Anyone lost weight with intuitive eating?

I dont' follow intuitive eating (largely because I don't adhere to a diet or protocol) but I have used MFP in a manor to allow me to maintain my weight without issues and without logging calories. I do it by modifying the number of snacks, size of my meals, types of meals, and portions.

I don't log my intake most of the time. I go back to logging calories if I weigh in above my maintenance range, but right now I have the opposite problem. My weight has fallen to the lower side of the range.

KM0692 wrote: »

MoiAussi93 wrote: »

I lost about half of the weight I lost doing it that way. It is certainly very doable.

I only started counting calories because I wanted to find out how many calories I was actually eating and what the macros were and experiment with low carb.

Awesome...congrats!! Any helpful advice for those of us wanting to try this?

I have always known when I was really hungry vs just craving something or eating it because it was there or I was bored. The problem..for me...wasn't that I couldn't read my body's cues. I know when I'm actually hungry...even at my heaviest I knew. The issue was that I often just ignored the cues because I just really like food...whether I really need it or not.

So in my case, it was just figuring out strategies to control that. Changing long established behaviors is difficult (for me at least.)

I stopped snacking unless I was legitimately hungry (no longer eating just because I could). That was tough, but got easier as I went. What really helped was not bringing all the snack foods into my home. If ice cream isn't sitting in the freezer, I find it MUCH easier not to eat it. LOL! I also started eating everything from a plate...no more just grazing on a little of this and then a little of that because it adds up quickly and you don't even remember everything you ate. When I cook, I put what I plan to eat on the plate and immediately put the left overs away. THEN I ate. On the ...rare...occasion that I was actually still hungry when finished, I would get it out and eat more. But if the entire thing was sitting right in front of me, I knew I would be much more likely to have seconds I didn't need. Out of sight, out of mind works very well for me.

I focused on eating very slowly. That helped a bit. If I really wasn't hungry, I would occasionally skip a meal...which I never deliberately did before. I accepted that nothing bad happens if you skip lunch or dinner on occasion. I also, for the first time in my life, started bringing leftovers home from the restaurant instead of stuffing myself to finish it all. I was always one of those "clean the plate/don't let it go to waste" people. But just taking the time to look at the plate, pausing when halfway done to actually evaluate whether or not I was actually still truly hungry, really helped.

I didn't need to count calories. Obviously, because I was obese I knew I ate too much. It really didn't matter how many calories I was actually eating. Whatever the number, I just needed to eat less. It works and it's easy. The hard part is changing the habits...and for me it just took some trial and error to figure out what methods worked best for me.

KM0692 wrote: »

I'd like to try this once I reach my goal weight. I tend to be an emotional eater (and a boredom eater) though, so I'm not sure it will work for me (?).

I haven't had success with it. It usually only works for people lightly overweight (10lbs or so), because after that you're brain hormone levels change every 15lbs you go up, and your ability to eyeball calories goes down accordingly.

What book?