Dieting and IE

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pizza_though
pizza_though Posts: 1
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm having a major dilemma. Dieting causes me to be obsessed with food and eating and it always leads to overeating with me. If there's a calorie limit, I'll surpass it. I've tried to eat intuitively but I've never had clear hunger/fullness signals and they're certainly not kicking in now. I've tried but it doesn't work.

What am I supposed to do now? Neither work for me.

Replies

  • 0somuchbetter0
    0somuchbetter0 Posts: 1,335 Member
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    The whole purpose of MFP is to log and track your food, which is kind of the opposite of intuitive eating. Rather than "dieting," maybe just log what you regularly eat for a few days and see how it goes?
  • mymodernbabylon
    mymodernbabylon Posts: 1,038 Member
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    Maybe you shouldn't "diet". Many people have the issue you do because they eat too big a deficit and deny themselves certain foods. Why don't you give yourself a small deficit - like 10% from your maintenance calories and eat what you normally eat but in smaller portions.
  • TimothyFish
    TimothyFish Posts: 4,925 Member
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    If dieting makes you obsess about food, then focus on exercise. If you become obsessed with exercise, at least it will have you pointed in the right direction.
  • dfargher
    dfargher Posts: 37 Member
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    Here is what I would do in that case: I would find out what my calorie level should be for maintenance (not weight loss) and set my MFP goal to that. Then I would track everything I ate for a month, with no weight loss goal at all. The idea would be to 1) Get a really good idea of what I actually eat (as opposed to what I think I eat) and 2) See if just having the Maintenance goal number in front of me causes binges.

    Restricting calories causes binge eating for a lot of people. But if you still feel the urge to binge even while eating at maintenance, you will want to get that under control before trying to diet, as dieting will seriously exacerbate the problem.

    Once the urge to binge is gone while eating at maintenance, try reducing calories by a small amount (100-200 calories a day) either by eating less or by exercising. See how it feels at a small deficit before trying to increase it.
  • gothchiq
    gothchiq Posts: 4,590 Member
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    Is it feasible for you to see a nutritionist? They can help you with issues like that.

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