Intuitive Eating

Truckergirl922
Truckergirl922 Posts: 18
in Food and Nutrition
I found this awesome book on Amazon.com by Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD and Elyse Resch MS, RD, EADA, CEDRD. It teaches you that it is okay to eat. There are no restrictions, no rules. Eat what you like, exercise for enjoyment. Listen to your body, and be aware of it's signals. My husband lost 40lbs in 3 months, drinking beer, eating whatever he wanted, no insane workouts.

Anyone else using this concept? It's new to me, but I am tired of beating myself up because I couldn't handle the rules of other diets. I am tired of being told what I can and can't do, have, or go. I have found that I actually like the healthier foods when I'm told I CAN have that big-honkin' bar burger and fries if I want. It's a scary concept for me, but I've tried everything else so why not.

I'm not supposed to count calories or restrict my choices, but I also want to see what I'm doing. It helps me to be more conscious of when I eat and why. Please share your experiences with this lifestyle.

Replies

  • Pearsquared
    Pearsquared Posts: 1,656 Member
    I would like to learn how to eat intuitively, but I am most definitely not at a point where I can do so yet. I do not restrict the types of foods that I'm eating, but I have struggled with binge eating in the past, and I need to work on not doing that before I work on eating intuitively.
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    I discovered Evelyn Tribole through her series of healthful "comfort food" cookbooks. Another author who I've found helpful is Paul McKenna ("I Can Make You Thin") whichnis based on auto-hypnosis and his four Golden Rules: when you're hungry, eat; eat what you want, not what you think you should; eat consciously and enjoy every mouthful; when you think you are fyll, stop eating. You might find this page from the Center for Mindful Eating useful:

    http://www.thecenterformindfuleating.org/principles

    All of these non-dieting approaches are grounded in mindfulness with their own twists; Tribole on the scripts we carry around in our heads from childhood, McKenna adds NLP techniques. All believe the high failure rate of diets is due to their failure to address the behavioral aspects of disordered eating. They're not magic bullets or quick solutions.

    My own approach is to combine the wisdom of eating mindfully with better choices and monitoring my intake ... Basically a hybrid of McKenna's Golden Rules with the dietary choices suggested by South Beach, and the great journaling MFP provides. That's what works for me. I think Tribole takes an extreme position regarding not counting calories which may be useful for someone with a history of bulimia or anorexia, but which isn't terribly useful for others. Whether not counting calories is good for depends on your personal history.

    If you're having a hard time making it work, you might want to work with a wellness coach or a eating disorder coach or counselor.
  • Truckergirl922
    Truckergirl922 Posts: 18
    Thank you vingogly. I too love the South Beach Diet because it helped me discover my body's reaction to different carbs. I still love carbs so I knew Atkins would never work for me. When I found SBD, I learned better carb choices. Being 45 I am tired of being told what I can and can't have. With the help of Intuitive Eating, I have drastically reduced my calorie intake because I no longer have the urge to binge. I know I can have whatever I want, whenever I want it and the uncontrollable food fest isn't as much fun anymore.

    I will keep your suggestions in mind and will check out the website for Mindful Eating, because I know I have a tendency to eat and not even remember doing it. Sometimes I blame the dog when the WHOLE bag of chips is empty and I only remember eating 3 chips :grumble:

    Please feel free to add me as a friend if you wish.
  • zenalasca
    zenalasca Posts: 563 Member
    These are the reasons why skinny people who don't watch their calories and stay skinny by eating and doing whatever they like:

    They feel emotionally satisfied by what they eat and don't need much of it. Indeed, they may take tiny looking servings or leave their bowl unfinished.
    They are fussy eaters. They won't eat lots of things and for lots of reasons, and have to be in their comfort zone to eat.
    They drink lots of water.
    They do a lot of incidental exercise without even realising it through their work or hobbies.
    They follow regular eating patterns.
    They usually don't have to worry about their food or where their next meal will come from (if they are a teenager living with mom).
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    These are the reasons why skinny people who don't watch their calories and stay skinny by eating and doing whatever they like:

    They feel emotionally satisfied by what they eat and don't need much of it. Indeed, they may take tiny looking servings or leave their bowl unfinished.

