Anyone ever actually lost weight with Intuitive Eating?

I could never do it, at least not starting from my current state. I was actually just sort of discussing this with someone last night (not that term, but the "eating when hungry" concept), and yesterday was a perfect example of what my issues would be.

My activity level is perfectly described as lightly active. Yesterday I went and walked a mile on the rec center track at lunch and ran a few errands after work, but other than that sat on my butt most of the day. I'm certainly not training for anything; I haven't even been to the gym for resistance training in a few weeks (bad bad Barbie). My TDEE is around 2300. My deficit is set to 750 calories as I have almost 60lbs to lose to even hit the top of a healthy weight range.

Yesterday I ate 1,610 calories. Got 108g of protein, 83g of fat and 26g of fiber. Had 6 or 7 servings of fruits and vegetables. In terms of food selection, was a very solid 80/20 day (in terms of 80% whole, minimally processed foods and 20% less nutritionally dense food). Seems like it should have been a pretty satisfying day, yes?

Wrong. I spent the entire day feeling like I was starving and/or craving random crap. And that's not an atypical day for me, that's the norm. The problem is not that I need more food or anything. I'm eating more than enough for my current stats and for my goals. My problem is that I need to re-train my body and, most importantly, my mind to appropriately recognize the amount of food I DO need. If you've got that down, then a more Intuitive Eating approach could absolutely work. But, for most of us on MFP with goals to lose weight (yes, I know, not all, but most), we got here by "Intuitively Eating" way too frigging much. I think that "Intuitive Eating" should be viewed as more of a weight loss GOAL rather than a weight loss METHOD. Over the course of losing weight you hopefully re-learn what's appropriate for your body so that eventually you can stop logging and live your life while maintaining a healthy weight. That's *my* goal, anyway.

I really should know better...this time 3 months ago I had it all ticking over nicely. I was working through New Rules of Lifting, had my TDEE-20% and macros worked out to the dot, read everything that Sara2k1 and Sidesteel (and you too cwolfman13!) had to say on here...and it felt awesome having that knowledge and control. I just can't get my head back into it, and I guess that reading up on IE convinced me that I was flighting my body and that the nice easy route of basically eating what you like sounded lovely (kidding myself really).

However the fact that I have trawled the internet looking for one IE weight loss success story and failed says it all really. Like you say wolfman, I think that the system needs to be reset or retrained before anyone can trust their natural eating cues.

Still, it would be interesting to see if there is anyone out there that this has worked for...? Maybe someone who has only recently had some weight problems?

Thanks for the amazing responses guys! I think that this comment really hit the nail on the head:

"For me, the psychological relationship I have with food (what is means to me, what I wanted it to do for me, etc.) was something I had to deal with before I could really commit to losing weight. I never wanted to be overweight. I just wanted to feel good. Turns out, the food did not do anything good for me, my body, my life."

If I was overeating because I can't recognise hunger signals etc, then maybe IE would work better. But it's not my body that's tricking me, it's my mind. When I overeat it's almost always with something sweet. I can take or leave savoury snacks (I've had a huge bag of chips in the cupboard that have been there so long that they're probably out of date now, but a bar of chocoloate wouldn't make it through the night!), but the little bit of dopamime that get's released in my brain when I have something sweet keeps me coming back for more.

I've not had a traumatic life, and no real reason to 'comfort eat', I just enjoy it...it's like a drug I guess. If I'm feeling a bit down or even if I've accomplished something, my condolence/reward will always be sugar. And yup, that's not my body telling me it's what it needs, it's a little high that I enjoy in my brain!

I know that MFP is generally anti-detox, but I was thinking of following a mild detox program next week just to reset my system a little and hoepfuly kill the sweet cravings...then maybe I'll be able to get back on track and actually work with my body for what it needs to be healthy. :-)

A word of advice, however, if you have thyroid problems that aren't properly regulated....you won't have hunger signals. I found this out the hard way...it was the one reason I "failed" at this in the beginning. I couldn't understand what people were talking about when they would say "vague empty feeling." I only knew I was hungry when my tummy rumbled, and by then it was too late to stop a binge.