Non-diet: stop when you're full, eat only when hungry etc

I am able to fly freely when on maintenance and use these strategies. I have never had food issues though and grew up well supplied with food and not forced upon food wise so my relationship with food and my belly feels is deeply ingrained as healthy and utilitarian. Not to mean I don't crave the good stuff, but I have eaten healthy for so so long that if I try to go nuts with sweets on the off occasion there's too many and I can't resist, I immediately regret it and know how to recover, be it needing protein, salad or whatnot. I'm pretty in tune with my body that way.

So yes I think it can work for some people. I personally have to diet pretty hardcore to lose weight. But I also have to eat pretty recklessly and almost forcefully to gain. Hard to explain but it just happened so I'll go into how it FEELS since you are asking this topic. When I am eating normally it feels like I am minus hunger pangs (not pains, I beleive that is cruel and self abusive). When I am over eating it feels like my mind knows it's too much. I have seen and am aware of the volume of food being excessive but for some reason think this "taste" is worth it in the moment. Then of course ten minutes later, my belly hurts, I regret it, and vow not to do it again. I correct at my next meal if the food is still doing a number on me. Might be fiber thru salad, protein if that gave me a headache, soup if I think more fluids with get it out, whatever. Recently I did a stretch of this for a few days in my excitement for fall weather and pastries and also in my overall numbness from having to go thru some negative things in my personal life which I won't go into. I am not so numb in those times though that I am not aware it's happening, it's just I guess my need for the comfort wins out over the part of me saying "okay you've had enough of that treat". So in this stretch of not listening to my body or stopping when I was full, and eating because a pastry looked good or was offered or was warm in this moment rather than because I was hungry, naturally I gained a little. For months prior to that however I kept my hard earned weight loss in check using the method in your title. From the end of August till just recently actually, flying by the seat of my pants eating mostly healthy and indulging at random times and maintaining. Now I think I've corrected that overage by restricting my diet a little with the cal counting. That tactic in your title however has never resulted in weight loss for me. It takes a concerted effort for me personally. But as I described I am used to eating healthy amounts of a variety of things and listening to my body which I believe is why I maintain that way, because the body seems to want to maintain. For me it takes a conscious effort of some sort to actually lose.

I've rambled and forgotten paragraphs and overshared but I hope this helps you. I opened up for you because of your dismay you showed at being shown here so long and your specific question being something I'm quite familiar with as I've lived most of my life this way and have enjoyed healthy weight for most of it as a result. After reading so many stories on here I'm not sure how many others have been so lucky. That's one thing about MFP, it has made me truly grateful for my upbringing and I have actually recently become more demonstrative of this to my parents especially as it regards food. I will look across the table from them buying them dinner or bringing them food gifts and just feel so warm inside knowing their early efforts paved the way for my having such a blessed life in this regard.

So I hope this helps you in some way. My guess is if a person made a habit of eating poorly all the time then this method might actually result in weight loss since they probably have never really been on maintenance but just overeating a lot then this checking in with ones self might just do the trick....because if they were overeating all day everyday all over the place, then when they finally say "enough" or "cut it out" their meals would be smaller at every sitting and there'd be less sittings. That's just a guess though and I'm inclined to think for a person like that it might get complicated psychologically or emotionally or they just might need a few weeks or months of conscious healthy eating to first let them see how it feels to be eating a healthy meal, feel the feels of satiety rather than fullness, feel the feels of hunger rather than starving or craving or other types of eating, feel the feels of walking around satisfied for a couple hours without bloating regrets or whatnot. Get in the habit of eating at normal intervals. Get in the habit of making mealtimes and reasonable food choices a mainstay. After some time of this feeling I think a person might be able to then rely on those feelings for guidance, I just think you have to have a baseline first.

Good post, thanks for taking the time.

I go back and forth on this too. I feel I can more or less maintain my weight eating "intuitively" but losing is another issue. It's also a lot of work for me to eat intuitively -- much harder than counting calories in a way. I also question whether the availability of nutrient dense food, the body's innate desire to store fat and the hormonal, metabolic and psychological factors that play into an individual's feelings of hunger/satiety can really be overcome by "listening to one's body" in every case. Interesting to think about.

I also believe, as the OP said, that the "psychology of restriction" is one of the major factors in diet failure. Ideally, there would be a way to restrict intake without thinking that you "can't have" certain things as that will obviously only make you want them more (even if you wouldn't want them otherwise). Maybe the work-around is to tweak your psychological approach to weight loss rather than the calorie counting itself.