Combining "intuitive eating" with MFP?
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Lobsterboxtops wrote: »PrismaticPhoenix wrote: »I'm not sure that I understand what people are talking about in regards to intuitive eating.
I'm logging my food, but for me, a vital part of what I'm doing is ensuring that I'm still enjoying eating. I want to make sure that I'm eating when I'm hungry and that I'm eating foods that I like. Logging my food is a way of gathering information for me: I don't want to be eating food that I don't understand (hidden sodium, hidden calories, wonky nutrient profile, etc). Logging my food has been such a gift because it has enabled me to figure out how to eat foods that make me full, taste good, and work better for me as opposed to eating foods that I don't know what they do to me and I quickly become hungry again and don't taste any better than foods that would work better for me.
It does seem people are using the phrase "intuitive eating" in completely different and indeed contradictory ways.
To me what you describe is a million miles away from intuitive eating using a dictionary definition of intuitive as "based on what one feels to be true even without conscious reasoning; instinctive".
You are consciously thinking about your food choices and making those choices based on different criteria, to me that's mindful eating not instinctive eating. Thinking not feeling.
As I said I’m not an expert, but I looked it up and the 10 principles sound pretty close to what the common advice is here. https://www.intuitiveeating.org/10-principles-of-intuitive-eating/
Of course the application can be where things start to split, but people skew calorie counting all the time here,
I guess my stance is they can compliment each other, if moderation and common sense are applied.
Those ten principles do seem to be all about feeling and emotions - but a bit biased towards currently overweight people or those with issues or emotional feelings well beyond food as nutrition.
To me those ten principles are also incompatible with food logging, calorie counting, macro tracking - all very conscious decisions.
My son is an intuitive eater: drinks when thirsty, eats when hungry (often very irratically), stops when he's had enough and balances a large appetite with a highly active job and exercise for enjoyment and stays a good weight, strong, fit and healthy.
On the other hand when I've tried intuitive eating it's always resulted in steady weight gain - my feelings and my actual needs are slightly out of line. But I can successfully manage my weight with mindful eating, using my logical mind to question and moderate my feelings of hunger, fullness etc.6 -
PrismaticPhoenix wrote: »I'm not sure that I understand what people are talking about in regards to intuitive eating.
I'm logging my food, but for me, a vital part of what I'm doing is ensuring that I'm still enjoying eating. I want to make sure that I'm eating when I'm hungry and that I'm eating foods that I like. Logging my food is a way of gathering information for me: I don't want to be eating food that I don't understand (hidden sodium, hidden calories, wonky nutrient profile, etc). Logging my food has been such a gift because it has enabled me to figure out how to eat foods that make me full, taste good, and work better for me as opposed to eating foods that I don't know what they do to me and I quickly become hungry again and don't taste any better than foods that would work better for me.
Not an expert on IE here, but I think this is the main idea: Instead of counting calories or engaging in other "diet" behaviors, in IE, you train yourself to pay attention to your own hunger signals. You eat when you're hungry, and stop eating when you're no longer hungry. You don't binge, because you learn to pay attention to what you're body's saying instead of giving in to emotions, bad behaviors, etc. Most people are not all that hungry all that often; if you really stop to listen to what your body's saying, it doesn't want to be stuffed to the gills with food. That's emotions and bad behaviors speaking, not stomach hunger signaling. Reasonable amounts of healthy food will stop the hunger signals. So in theory, learning to pay attention to your body could cause someone to stop overeating.
It did not work at all for me.
I see no reason why someone shouldn't try to listen to their body more, and to eat when they're hungry and then not overeat, but I just think there is a personality type that needs structure, logging, and counting. Anyone with huge girth or previous huge girth is probably of that personality type, I am definitely on that list. Intuitive eating just completely does not work for me.
And it doesn't work for the OP either, who's gained 15 pounds. Time to start counting and logging.
In the end, it boils down to this: If you do X and gain weight, then stop doing X and do something else. Whatever the X is.5 -
I would think that a body would "intuitively" eat to maintain status quo, and not intuitively eat in a calorie deficit. So someone who needs to lose weight should probably first get to a healthy weight before learning to eat intuitively. You can practice identifying your feelings of satiety, etc while losing but just bec youre hungry while trying to lose doesnt necessarily mean your body needs more food.9
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IMHO, they both have a place.