    It goes beyond that ... "Skinny" people don't connect their emotional states to eating. They don't eat when they're anxious or sad or lonely or bored or angry, they eat when they know they're they're hungry, enjoy it, and stop when they're full. Eating is not a healthy way to meet our emotional needs.
  • quirkytizzy
    quirkytizzy Posts: 4,052 Member
    I would like to learn how to eat intuitively, but I am most definitely not at a point where I can do so yet. I do not restrict the types of foods that I'm eating, but I have struggled with binge eating in the past, and I need to work on not doing that before I work on eating intuitively.

    This is where I am. I can eat intuitively enough not to cause great harm to myself. But not enough to yet meet my goals. I do like the idea of intuitive eating, though.

    It sounds like an interesting book.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Ideally, this is how everyone would eat and train...but many people do not know how to eat and don't know how to listen to their bodies and don't know how much is enough or too much or too little, etc. MFP and calorie counting is a great training ground for learning and/or re-learning these things...but I think it's just training wheels. People should be doing this with the idea of intuitive eating being the ultimate goal.

    I maintained for a good 3-4 months practicing intuitive eating before deciding I wanted to drop a few more points in BF. And as always, everyone should be exercising for fitness an enjoyment, not just calorie burn or whatever. I think this is where many people go wrong with their fitness regimen...their only purpose is to burn calories and their workouts become unintelligent and boring.
  • gingabebe
    gingabebe Posts: 165 Member
    I saw this post topic and thought of the time I drank a gallon of milk in only 2 days and I am I guess you could say sensitive to it.
    I was allergic to it as a baby and now if I drink too much I get skin issues.
    So I was telling my coworker about my weird sudden milk craving and she said take a pregnancy test. Now I had just gotten married 2 months previous and we were planning on waiting 3 years before a baby (and I was on the pill), but she was totally right. My baby was certainly a surprise gift, especially considering I have PCOS too. My body knew I needed the calcium or whatever else from the milk and I suffered no ill effects.

    I will check out the authors mentioned. I know all my excess weight comes from emotional eating and would love to eat from now on intuitively.
  • 9thChakra
    9thChakra Posts: 141 Member
    Hello all!

    I listened to the audiobook and I have found it to be very helpful. Please read my blog or profile if you'd like to know more about it from my perspective. My food diary is public also.

    Take care!

    9thChakra
  • whierd
    whierd Posts: 14,025 Member
    i am personally against intuitive eating. There is a reason that people get fat in the first place, and listening to their body/emotions is the cause of it.
  • Truckergirl922
    Truckergirl922 Posts: 18
    My husband actually inspired me to try this only he didn't know he was doing it. He called it "The eat whatever you want diet." He lost 40lbs in just over 3 months (but he is a truck driver, so lots of hard work all day long). I don't expect to lose that much that quickly because my job is mentally demanding, not physical. But I do like not having to restrict myself. I don't get nervous in restaurants or at friend's for dinner.
  • Truckergirl922
    Truckergirl922 Posts: 18
    i am personally against intuitive eating. There is a reason that people get fat in the first place, and listening to their body/emotions is the cause of it.

    I am trying this because I have tried everything else and I am still fat. I didn't get fat because I listened to my body/emotions. I got fat because I was using food to soothe/calm my emotions. I got fat because a food coma was the only way I could sleep. Now I am in a much better relationship and trying to kick the habit. I feel that my emotions caused this damage, so if I find a way to control them I should be able to control my weight. No one really knows until they find the thing that works for them. Good luck with finding yours. :flowerforyou:
  • trisH_7183
    trisH_7183 Posts: 1,486 Member
    These are the reasons why skinny people who don't watch their calories and stay skinny by eating and doing whatever they like:

    They feel emotionally satisfied by what they eat and don't need much of it. Indeed, they may take tiny looking servings or leave their bowl unfinished.

