Taking a break from counting, intuitive eating?

I have to track - I am not good at estimating or eyeballing and I can easily justify whatever it is I am eating by saying oh this is just a small piece/bite/portion/taste etc and then boom! - its all gone.

I find, for me, logging takes the stress out of eating. When I try to eat mindfully or intuitively I either eat way under or over my calorie needs. And I overanalyze every bite I put in my mouth until I just decide it's easier not to eat, or I block it out of my mind and binge. Knowing where I'm at with my calories lets me relax, balance my macros and know when it's OK to indulge without guilt or anxiety. I'm also really bad at judging portions, so the weighing and measuring relieves that stress too.

I alternated between calorie counting and intuitive eating for 10 months and lost 40 lbs. After calorie counting for a while my appetite shrinks so I can switch to intuitive eating. When my weight loss stalls (because my appetite has slowly grown) I go back to calorie counting.

Most of the time, tracking neither bothers me nor stresses me, and it is the only thing in 40 years of trying that has enabled me to lose a substantial amount of weight and keep it off more than a year (three-plus years, actually), so I haven't been tempted to try intuitive eating.

But if tracking is causing you problems, trying some other approach and seeing if you can make it work seems reasonable. I hope it works out for you.

I tried intuïtive eating for the first month of my diet. Since I eat nearly the same thing everyday it was nice to get a feel for myself of what my body told me I needed and changed it up whenever I needed to. When I logged it for the first time yesterday it was nearly precisely the amount of calories mfp tells me to eat (1200 kcalories net) and high fat+protein, low on the carbs.

I think it would get easier having a more varied diet and do this the more experienced you are.

im too ocd, and actually enjoy being precise but if you're able to 'eye ball' it and maintain your weight/goals then great, whatever works for you. only time i don't really log everything is during the major holidays and let go a little bit... but that's like 2-3 days in the year.

This is actually something I got really curious about for a while and looked into some research on it. it's really fascinating, and it definitely can do well, but there are a lot of 'if you do it right' addendum, you know? So, what I know.

1. In animals that have been tested - and I'm going to presume us, too - the body does seem to make connections between foods and what the body needs. You crave the markers of calorie dense foods when you are low in calories, for example (sweet and fatty/high carb foods are usually higher in calories, so we'll crave these things). We will tend to crave certain foods associated with certain nutrients, too. I experienced this myself when I was craving this one food like woah, and found out later it was very high in the one nutrient I was missing in my diet.

But here's the problem: our bodies have to be ABLE to distinguish what we need from what foods we eat. There was an interesting study years and years ago with very small toddlers who were given foods to eat. One group got foods mixed together - like breads, pasta dishes with veggies, that sort of thing. One group got single ingredients - apples, oatmeal, etc...

The group that had one ingredient foods pretty quickly started eating a nutritionally complete diet for the week (but not every day, interestingly - they would tend to binge on a few things for a day or two, and then binge on another set of things the next day or so, etc...). But the one that had the foods mixed did not - they tended toward the most fatty or sweet items.

It was speculated that whatever cues the body uses to figure out what food gives us what nutrients (flavors, scents, whatever), it can get confused when you have a lot of foods with similar tastes and scents that are giving us completely different nutrients. so it was also speculated that if we want to let our bodies 'tell' us what we need to eat, then eating more single ingredients and less mixed foods might be of use. So maybe more things mixed into salads or other dishes where the individual flavors and smells might be more prominent, perhaps?

2. Your body typically doesn't want to lose weight. So when you start to eat too few calories, most bodies will make you more hungry so you'll start to eat enough calories to maintain your current weight, whatever it is. Not every body does this, but most do. So if you eat 'instinctively,' it can be helpful to remember that your body instinctively is made to NOT lose calories, because that typically means famine and/or starvation, and the body reacts in order to survive and not starve to death, you know? So feeling a little hungry is a good thing, if you are losing weight, you know?

3. An interesting study on food and sight - people seemed programmed to eat more food if there is more food in front of them. This seems common in many animals, and would make sense when you think about how often animals are storing 'extra' food in their bodies, rather than having some way of storing it elsewhere. So putting less food on the table and on the plate can help our minds pay attention to how hungry we are rather than how much food we 'need' to eat because it's there. So we will be more likely to stop at a good amount rather than overeat. :-)

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I often take breaks from calorie counting as my goal is to be able to keep my weight steady without counting calories. I can say in terms of weight loss, I have lost weight eating without logging, but I had A LOT of weight to lose so it wasn't very hard. Now if I do it, I'm more likely to keep my weight the same not really lose any. I took a MFP break for a few months last summer and I did lose 5 lbs but that was more due to the crazy heat and lack of wanting to eat anything but salad.

I'm 28 weeks pregnant and I rarely log and my weight is on target so thats good. What I do find is key regardless is to listen to your body. When I crave fruits I eat them, I craved kefir the last few weeks so I've had that.

The hard part for me is listening to when I'm full. My body sends clear signals that my brain likes to over ride. However I find the longer I just eat without counting the better I am at stopping when I'm full.

In the end you have to try it. If your not happy, go back to calorie counting, or find a way to mix in both.

Tracking was useful and very educational (portion sizes, where my calories were coming come etc..) but I was never going to do it for life.

You can be calorie aware without having to calorie count. I track my weight trend and eat according to my needs. More conscious eating rather than intuitive eating in my case, unfortunately I generally want more than I actually need.

Just because you're not tracking it doesn't mean your regular structure of eating goes out the window. You had a structure that kept you in a deficit when you were counting, continue with it just without the counting. Simples.