I've had IE therapy and it's helped me maintain. Apparently the amount my intuition tells me to eat is a maintenance level. And at times its stopped me from eating just to be eating, even if I had the calories. But to stay in a calorie deficit I need to count calories. I also track macros to see how they affect my satiety. I'm less hungry eating more protein. I feel snackier when I eat higher carbs or sugar. And I swell up eating lots of sodium.
There's some experts who insist that IE works for weight loss because it's your body telling you when to nourish it and when it's had enough. Problem is some of us need the nutritional guidance that calorie counting can provide. I for myself would nourish myself on brownies and cheezits. Seeing that dietary damage in numbers guides me away from that decision.7 -
thatATLgirl wrote: »Hi guys- after two years of weight gain, I am back.
I have been working with an “intuitive eating" coach for a few months and have gotten to the bottom of some of the “why” behind my emotional eating.
Some of the things I've learned:
1. My love for particular foods, like tortilla chips, goes back to childhood.
2. Loneliness and acute stress are triggers for me for emotional eating.
3. If I stop exercising, I feel like crap, and want to eat more.
4. My thinking is very black-and-white... I don't have to be perfect all the time.
5. Stopping automatic negative thoughts like "my stomach is UGLY" and changing that thought to "this is a HUMAN stomach."
However, I’ve gained 15lb since starting that program, and I've hit my so-called rock bottom. At 31, I'm now 5'5" and about 204lb.
So... I want to use MFP and combine it with the principles of IE. The IE folks would tell me I’m going against IE by doing calorie counting. But anyone else had success doing both?
I don't like the term intuitive eating, but try to practice mindful eating, which I think it often similar to what others call intuitive eating. It worked well with MFP (I typically don't log much at maintenance).
I definitely focused on WHY I overate and emotional eating triggers. I definitely find that exercise helps, and I very much had that issue with black and white thinking and getting place it was key for me when losing, and being nicer to myself in general. So those all seem similar to what you are doing.
For me, I found that I tended to overeat when eating mindlessly (which for me mostly happened not at meals), and when emotional eating (often stress related or self-comfort generally). So the first thing for me was to decide to eat only at meals (I tend to have pretty nutrient dense meals and home cook them anyway).
Then I started logging what I ate and figured out easy ways to cut cals by reducing added fats, and portions of side starches. At first my eye and stomach weren't in line, but I trusted the food would be sufficient (or just added more veg) and found that it was. Understanding how much would satisfy me and lower cal ways to bulk it up if I wanted more bulk helped, and after I stopped logging I found I could still do the same by being mindful. In fact, very soon after starting MFP, I found I was easily hitting my goals daily without having to adjust much -- I understood what amounts would give me reasonable cals and be satisfying.
The other thing I did was if I wanted to eat between meals I reminded myself that I was going to be eating before too long anyway and was not actually hungry, and journaled about what was going on that made me want to eat (or sometimes just planned a meal that would be delicious based on what I wanted, and then ate that -- it was as satisfying as eating in the moment would have been).
I also started with weekly goals in addition to my calorie goals (eat veg at all meals or homecook all lunches or some such) and would note in my journal about successes and struggles daily, treating it as a learning experience and not a failure or something that meant everything was ruined if I failed to meet an exercise goal or overate one day or whatnot.
Anyway, just some ideas, obviously different approaches will work for different people.3 -
Perhaps you can try weighing and calorie counting to get a better idea of what a serving looks like, then slowly transition to intuitive eating as your food intuition begins to closely match actual serving sizes.3
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This is an interesting topic. For what it's worth - I follow the basic principles of eating intuitively and I also weight, measure, log and track everything I consume up to my daily calorie target. I follow a vegan diet so pretty much everything I consume is nutritionally dense and that pretty much eliminates any cravings or hunger I might have following a regular calorie counting/restrictive diet. I guess I don't know why someone can't do both. Now that you're armed with the reasons behind your eating habits and have worked to change the mental aspects, can't you also include the calorie counting/weight loss aspects?2
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I don't understand why calorie counting and intuitive eating have to be mutually exclusive. You can still eat when you're hungry and stop when you're satisfied but still log calories for a better idea on how that's working out or if you pay attention to macros.
(It wouldn't work out for me. My appetite will always be bigger than my stomach.