    It goes beyond that ... "Skinny" people don't connect their emotional states to eating. They don't eat when they're anxious or sad or lonely or bored or angry, they eat when they know they're they're hungry, enjoy it, and stop when they're full. Eating is not a healthy way to meet our emotional needs.
    :

    You have just described my husbands eating pattern & reasons for eating. People remark on his height & I do believe tallness makes a difference,but he eats what is handy,what I have on the table & STOPS when he is full.There is no race to see how much he can eat.He is retired,but busy about 70% of the time,no need for formal exercise.He's never quite understood why some people need eating plans,me included.:grumble:
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    i am personally against intuitive eating. There is a reason that people get fat in the first place, and listening to their body/emotions is the cause of it.

    Psychotherapists go through training that teachesvthem to be aware of their physical and emotional reactions to things, and to observe the physical and emotional responses of patients during therapy ... Yet psychotherapists are no more likely to be overweight than the general populace.

    The percentage of people dieting does not predict the rate of obesity in the populace, and the percentage of obese people in the USA is shooting up. It's clear from the data that dieting doesn't work ... Neither do all the miracle drugs and foods people have been touting for decades. If they did people wouldn't be so fat.

    I went through a medically supervised fast 25 years ago and it worked ... But at the end my doctor gave me a sheet of paper and told me to change my eating behavior. That's it. It's also pretty clear that the behavioral aspect of weight maintenance has always been given short shrift by medical professionals, who view weight issues as engineering problems to be solved rather than behavioral disorders.

    Let's consider your solution: listening to your body and emotions (mindfulness) is bad, which implies not listening to them is good (unmindfulness). You believe mindfulness is the reason people get fat; but it's not self-awareness that makes people fat, because non-fat people also have emotions and physical sensations. It's the behavioral connection between emotions and behavior and the inability to correctly recognize and respond to hunger cues that causes problems. Mindfulness/intuitive eating approaches focus on changing that behavioral connection.
  • hpilon27
    hpilon27 Posts: 43
    Ideally, this is how everyone would eat and train...but many people do not know how to eat and don't know how to listen to their bodies and don't know how much is enough or too much or too little, etc. MFP and calorie counting is a great training ground for learning and/or re-learning these things...but I think it's just training wheels. People should be doing this with the idea of intuitive eating being the ultimate goal.

    I maintained for a good 3-4 months practicing intuitive eating before deciding I wanted to drop a few more points in BF. And as always, everyone should be exercising for fitness an enjoyment, not just calorie burn or whatever. I think this is where many people go wrong with their fitness regimen...their only purpose is to burn calories and their workouts become unintelligent and boring.

    MFP is an excellent training ground. I counted calories for 5 months to get to where I wanted to be and for a couple of months after that. I have been maintaining now for 6 months but have not kept a food diary for about 3 months now. I eat when and what I want and exercise because I enjoy it.
  • favhrnstr
    favhrnstr Posts: 55
    Intuitive eating may work for some people, like the OP's husband and hopefully the OP, and not for others. Just like some people lose weight on WW, some on Atkins/South Beach, etc. You need to find what works for you.

    Personally, this is the first time I've ever been successful in truly losing weight, and forcing myself into an exercise program with calorie counting is what I had to do. And I needed a buddy (my husband) to help motivate me along the way. Now we enjoy exercise and choose healthier foods because we both realize how much better we feel and look. While no food is officially off-limits, I now feel kinda crappy after a big burger and fries, so it's not as tempting. A small bowl of ice cream is now plenty to satiate me because I'm no longer used to massive amounts of sugar every day. I guess I've learned how to be mindful of my body's signals, but only after making conscious (not intuitive) decisions for months.
  • Athena53
    Athena53 Posts: 717 Member
    Easy to define, very hard to do! Years ago I worked with a short, thin guy who said, "I listen to my stomach". It's SO hard to listen to your stomach when your pleasure centers are screaming, "that piece of chocolate cake was so good- I want another!" I think it;s especially hard for people who need to break an emotional connection to food, who overeat when stressed or when they need comforting.

