What are your thoughts on intuitive eating?

OP, it won't work. If you are serious about weight loss. then count every single calorie.

That's how I ended up here in the first place! I cannot rely on feeling full because I never do! Being accountable for all my food and calories burned works for me!

^^^

yup what she said if i was doing intuitive eating i would intuitively get back to 358 lbs soon enough

I'm a lying *&^#% when it comes to what I can do that requires less effort than the alternative. I convinced myself of this twice, I have lost over 30 pound with MFP when I first started I was 165 going on 150/145. started again this year at 181. So NOPE not me. If the schedule is an issue, ditch the schedule. I eat freely while keeping a eye on my protein and micros mainly(I eat some fat in each meal so that's not usually an issue) It's flexible and functional and it works for me. You just have to find what works for you.

shmerek and aedreana - I'm intrigued as to why you write off intuitive eating yet provide no reasoning?

If it worked this site and those like it wouldn't exist, pus the major proponents of intuitive eating that I have seen have all been overweight.

Wow, what a judgmental thing to say. As if someone's weight takes away from the value of what he/she has to say.

I think intuitive eating can work if you don't eat too many quickly released carbs, and don't eat for reasons other than fuel (ie you're not an emotional/ stress/ pleasure eater). I don't think you will lose weight this way unless your appetite has been reduced for some reason, but given the previous conditions I think you could maintain on it.

When I lose the weight I seek to, I intend to weigh myself daily, or else use a body fat calipers daily, to catch any weight gain early and act accordingly. Even with this though, weight takes several days to go on after you've overeaten, just as it when it comes off it lags behind your efforts that have taken it off, so its not foolproof either.

Anyway, these are my thoughts..

lol. i don't even know where to start. "Yogic" diet? lolwut? i've practiced yoga for almost 10 years now - i never knew there was a special diet. lol. (read: there's not. that's BS)

and as for intuitive eating? i think it's a nice little myth. like others have said, that's how many have ended up overweight. i don't think i'll ever be able to just intuitively eat. but, i like the awareness i have when counting and eating deliberately. intuitive eating is a unicorn.

shmerek and aedreana - I'm intrigued as to why you write off intuitive eating yet provide no reasoning?

If it worked this site and those like it wouldn't exist, pus the major proponents of intuitive eating that I have seen have all been overweight.

Wow, what a judgmental thing to say. As if someone's weight takes away from the value of what he/she has to say.

If someone is a proponent i.e. follows a diet/way of eating and they are overweight you think don't think that has any bearing on the efficacy of said diet/eating style? Hardly judgemental just observational. Is it wrong to say someone is overweight now? The major proponent of intuitive eating is HAES

I am not overweight and I disagree with your opinion.

That being said, just winging it isn't the right approach to eating intuitively. Look up Georgie Fear and her clients/methods for one example.

shmerek and aedreana - I'm intrigued as to why you write off intuitive eating yet provide no reasoning?

If it worked this site and those like it wouldn't exist, pus the major proponents of intuitive eating that I have seen have all been overweight.

Wow, what a judgmental thing to say. As if someone's weight takes away from the value of what he/she has to say.

If someone is a proponent i.e. follows a diet/way of eating and they are overweight you think don't think that has any bearing on the efficacy of said diet/eating style? Hardly judgemental just observational. Is it wrong to say someone is overweight now? The major proponent of intuitive eating is HAES

I ate intuitively for years and stayed lean.

It may not work for everyone, but it definitely works for some.

lol. i don't even know where to start. "Yogic" diet? lolwut? i've practiced yoga for almost 10 years now - i never knew there was a special diet. lol. (read: there's not. that's BS)

and as for intuitive eating? i think it's a nice little myth. like others have said, that's how many have ended up overweight. i don't think i'll ever be able to just intuitively eat. but, i like the awareness i have when counting and eating deliberately. intuitive eating is a unicorn.

Generally Yogis that I have spoken to (I.e. people who have extensively studied yoga and would be considered masters in the art) eat a primarily raw food and vegetarian diet. They avoid alcohol, coffee and prepare all food themselves, never reheating anything. This may be an extreme example but it's what happens where I live. Hence why I call this lifestyle a yogic diet.

Personally I don't believe that eating when your body tells you that you are truly hungry (as opposed to bored/scheduled eating time/ eating just cos etc) and eating purely to fuel your body is a myth but we all have our own opinions. That's why I started this post :-)

Therein lies the rub because many don't eat only when their body needs fuel. People eat for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with hunger. I don't think anyone would really argue that if you only ate when you were truly hungry there would be too many issues.

lol. i don't even know where to start. "Yogic" diet? lolwut? i've practiced yoga for almost 10 years now - i never knew there was a special diet. lol. (read: there's not. that's BS)

and as for intuitive eating? i think it's a nice little myth. like others have said, that's how many have ended up overweight. i don't think i'll ever be able to just intuitively eat. but, i like the awareness i have when counting and eating deliberately. intuitive eating is a unicorn.

Generally Yogis that I have spoken to (I.e. people who have extensively studied yoga and would be considered masters in the art) eat a primarily raw food and vegetarian diet. They avoid alcohol, coffee and prepare all food themselves, never reheating anything. This may be an extreme example but it's what happens where I live. Hence why I call this lifestyle a yogic diet.