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If you're counting calories, you're not intuitively eating. Intuitive eating...ie using your intuition and instinct. Like my 9 and 7 year old boys eat intuitively. They ask for food when they're hungry...they stop eating when they are satisfied, regardless of whether there is food still there or not, even when it's something tasty. My 9 year old didn't finish his ice cream at lunch yesterday because he was full.
I don't count calories, but I don't intuitively eat either...because I have various rules for myself and I am mindful which means I'm thinking and actively making decisions based on those rules and whether or not something is calorie dense or if I had a big lunch I should probably have a smaller dinner, etc.7 -
I counted calories for years, then once I understood the calorie content of the foods I ate, I switched to IE. But first I think you need to learn what you are putting into your body and the calories in everything before you can be successful at IE.2
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I don't think Intuitive Eating (as defined by Tribole and Resch) and counting calories can coexist, since the core belief of intuitive eating is internal hunger and satiety cues determine when and how much you eat as opposed to external rules.
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I would think that a body would "intuitively" eat to maintain status quo, and not intuitively eat in a calorie deficit. So someone who needs to lose weight should probably first get to a healthy weight before learning to eat intuitively. You can practice identifying your feelings of satiety, etc while losing but just bec youre hungry while trying to lose doesnt necessarily mean your body needs more food.
nope
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I understand the difference between intuitively eating and eating for a calorie goal. I just meant logging after the fact because of keeping an eye on macros or micros or whatever.3
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I don't think Intuitive Eating (as defined by Tribole and Resch) and counting calories can coexist, since the core belief of intuitive eating is internal hunger and satiety cues determine when and how much you eat as opposed to external rules.
I think it could be a tool for a while, so that you understood how many cals you were eating and thus if you needed to figure out why you were not feeling sated on maintenance cals and could adjust or some such.
But then I don't find the concept of intuitive eating (vs. mindful eating, which I do like) to the extent it is based on the idea that just learning to listen to hunger signals is enough and that most people overeat because they eat when not hungry (for example, satiety signals may kick in a bit after you finish eating and many people find they are hungry at times they are used to eating and -- especially -- many things other than calories needed may determine how hungry/sated you feel).
I thought the OP's things she is working on sounded in some ways like mindful eating and could be consistent with calorie counting, at least for a while (and certainly when trying to lose), whatever one calls it.0 -
I just want to add to the "stop when your not hungry" part (it's probably beside the point) but I stop eating before I'm not hungry anymore. It takes about 20min for what I ate to make me feel satisfied. When I was overweight I ate till I was full. I haven't been weighing every bite every day lately but I do weigh food at least one meal a day2
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Yeah - agree with the above poster. The Stop when you're full part I think is what gets most people in trouble.0
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BoxerBrawler wrote: »Yeah - agree with the above poster. The Stop when you're full part I think is what gets most people in trouble.
Well... I think Comfortably full is a better term
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Intuitive eating only worked for me when I was in artificial situations where my main food choices were high-volume/very filling for the calorie/low-calorie foods and my access to hyper-palatable/calorie-dense foods was severely limited.
So when I have an American kitchen and access to American supermarkets, my "intuition" will not keep me in a calorie deficit.3 -
kshama2001 wrote: »Intuitive eating only worked for me when I was in artificial situations where my main food choices were high-volume/very filling for the calorie/low-calorie foods and my access to hyper-palatable/calorie-dense foods was severely limited.
So when I have an American kitchen and access to American supermarkets, my "intuition" will not keep me in a calorie deficit.
I like you...😊4 -
psychod787 wrote: »BoxerBrawler wrote: »Yeah - agree with the above poster. The Stop when you're full part I think is what gets most people in trouble.
Well... I think Comfortably full is a better term
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For me, that's still a problem. It's a conspiracy of 2 faults: I tend to eat very fast, and it takes a surprisingly long time for my satiety signals to register. (Maybe it's only that 20 minutes that people talk about - where does that claim come from, BTW? - but it seems much longer, like maybe an hour.)
I've figured out how to game this to maintain weight, but I'm sure these were factors in my gaining and maintaining obesity in the first place.
And yes, I did and do routinely prefer nutrient dense foods. Still don't feel "comfortably full" until waaaay too late for that to provide intuitive guidance.
Others may differ, of course.7
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