    I'm getting better at it. 5:2 fasting has helped because I've learned to ignore minor hunger pangs. If I can tell that I just have the munchies, I snack on something like baby carrots with salsa. On my non-fast days when I'm really hungry I focus on what it is I really need. If it's 10:30 AM and I'm craving something solid I may have a small serving of something left over from last night's dinner instead of eating empty calories.
  • vingogly
    vingogly Posts: 1,785 Member
    I started becoming a "chubby" child at the age of seven ... That was 1953. I dieted and reached a normal weight in the mid 1960s, only to get fat again post-college in the early 1970s. It's been an up and down struggle since.

    What I've learned from my successes and failures over the decades is: there are three major components to weight gain/loss/maintenance: what you put in your mouth, your activity level, and your relationship to food. I've also learned that diets don't work. Following a diet plan and logging here on MFP are relatively easy, as is increasing your activity level. It's what's in your head that's the hardest to change, and without changing what's in your head, you will fail ... Again and again.

    So if you don't care for mindful eating, fine ... I'll challenge you to ask yourself, what lifelong behavioral changes will I make that will keep me from ending up here again? Because that's what I believe is needed for us to make this work long term ... Are you really going to be dieting for the rest of your life? Or will you say "glad that diet's done" and end up a year later where you started?
  • NatureChik1985
    NatureChik1985 Posts: 79
    I lost my weight through IIFYM, but transitioned to intuitive eating for maintence. It feels more natural to, I knew calorie counting for me WOULD NOT be long term for me. I will admit I am glad I learned what I did while counting, but I feel like a normal person now that I don't have to count. I have been maintaining over a year and a half using intuitive eating.
  • DCruz83
    DCruz83 Posts: 99
    Intuitive eating is technically easy once you have a good idea of your calorie intake and that you can separate your emotions from your food. I've done it before and for a good while it worked fairly well until I fell back into my old habits.
  • whitebalance
    whitebalance Posts: 1,654 Member
    Intuitive eating is technically easy once you have a good idea of your calorie intake and that you can separate your emotions from your food. I've done it before and for a good while it worked fairly well until I fell back into my old habits.
    QFT. Having measured food and tracked calories makes it easier to assess what you're eating vs what your body needs.

    "Intuitive eating" sounds so natural and easy, but consider how many people eat what they "feel like" eating without paying much attention to their intake and are unhappy with their weight. I've found that when the sweet tooth (or the habitual mind) wants what's not good for the rest of the body, without measuring intake, it's all too easy to rationalize and to underestimate amounts... and then it's easy to blame the heat cycle on the dryer when clothes start getting snug... and then "suddenly" you're 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight and wondering how it happened and how you'll ever take the weight back off. The measured approach IS mindfulness -- monitoring and paying attention to what goes in. It works.
  • gmallan
    gmallan Posts: 2,099 Member
    After logging for a while I'm trying this. Haven't read the book but at the moment I'm just eating when and what I feel like while keeping healthy eating in mind. I just want to be able to get to a place where I can just eat, not think about food constantly and have enough energy for life and my workouts.
  • Truckergirl922
    Truckergirl922 Posts: 18
    Intuitive eating is technically easy once you have a good idea of your calorie intake and that you can separate your emotions from your food. I've done it before and for a good while it worked fairly well until I fell back into my old habits.
    QFT. Having measured food and tracked calories makes it easier to assess what you're eating vs what your body needs.

