Re: really want this to work for me...

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Something that helps me is to eat real meals and avoid grazing. Some

days that doesn't work so well if I'm running around and have a hard

time sitting down to eat a full meal, but if I can manage it at least

part of the time I figure I'm doing pretty well. So eat a full meal,

pay attention to how you feel when you're full, and then wait. Check

in with yourself every hour or two to see how you feel. If you're not

sure if you're hungry, wait another 15-30 minutes and check in again.

If you have trouble with overeating when you get really hungry, just

make sure to eat before that, even if you're not really sure how hungry

you are. It may take some practice, and I don't think you should

expect perfection from yourself right away, but you'll learn your cues

in time. Hope this helped!

Sohni

jeni4305 wrote:

Hi everyone,

I've been trying to commit to intuitive eating for quite a while now.

It seems like I get too easily enticed to diet, get frustrated, then

come back to IE. IE definitely seems like the most logical and

enjoyable way to eat, but I just have trouble making it work!

The thing I'm struggling with right now is trying to figure out when I

am hungry. I feel like I have no clue until I'm ravenous! Which of

course then I will eat anything (usually sugary junk), overeat, and

feel guilty. So, I get discouraged and start thinking I will never

figure it out. I eat more out of boredom, stress (big trigger for me),

or to change my mood than for hunger.

Does anybody have words of wisdom???

Thanks,

[Guest guest]

Hi ,I found the hunger scale very helpful.If you can take a moment and stop what you are doing and really focus and maybe even close your eyes and check in with your body and ask, " am i hungry right now? " it helps me to really focus on my stomach. 

i find sometimes that the top of my abdomen is hungry and the bottom part is full! this can be confusing... but usually within a half an hour or so, they are in agreement. sometimes i'm hungry, and it just took longer to reach the bottom of my stomach/abdomen... and sometimes it took a while for the food to hit the bottom part of my stomach, and i'm actually full!

i dont know of anyone else who has talked about this, but i definitely notice for me.feelings of emptiness and growling help me realize i am hungry. and assigning a number to it is helpful... after a while it gets easier.

good luck,abby

 

Hi ,

Something that helps me is to eat real meals and avoid grazing.  Some

days that doesn't work so well if I'm running around and have a hard

time sitting down to eat a full meal, but if I can manage it at least

part of the time I figure I'm doing pretty well.  So eat a full meal,

pay attention to how you feel when you're full, and then wait.  Check

in with yourself every hour or two to see how you feel.  If you're not

sure if you're hungry, wait another 15-30 minutes and check in again. 

If you have trouble with overeating when you get really hungry, just

make sure to eat before that, even if you're not really sure how hungry

you are.  It may take some practice, and I don't think you should

expect perfection from yourself right away, but you'll learn your cues

in time.  Hope this helped!

Sohni

jeni4305 wrote:

 

Hi everyone,

I've been trying to commit to intuitive eating for quite a while now.

It seems like I get too easily enticed to diet, get frustrated, then

come back to IE. IE definitely seems like the most logical and

enjoyable way to eat, but I just have trouble making it work!

The thing I'm struggling with right now is trying to figure out when I

am hungry. I feel like I have no clue until I'm ravenous! Which of

course then I will eat anything (usually sugary junk), overeat, and

feel guilty. So, I get discouraged and start thinking I will never

figure it out. I eat more out of boredom, stress (big trigger for me),

or to change my mood than for hunger.

Does anybody have words of wisdom???

Thanks,

--

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I know what you mean about feeling frustrated but wanting to make it work. I've

been working at it for about five months now, on and off, and while sometimes I

feel like I do a really good job of locating and responding to my hunger, much

of the time I feel like not much has changed. I do think that my outlook on

eating and food issues is changing, though, and I think that is an important

first step.

One of the things that I focused on from the beginning was learning to

distinguish when I am hungry. For me, this feeling includes a physical feeling

of hunger- pangs, feeling lighter, etc. I have also noticed that when I'm

hungry, or about to be hungry, I start thinking about food and it seems very

appealing- like I am excited to find something to eat and know I will be

satisfied by it. This is different from when I want to binge or overeat for

emotional reasons. In those cases, I want food and I often eat something, but it

doesn't really do the same trick or seem appealing in the same way as when I'm

physically hungry. In those cases, I am often left with a feeling that I could

eat mountains of more food and still be searching for something to satisfy me.

Hope that helped.

Meg

[Guest guest]

I have been seriously asking questions of myself before eating such as How do I want to feel after I eat? Am I eating because I am hungry? Am I eating foods that boost my health. I I have found that I eat slower,and eat less. I have really been tasting my food and I find that by doing so it is helping me to feel satisified, It has been two weeks and I find I am not craving foods. I have only had sweets twice and both times I have felt headaches and sluggish afterwards, This for me is unheard of because I ate sweets and carbs CONSTANTLY all day every day. I joined the health club and have been swimming every day even if it is only for a half hour, again exercising is something unheard of for me but it has helped anxiety, feeling depressed and given me more energy and it is no impact. My joints and ankles, feet and body in general feels so much better and I have gone from 335 lbs to 324lbs weighing myself in the evening on the doctors scales at the fitness center. I also have joined the wellness program but haven't started yet. It was the following post from Gillian that prompted this for me and I can't thank her enough. Really read and digest the information in the post over and over. It is such a help. I have weak moments, lots of them but I have been able to control them therefore I have been able to control food which was something else unheard of in my life. Now I just have to stick with it.

