Intuitive Eating or Calorie Counting

elisa123gal

Intuitive eating is the goal. I hardly want to count calories for my life. I think it is a good way to get in line and learn how the foods we eat impact our weight. A great education but hardly the way to live the rest of your life.

brendajbentley

What I hearing a lot from people is that they try to think their way through Intuitive Eating - it is a process to re-learn this but remember your body has a wisdom that you can never outsmart. Your micro/macro management of your diet is an attempt to control something - and listening to your body, because you've eroded the trust, is impossible. You have to work on it to regain trust of yourself with food. I am a pure IE eater and teacher. It took a lot of years to retrain myself from my binge eating disorder to IE, but it was worth it - what else you going to do? End the battle and return to peaceful eating. :-) Good luck and just keep at it - read books and /or work with a IE pro.

ChristinaR720

My intuition told me to eat a Whopper Jr. last night. It was really good and fit within my macros, but I definitely think my intuition sucks...

Naomi0222

Hi friends,
I am just looking for some opinions. I have finished reading the book titled, "Intuitive Eating," and am in the process of still counting calories, etc. One of the main points in the book is to eat what you are hungry for. Here is where one of my questions lies... 1) do you eat what you want if it fits into your calories but NOT your macros... as in, if you go over fiber or fat?

2) do you intuitive eat and log the calories? Or just count calories? Opinions on calorie counting vs. intuitive eating?

Thanks!

I read that book about two months ago and wonder the same thing. Thanks for asking!!!

lorgrayson

When I don't track, I gain. I make poorer choices and eat more calorie dense food. Weighing food is another thing. I once ate 8 ounces of salmon that I would have estimated at being half that weight.

chubby_checkers

Intuitive eating doesn't work for me because I intuitively want to stuff my face.

This for sure. I "intuitively" ate 6000 calories on Friday.

bumblebums

The main thrust of the intuitive eating directive reminds me of Steve Jobs' response to complaints about that iPhone 4 defect: "don't hold it that way". Telling overweight people to just listen to their bodies and "eat when they are hungry, then stop" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of their difficulties.

Calorie counting is a reproducible experiment. If you approach it as a scientific method of weight loss, it will most likely work for you, unless you have serious mental or physical health problems.

jenilla1

I don't know many people who would do well eating intuitively. The people I know personally who are overweight know what they need to do to be healthy, but it's just not a priority for them. Very few are overweight through sheer ignorance. I know a few who've lost weight successfully on MFP and then decided they were gonna go intuitive and gained it all back. Most of them need strong guidance and most of them would probably need that guidance for the rest of their lives.

I would probably be a good candidate for intuitive eating, because I have strong self-control and no emotional hang-ups with food. For the first few decades of my life I was an intuitive eater and very good at it. I naturally gravitate towards healthy foods and I know when to stop eating. I've never been overweight. But just knowing what foods are healthy may not be enough. As I've gotten older my metabolism has slowed a bit and if I don't follow my eating and exercise, over time I start a slow creep up.

I've been on maintenance for a couple of years now and it's no hassle. Tracking is just so easy and it's a habit now, so I'd rather just stick with it and not have to fix problems down the road when I turn out to be less intuitive than I think I am. I don't mind taking a few minutes out of my day to maintain my weight and it doesn't bother me at all to think of doing it for the rest of my life. It's just a part of good maintenance.

If a person is naturally intuitive, then it sounds like a great idea. I just don't think that's the norm, though. Just do what you feel works best for you. Sounds like it would be easy enough to test your ability to succeed at intuitive eating. :drinker:

carolyn0613

I read a book a few years ago by Paul McKenna (who made his name being a UK stage hypnotist but is also a therapeutic hypnotist). It was called I can make you thin. I was sucked in by the title (please make me thin Paul. I need you to take all the responsibility for my eating habits ).

It had some interesting ideas which correspond to the intuitive eating ones: eat when you are hungry, stop when full, chew slowly, be concious of each mouthful, and another one (there were 5 rules). He also advocated visualisation - see yourself as a thin person. I do think that this is the best way to eat and it is the way thin people eat. But I'm not thin (yet!). So I need another method to help me become thin, and in the meantime I can practice this kind of eating. I don't pay any attention to my nutrients apart from trying to eat 5 fruit and veg a day. I eat when I'm hungry during the day, until my packed lunch is gone - I usually have eaten my sandwich by 11.30 am. I might buy something else if I get hunger pangs at 4pm but I log it. I seem to be more hungry during the day so eat more calories then. I keep to my calories but don't force myself to eat more in the evenings if there are some left.

So far this works for me and isn't hard at all.

LBNOakland

The main thrust of the intuitive eating directive reminds me of Steve Jobs' response to complaints about that iPhone 4 defect: "don't hold it that way". Telling overweight people to just listen to their bodies and "eat when they are hungry, then stop" betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature of their difficulties.

Calorie counting is a reproducible experiment. If you approach it as a scientific method of weight loss, it will most likely work for you, unless you have serious mental or physical health problems.

This^^^^^^^
I used to practive WeighDown Workshop which is intuitve eating. It can work. The problem is that obese people have messed up their body signals. They don't remember what real hunger feels like or confuse hunger for thirst. Instead of focusing on the feeling, counting calories keeps you accountable. You aren't going to be tricked by a hunger pang that is really a stress reaction and not a call for fuel. Using the Roadmap and approaching this logically has changed my whole mindset. Sometimes I feel like a cigarette but does my body really need that tobacco - no! BTW, I quit smoking 19 years ago but when stressed, I still crave! Your mind can play some weird tricks on you. COunting calories helps you make good, logical choices.

april1445

My intuition is a sadistic b*stard! It's always telling me "this, now this, some of that, a handful of this other thing." I think I'm giving my hunger what it wants, but it always wants something else.

I bought into the idea that my body would settle naturally at the weight it wanted to be and stopped monitoring myself at about 162 pounds. I would turn my back on the scales at the doctor's office because I just didn't want to know how much weight I was gaining, and I didn't want my thoughts to interfere with my body's natural wisdom. What a crock!

When I finally checked, I discovered to my horror that I was up to 207 pounds. I knew without a doubt that my weight would continue to climb as long as I allowed it. I don't care if my body wants to weigh 250+ pounds, I do not, and I am in charge, not my appetite!

So intuitive eating can bite me! It's monitoring and calorie counting all the way.

LMAO!!