavour and texture. I'm the slowest to eat. Everyone takes the piss but I don't mind.

Zomoniac

I don't really get full. If I go to an all you can eat Chinese or curry buffet then I can comfortably plough through 5,000kcal in half an hour and still have room for more.

I've just accepted that I don't have a good instinct for food, and it adds about three minutes over the course of my day to log everything on here and make sure it balances. I've been doing it for nearly 4 years and it still doesn't bother me, I suspect I'll be doing it for life and if that's what is required to not slip back into old habits then I'm ok with that.

darrensurrey

I don't really get full. If I go to an all you can eat Chinese or curry buffet then I can comfortably plough through 5,000kcal in half an hour and still have room for more.

What I said earlier about 1 palm-sizes of this, 2 palms of that? For buffets, it's every man for himself. Screw the rules. :laugh:

PS Like your mammoth!

dedflwrs

I would intuitively eat nothing but pizza and ice cream while sitting on the sofa doing crossword puzzles

JoRocka

Intuitive eating works about as well for me as intuiting how much money is in my checking account without logging in to the bank website to check my balance. What works for me is to pre-log most of my day in the time the coffee brews in the morning. Eating mostly off of my memory of the list, since I have that food with me, and making minor corrections later. I also look up my bank balance from time to time to avoid overdrawing my account.

One can log without becoming an obsessive maniac.

I use this analogy quiet a bit- except I'm awful with money- great with food.
lol- I used to track finances- but I wind up being a child about it and when I think I have problems I just stop looking.

I do to my money what most people do to their food- ignore it and just pretend it isn't a problem.

Intuitive eating isn't really a thing- I mean you can train yourself/educate yourself to know what you are eating and how much of it- I can do a pretty good job on my own- but I prefer knowing.

pythagarus

My intuition tells me to pack on the pounds because winter is coming. I can't trust that guy. My intuition is a byproduct of evolution that has included countless years of famine. I need to know how many calories are in what I am about to eat. Before MFP I didn't pay attention to things like the bun having more calories than the hot dog. Now I go against what my intuition tells me. I actually eat more often. Making sure I have a quality low-cal snack between meal. That way I'm not starving and can ignore my intuition to get two double bacon cheeseburgers at the drive thru. The scientific approach has seen me lose half a pound a day for 65 days and I am loving it.
If the intuition eating works for you, ignore everyone and do what you know is working.

leggup

I have tried to intuitively eat. I stopped eating when I was satisfied (but never full or overfull), and ended up chronically under eating. This eventually caused binging. I'm a vegetarian trying not to be a junk food vegetarian. When I eat loads of veggies and fruits and lean protein, I really need calorie counting to make sure I'm not under eating.

For example, I bring veggie burgers to work for lunch. I decided to start bringing a bag of steam-in-the-bag veggies to work with me. I know that if I ate intuitively, I could eat 3/4 of the bag plus the high-protein veggie burger and feel really full for a few hours. The problem is that the veggie burger is 140 cals and the whole bag of veggies is 160 cals. If I only ate 3/4, my total calories would be 140+120=260 cals for lunch. I would be fine until right around the time I drive home for work. I would want to claw out my stomach by the time I get home. Through calorie counting, I've learned that I really need ~500 calories in my lunch to take me from work to errands to home.

Good luck in your strategy.

ge105

I didn't read the whole thread- but my 2 cents:

! lost weight and maintained for years without calorie counting. At first I started on low carb which was easy to lose weight on due to satiety but I did keep it up and just started eating what I wanted but not until I was very full- just satisfied. This is more important the calorie dense the food is. Eating salad? Sure stuff yourself- as long as there's no crazy dressings. Eating cake? Only eat enough to satisfy your sweet tooth (one thin slice). More wont make you feel more satisfied anyway, the first bite is always the best. I also would hesitate to have more than one "treat" a day, whether the treat was fries, cake, whatever.

