Intuitive eating vs planned eating schedule

It's hard for anyone else to answer that: Some people do well switching to intuitive eating, while others don't.

Could you do an experiment for a month or two, maybe set some weight boundaries that would cause you to end the experiment if it wasn't working out, or something like that?

One thing you can do is first get back to a routine and drop those five pounds. Then, work yourself up to maintenance. Slowly wean yourself from your food diary and try intuitive eating. Give yourself time to overcome a learning curve. If you try and still gain too much weight, then perhaps a routine is best for you.

For me the only thing that works is intuitive eating with a level of self love and care that helps me to remain concious and mindful of what I am doing to my body with anything I consume.

Intuitive, mindful eating works - period.

I eat when I'm hungry...which is generally meal time.

powered85 wrote: »

stroutman81 wrote: »

Before sharing my thoughts... question or two for you.

1) What about a set schedule way of eating do you think might be hurting you?

I use the neat method. So eating the same thing each day I've gotten used to that and end up in a bit of a cycle of earning back the calories through exercise to balance that routine. This is one downfall of the NEAT method I find and haven't tried tdee.

2) It sounds like this set schedule worked for you previously. What about now has changed that?

Less activity and added stress which has made me move towards snacking more often. So change in life/routine.

3) What does a "set schedule" look like for you in terms of behaviors and how do you think intuitive eating differs?

Set schedule would be eating the same foods basically throughout the day and the dinner meals would vary. But typically in the same calorie range.

I think intuitive eating means more going by hunger feel rather than being on a set schedule of a certain amount of food at particular times regardless of hunger.

Thanks for the clarifications. A couple of random thoughts for you...

1) Our bodies are definitely equipped with truly remarkable systems that help to regulate food intake. I mean hunger, alone, and all of the complexities involved in it... from hormones and neurochemicals to stomach expansion and gut microbiome. Even with all of this sophisticated "hardware" that your body's naturally equipped with, though, in modern times we've really lost touch with speaking its language. Meaning our body's telling us very valuable information, but due to our food and stress environments... this information is overridden.

2) This doesn't imply that intuitive eating is impossible. I haven't counted calories for a couple of years now. And even back when I did two years ago, it was only for a couple of months to keep the skill of portion recognition and energy density alive. I also have plenty of clients who come to me as lifelong counters and we've been able to ween them off of the reliance of numbers. But in most cases, it's not a wholesale shift that's made in one fell swoop.

3) Instead of attempting a wholesale shift, what we generally do is continue down the path of numbers, but start layering in skills that reteach the art of speaking the body's language. Over time, and in incremental steps, we'll focus on skills such as eating meals with no snacking in between, waiting some time before feeding hunger in order to rule out emotional hunger and identify physical hunger, stopping a meal at satisfied rather than full, eating sufficient protein at every feeding, including fruits and/or veggies at every feeding, improving the food landscapes of your home and office, winning at eating out, etc. I could rattle off 10-15 more of the common skills that resonate with folks. The bottom line, though, is with enough skill acquisition, they eventually hit a point where there's no longer a need to count stuff if they don't want to.