Personally I don't believe that eating when your body tells you that you are truly hungry (as opposed to bored/scheduled eating time/ eating just cos etc) and eating purely to fuel your body is a myth but we all have our own opinions. That's why I started this post :-)

maybe you should try to expose yourself to a wider variety of yogis? or perhaps do a little digging online? a raw food and vegetarian diet are just that - raw food and vegetarian diets. i don't know that i've ever known a yogi who only ate raw food. that is an extremely limiting and difficult diet to maintain.
I just find the term "yogic diet" very laughable. in all my reading and years of practice and conversations with other yogis, never have i heard mention of this. in fact, the studio where i first began practicing, the instructors would praise their love of coffee and tout the benefits of enjoying a nice glass of wine or refreshing beer. the yogis in your life kind of sound like downers. lol.

I think being on this site and others like it can skew your world view that everyone has or has had a weight problem at some point.

Whilst obesity is a growing and significant problem still the majority of people on the planet, even in the west, are not obese or overweight.

The majority of those people do not calorie count or diet.

regarding the U.S. specifically:
"Percent of adults age 20 years and over who are overweight, including obesity: 69.0% (2011-2012)"**

you were saying about the majority of the population in the west (in the stat above the U.S. specifically) not being overweight and/or obese?

**source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm

Okay let me tell you about my own experience... Yogic stuff aside, I think the only way I got to lose weight is what you call intuitive eating, in the sense that I eat whatever I feel like eating whenever I feel like it by intuition and my plan isn't rigid, it's basically that I can eat whatever I want in whatever quantity I want provided I stay under maintenance calories. Not everyone has the patience to go weeks without losing weight at times, so this isn't for everyone.

A few caveats though.. intuition alone will not help much. You need CONTROLLED intuition. If your intuition tells you to eat a whole box of donuts for breakfast every morning you are not doing your weight loss any favors. You need to set certain boundaries and practice your freedom within them.

The way I'm eating, I happen to have 1000 calories on one day and 2500 on another. I may go 2 weeks without losing weight, then lose 3 pounds in a matter of a week. I may have a week that has both 1000 calorie days and 2500 calorie days, or a week with all days at 1600-ish. It all depends on what is happening around me and what I feel like having, and trust me, once you let go of the stress associated with the diet process you WILL intuitively have some low calorie days without obsessing about food.

Now the thing you do need to obsess about is getting to the point where you can document your calories detached from any kinds of feelings, good or bad. Get to the point where it's an automatic process that is merely there to let you know where you are within the boundary range. A 1000 calorie meal should not produce guilt because it will fuel obsessive tendencies and having a green salad should not produce a sense of accomplishment because it will fuel comparison tendencies, comparing that one healthy meal with other less healthy choices you've made which in turn leads to guilt and again into the obsession hamster wheel making your weight loss a much harder process.

Trust me when I say this, the day I let go of guilt was the day losing weight became easy. Too easy even! Not fast, but not too much different from the way I used to eat in my fat days sans being out of control.

As for exercise, I do resistance training 3 days a week, and yes, that takes discipline and I have yet to turn it into a habit. The cardio portion I have managed to make into a habit, even to the point where I have to restrain myself not to overtrain and talk myself out of another session. The way I did that, I merged my passion for reading with exercise. I buy audio books and only listen to them while I do incline walking. Incline walking burns a lot of calories, but does not require the focus you need for running, so I get to zone out and get lost in my books. I do a 45 minute session every day, and sometimes I lose control and do a second session in the evening, especially if my time is up at a very interesting part of the book. In short, you need to find what you really like and try to integrate that into your exercise somehow.

.... It all depends on what is happening around me and what I feel like having, and trust me, once you let go of the stress associated with the diet process you WILL intuitively have some low calorie days without obsessing about food.

Now the thing you do need to obsess about is getting to the point where you can document your calories detached from any kinds of feelings, good or bad. Get to the point where it's an automatic process that is merely there to let you know where you are within the boundary range. A 1000 calorie meal should not produce guilt because it will fuel obsessive tendencies and having a green salad should not produce a sense of accomplishment because it will fuel comparison tendencies, comparing that one healthy meal with other less healthy choices you've made which in turn leads to guilt and again into the obsession hamster wheel making your weight loss a much harder process.

^^^ yes a thousand times. Starting to get rid of guilt surrounding food has already helped me immensely. In a month or so I've gotten much happier by basically practicing & reflecting on intuitive eating* and reminding myself that I can choose to eat whatever I want. Of course, I'm also not in any hurry to lose weight (the weight is slowly coming off incidentally, but it's not a goal) -- I just want to have a better view on food & recreate my intuitive eating. From experience I know that once that happens, my body & weight will sort themselves out.

*...which is not, btw, defined only as "eat what you want when you want". a few ppl on this thread seem to be laboring under that misconception....

My reasoning, you ask? People who do not want to count calories are looking for an alternative that will allow them to consume MORE calories than if they counted calories.

I do not get this logic at all?

The reason for me to do it, and I expect most people, would be not having to count calories.

I totally agree with others that there needs to be some control, hence learning to only eat until you are satisfied and not completely stuffed. Also, sticking with foods that you prepare yourself and staying away from takeaways/pre-packaged/convenience foods is more or less just a foolproof way to ensure what you are eating is nutritious. Besides, if you truly care about your body wouldn't you only be eating nutritious food, not just whatever is within reach?

You can care about your body and not *only* eat nutritious food.