Anyway- thats how I did it and I love it. I got down to my lowest weight as an adult doing this and now I'm here because I want to abs, need to put on muscle and I want to make sure I'm more exact (need to eat more than I'm used to but I don't want to overeat and put on more fat than necessary).

eta: I also know I if I can fit in more treats using this site

nicsflyingcircus

If I was capable of eating intuitively ALL THE TIME, I wouldn't be fat :P

Swiftlet66

Intuition can be fixed!! I think.... Maybe if you log at maintenance calories for awhile in MFP, the habit of portion sizes with be ingrained in your head so when you stop logging, it'll be second nature. Good rule of thumb for me is only eating when I'm hungry. I don't eat until I'm full; I eat until I'm no longer hungry. There's a difference! Also I personally think a lot of people are afraid of being hungry or empty inside. Of course it's uncomfortable but I think it's okay to feel hunger. It''s not like you're gonna faint immediately if you don't have food inside. It's also okay to not feel full after a meal. Also, I think changing one's perceptions of food would be good. For me, I appreciate the simple good quality foods. It's not so much about quantity and stuffing myself silly. It's about enjoying the taste and appreciating the fact I even have food on the dinner table! Long term intuitive eating starts with these changes, IMO!! I learned them from my dad... Since he pretty much eats like this every day. Most of my family members also eats this way and they are not overweight. They only have issues with high blood pressure but that is due to our high sodium ways. We are Asian BTW.

Of course this is different if you are bulking/weight lifting. Obviously that requires more effort to maintain the physique. Lol

Hornsby

I guess I am still confused on what intuitive eating is....

I eat without logging....intuitively.

levitateme

I agree with those that said it, intuitive eating was what got me fat in the first place.

I would be having a whole bag of toasted coconut covered marshmallows for dinner tonight if I was eating intuitively. At this point I'm not so much concerned with too many calories, but I don't want to eat a meal that doesn't help me meet my macro goals. "Is there enough protein in my breakfast?" is something I ask myself every day. If I wasn't planning, logging and measuring I wouldn't be sure.

msf74

I guess I am still confused on what intuitive eating is....

I eat without logging....intuitively.

I'm guessing you're not the only one:

Intuitive eating is an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind, and body--where you ultimately become the expert of your own body. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings, and gain a sense of body wisdom. It's also a process of making peace with food---so that you no longer have constant "food worry" thoughts. It's knowing that your health and your worth as a person do not change, because you ate a food that you had labeled as "bad" or "fattening”. 



The underlying premise of Intuitive Eating is that you will learn to respond to your inner body cues, because you were born with all the wisdom you need for eating intuitively. On the surface, this may sound simplistic, but it is rather complex. This inner wisdom is often clouded by years of dieting and food myths that abound in the culture. For example, “Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full” may sound like basic common sense, but when you have a history of chronic dieting or of following rigid “healthy” rules about eating, it can be quite difficult. To be able to ultimately return to your inborn Intuitive Eater, a number of things need to be in place—most importantly, the ability to trust yourself!

From here: http://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/what-intuitive-eating

It is an alternative strategy to weight loss / maintenance which teaches a person to realign themselves with the body's natural feedback loop in the event that this has been overridden by other learned habits / behaviours.

Obviously it's not just eating without logging calories...

nicsflyingcircus

I think intuitive eating can certainly work but the likelihood is, if you had a weight problem in the past, mindful eating is probably a better starting point if you do not wish to progress with calorie counting. Although mindful eating and intuitive eating do have many similarities they are not strictly the same.

Mindful eating is where you do not count calories as such or weigh food etc but are conscious and purposeful the decisions you make when you come to food, portion control and so on. Once these habits become subconsciously ingrained you can transition to intuitive eating where you don't have to think about it any more and you can naturally maintain your weight.

I feel positively about both mindful and intuitive eating in the right context. Incidentally if you have athletic goals based around endurance events you could check out something like "Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald to achieve your goals without the need for calorie counting.

