Eating only when hungry. Does it work?

I have heard some people indicate this approach works for them, and it might even work for me if I had a different lifestyle, but I can definitely say it doesn't work for my current lifestyle. I don't have a lot of flexibility in when I eat, as it needs to work with my work schedule and it's impractical for me to eat at a different dinner time than my family.

The aspects of the "intuitive eating" that I do find valuable are understanding what are real hunger cues vs emotional "hunger", and understanding what portion sizes of food are actually satisfying and sustaining. I just take that knowledge and implement it in a planned approach. I eat on a schedule, but allow flexibility to have a snack if my hunger level would be "too high" by the time my next scheduled meal would occur. And I plan portion sizes that meet my calorie targets for the day and have the option to add some low calorie "filler" (usually broccoli, leafy greens, or other veggie) if I'm not feeling "full" after eating that portion.

If I had a goal of shifting to intuitive eating, I would still utilize MFP to track calories while I was figuring it out, then stop logging once I had a track record of eating a sustainable diet based on those hunger cues. Logging of food would be retrospective rather than planned, but I think it's still important to understand how many calories you're taking in. I have found that the volume and type of food that satisfies me now is different than what I would have considered satisfying before, partially because I had to get my body used to those adjustments. I think that if I had started with intuitive eating without logging, I would have risked gaining weight because I hadn't adjusted my diet and understanding of hunger cues enough to eat in a deficit. Now that I know how good I can feel in a deficit, I automatically take smaller portion sizes of calorie dense foods and "fill up" on nutrient dense foods. I would trust my ability to eat intuitively a lot more now than a year ago.

That said, I don't have any goal to switch to intuitive eating because of the schedule restrictions I mentioned before and because I love data and I actually enjoy the process of entering my foods and monitoring the change. For those who consider food logging to be a chore, I think it's definitely a goal they could set to use a food logging period to learn what intuitive eating patterns would be successful for them and then drop the logging after that process.

As far as lowering your metabolism, I haven't heard any studies that indicate that is a risk for intuitive eating.

Like stated, it won't affect your metabolism.
The issue for most of us is that we don't recognize when we are actually hungry vs not, and resisting that delicious "whatever" when we technically aren't hungry anymore can be nearly impossible. There's also a time lag between when you eat something and your brain's ability to recognize how full your stomach is. Eating slowly can help with this if you're tuned in enough to recognize it.
As a weight-loss tool, for the vast majority of us, it does not work.
Personally, along with other more tried and true methods, I am trying to pay more attention to this and recognize when I'm actually full, or not, or wanting to eat out of boredom/habit, etc. I'm hoping to get better at stopping myself when I'm almost satisfied, rather than when I'm "over" satisfied. This is NOT something I am particularly successful at yet, but I'm noticing more that I'm picking up on not really being hungry - there are times it has yet to stop me from something though!

cruzka02 wrote: »

I think that it is better to eat smaller portions and more often, this is what has a good effect on metabolism

That's personal preference. I once tried to lose weight eating 6 smaller meals per day and I never felt satiated. I ended up gaining weight

I've heard it works for some people. I believe them.
It doesn't work for me.
Will it work for you?

cruzka02 wrote: »

I think that it is better to eat smaller portions and more often, this is what has a good effect on metabolism

eating frequency has no effect on metabolism

frenchy807 wrote: »

I am not as sure about the metabolism piece, and I do think eating only when your hungry can help, but weightloss is more directly related to the amount of calories in vs. how many calories out (burned). For me, its a lot more about the choices of food.

For example, eating a tuna sandwich with two pieces of cheese, mayo, and a couple of pieces of bacon, is nearly the same volume as eating a turkey sandwich with mustard, veggie toppings, and one piece of cheese, but the calorie difference can be significant.

Yet, both sandwiches would make a person full/satiated. Focusing on what food choices are being made, vs. the volume of how much is consumed would be more maintainable and builds healthy eating habits (such as choosing veggie toppings vs. bacon).

I agree that choices are the crux of the matter. I would point out though, that if I'm eating mindfully and paying attention to my hunger cues, I likely wouldn't be able to finish the first sandwich before I was satisfied and ready to stop eating. The second sandwich option would be more likely to be finished, but it's hard to tell. In my experience, once I got a handle on hunger cues, the calories took care of themselves for the most part.