    "Intuitive eating" sounds so natural and easy, but consider how many people eat what they "feel like" eating without paying much attention to their intake and are unhappy with their weight. I've found that when the sweet tooth (or the habitual mind) wants what's not good for the rest of the body, without measuring intake, it's all too easy to rationalize and to underestimate amounts... and then it's easy to blame the heat cycle on the dryer when clothes start getting snug... and then "suddenly" you're 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight and wondering how it happened and how you'll ever take the weight back off. The measured approach IS mindfulness -- monitoring and paying attention to what goes in. It works.

    Intuitive eating isn't eating what you want, when you want it, however much you want. Intuitive eating is discovering what you NEED, when you NEED to eat, and how much you NEED. Your body will tell you what you need. Your mind/emotions tell you what you want. Separating the need from the wants is the success of this lifestyle. I hope no one feels I am "pushing" this, I was just asking if anyone else had been successful or tried it. I appreciate all your responses/opinions and wish you all love and joy in whatever brings you success and happiness.
  • 9thChakra
    9thChakra Posts: 141 Member
    Trucker...don't worry if other people don't "get it." You have found something that you realize can help you along your journey.

    I've listened to this audiobook and I'm becoming much better at intuitive eating. It's very difficult because for so long eating (particularly sugar) has been a coping mechanism of mine from childhood.

    Learning how to check in with myself, rate my fullness/hunger, not settle for something I don't want, and learning how to really pay attention to what is driving me to eat (real hunger vs. emotional need) has been difficult and amazing.

    There are times when I eat beyond fullness but not as much anymore.

    There are times when I find myself in the kitchen/store seeking comfort and I do sometimes still eat mindlessly...but it's like I'm watching myself now...I can actually see myself doing it and I am much more aware of when this is happening. Unlike in the past when I'd eat emotionally and never realized that's what was going on.

    I find it really, really difficult at times to get the "diet mentality" out of my head (not that I ever liked or "did" dieting...but I grew up with a yo-yo mother). This is particularly true for me if I go on a streak of junk or even just have one thing that just makes me feel sick. This causes me to want to go "extra-healthy" just to counteract...not because I'm listening to my body...but because I think I "should" "fix" the junk food intake.

    Like the idea teaches, I've found the more I truly tune into my body the more I naturally take in whole/unprocessed foods.

    I have made lots of changes over the years. I used to be able to eat (in reality it was more like unable NOT to eat) a whole pound bag of Twizzlers. At some point I developed the awareness that this was not food and it was hurting my body. I slowly started subbing dried fruit for twizzlers (papaya and mango worked for me). I did this with more and more crap "food" - subbing in real food instead. Over time my tastes changed. I no longer can eat chocolate that is highly processed with a bunch of filler. I get good quality dark chocolate (85%) and my taste buds no appreciate the quality. Not to mention I can actually eat this slow and be satisfied with less.

    I grew up with very little exposure to different foods and the choices I did have were extremely weighted in the sugar/processed foods and meat side of things. Fresh veggies/fruits and foods that were not meat and potatoes were unheard of. My palette has grown...but even now I find that when I shop I tend to buy more fruit and less veggies just because of the sweetness factor. It's not that I don't like veggies...it's just that my body has a hard time knowing and/or I have a hard time hearing that my body wants veggies.

    Sounds funny but I sometimes I'll feel strange and I'll go through the cupboards looking for something to eat to make me feel better. Then it dawns on me I have nothing salty in the house...only sweet. Or I have a bag of potato chips that have been there for a month, unopened. So I eat them or go get something with salt or steam some broccoli and add a little salt and I feel so much better. It's just a flavor I never comforted myself with when I was younger so I don't eat it...but it's also an essential mineral my body just needs sometimes.

    Anyhow...I really hope you continue to learn from the book. I just went for a walk yesterday and was listening to it again. Every time I listen I tune into something new or I hear something that is important to me and I'm glad I heard it again as a reminder.

    Take care!

    9thChakra

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