Mindful eating is the habit I am acquiring (I believe) even as I track my calories.

Hornsby

I guess I am still confused on what intuitive eating is....

I eat without logging....intuitively.

I'm guessing you're not the only one:

Intuitive eating is an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind, and body--where you ultimately become the expert of your own body. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings, and gain a sense of body wisdom. It's also a process of making peace with food---so that you no longer have constant "food worry" thoughts. It's knowing that your health and your worth as a person do not change, because you ate a food that you had labeled as "bad" or "fattening”. 



The underlying premise of Intuitive Eating is that you will learn to respond to your inner body cues, because you were born with all the wisdom you need for eating intuitively. On the surface, this may sound simplistic, but it is rather complex. This inner wisdom is often clouded by years of dieting and food myths that abound in the culture. For example, “Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full” may sound like basic common sense, but when you have a history of chronic dieting or of following rigid “healthy” rules about eating, it can be quite difficult. To be able to ultimately return to your inborn Intuitive Eater, a number of things need to be in place—most importantly, the ability to trust yourself!

From here: http://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/what-intuitive-eating

It is an alternative strategy to weight loss / maintenance which teaches a person to realign themselves with the body's natural feedback loop in the event that this has been overridden by other learned habits / behaviours.

Obviously it's not just eating without logging calories...

And to me, when I read all that, it sounds like eating without logging and a whole lot of other fluff thrown in.

SideSteel

I guess I am still confused on what intuitive eating is....

I eat without logging....intuitively.

I'm guessing you're not the only one:

Intuitive eating is an approach that teaches you how to create a healthy relationship with your food, mind, and body--where you ultimately become the expert of your own body. You learn how to distinguish between physical and emotional feelings, and gain a sense of body wisdom. It's also a process of making peace with food---so that you no longer have constant "food worry" thoughts. It's knowing that your health and your worth as a person do not change, because you ate a food that you had labeled as "bad" or "fattening”. 



The underlying premise of Intuitive Eating is that you will learn to respond to your inner body cues, because you were born with all the wisdom you need for eating intuitively. On the surface, this may sound simplistic, but it is rather complex. This inner wisdom is often clouded by years of dieting and food myths that abound in the culture. For example, “Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full” may sound like basic common sense, but when you have a history of chronic dieting or of following rigid “healthy” rules about eating, it can be quite difficult. To be able to ultimately return to your inborn Intuitive Eater, a number of things need to be in place—most importantly, the ability to trust yourself!

From here: http://www.intuitiveeating.com/content/what-intuitive-eating

It is an alternative strategy to weight loss / maintenance which teaches a person to realign themselves with the body's natural feedback loop in the event that this has been overridden by other learned habits / behaviours.

Obviously it's not just eating without logging calories...

And to me, when I read all that, it sounds like eating without logging and a whole lot of other fluff thrown in.

At the surface it is just eating without logging, however I think there are plenty of people who need specific behavior modification and habit forming techniques along with learning to respect hunger/fullness cues. For people who can't just wing it (so to speak) some of the "fluff" is very valuable and necessary. Not necessarily everything in the above link, but some of those strategies/ideas are sound.

msf74

At the surface it is just eating without logging, however I think there are plenty of people who need specific behavior modification and habit forming techniques along with learning to respect hunger/fullness cues. For people who can't just wing it (so to speak) some of the "fluff" is very valuable and necessary. Not necessarily everything in the above link, but some of those strategies/ideas are sound.

Yeah, pretty much

The "fluff" is the specific habit / behaviour techniques which allow people to eat freely but not over eat rather than using calorie counting to achieve that end when in the absence of those techniques they would simply over eat.

JoRocka

I think a bigger question (and someone asked in maintenance) can you maintain without logging...

and yes you can.

I know plenty of people who do it- I did it for years. But I prefer to be more scientific about it- so once I got over my angst over calorie counting- it really clicked.