Seth

Hi again everyone,

I'm going to just share some ideas off the top of my head and I'm sure more will come later on and I can share those, too. For those of you that have additional ideas and experience, feel free to add to this.

Overeating:

1. Most important - set an intention before you eat. Ask yourself how you want to feel when you are done eating. This does not mean you can only eat to satisfied. All you need to do is make a CHOICE of how you want to feel. If you choose to overeat, that is ok. If you make a choice, it removes the guilt, preventing a potential binge. If you make the choice to overeat, trust that you won't choose to do it all the time, because you won't. This is part of the process.

2. This is only suggestion I ever make about what to eat. Having a small amount of protein when you eat carbohydrate will help keep your blood sugar stable, avoiding any blood sugar crashes and getting overly hungry. So many people, including myself, have found this to make a huge difference. It's not always in your head, sometimes overeating can be caused by physiological reasons.

3. If you have overeaten or binged - you may have the compulsion to exercise to "burn it off", skip the next meal or two, or plan your next diet. Stop - get yourself back into the present - decide that you will eat again when you get hungry. This is what natural intuitive eaters do. Sometimes they do overeat, but they don't stress over it. They just eat again when they are hungry. You may feel like you'll never get hungry again, but stay logical and in the present and know you'll eat again. This tool alone can prevent many, many extra calories from being consumed. And - don't do the "I'll start again tomorrow". Eat again when you are hungry, period. This will prevent you from slipping into diet mentality.

4. Check if you are doing the "intuitive eating DIET". Are you attempting to eat ONLY when you are hungry? Or eating only to satisfied? While these are the ideals, they are not the rules. IE does not have rules so if you are doing something "always" or "only", it will probably be a rule. Ask yourself if an intuitive eater would do it. For example, natural intuitive eaters do sometimes over eat, under eat, have one more bite, clean their plate, you name it. The big difference is they don't do it a lot and they don't feel guilty about it. They just move on.

If you are having negative thoughts, negative self-talk, anxious often:

1. Find 5 things you are grateful for in your life. They can be as small or big as you want. If this helps, do it often. Some people make it a daily practice because it can turn around their mood and outlook very quickly.

2. Ask yourself if you would say the things you are saying to yourself to a small child, preferably a child you have a close relationship with. If you wouldn't say it to the child, you don't need to hear it either.

3. Work on trust. I see IE as a process of gaining mutual trust between you and your body. Your body doesn't trust you because you have starved it at times and abused it with food on other occasions. You don't trust your body because you haven't been tuned into it for a long time and you aren't sure you can count on it to tell you what it needs. Recognize this is a process of mutual trust and it will build over time and with being mindful.

Not feeling hunger

1. If you find you're getting too hungry and missing the "hungry, ready to eat" hunger, write down all you can remember about what you were doing and how you felt before the crazy hunger hit you. Look for signs that you may have missed. For a day or two, ask yourself if you are hungry or where you are on the hunger scale every hour or so.

2. If you can't identify a number on the scale or really having trouble knowing what hunger is, start more simply. How do you feel? Are you comfortable or uncomfortable? Being uncomfortable may tell you that you are hungry. It may also mean you overate, but you will know which one it is based on whether you have eaten recently or not.

3. Take a couple days during the week and once on those days choose two different meals that you are going to eat. You can try one meal that you've had before and you weren't sure if you had reached fullness and compare it to another meal later in the day when you knew you were full. Identify what was different in how you felt after eating each meal. You can even track how full you feel 1 and 2 hours after eating. This will help you get more in touch with fullness and compare how different foods affect you. Everyone is different and foods will affect you differently. IE is about you, so you get to figure out what foods support you and your body the best - no more eating foods you hate or foods you think you should eat but don't make you feel good.

Not feeling fullness

1. I know it can be scary, but if you sit down and eat mindfully with no distractions, you will be surprised how much your body talks to you. You don't have to eat this way all the time, that's not realistic. But practicing mindful eating will help you find fullness even when you aren't being mindful.

2. Tune in to the taste. As you are moving closer to being satisfied, the food will not taste as good or as intense as when you began. Pay attention to this. Sometimes the difference between satisfied and too much is a few bites. Play around with this idea. If you overeat, it's OK! Figure out if your body was giving you a signal you missed, see what you can learn about how it feels for you.

3. Here's an idea that may sound familiar from dieting, but it's not the same. When you sit down to eat, divide your food in half. Eat the first half and then stop. Take a minute to tune in and see where you are on the hunger scale. How many bites do you think you have left until you are satisfied? How does the food taste? How did you want to feel when you are done? Consider all this and then continue to eat if you decide you want to until you are satisfied. The difference between this and doing this when dieting is here you are letting your body tell you when you are done, diets usually tell you to stop at the halfway mark and save or throw away the rest.

OK, there's a lot of stuff here! Anyone can add to this and anyone who tries an idea or two - please share with us what you find out.

For those of you who haven't read a book about IE yet or are still feeling shaky and want a simple read on the basics, you may want to check out my report I've written on it. It's called, "Six Steps to Guilt-Free Eating" and you get it if you sign up for my newsletter at http://www.healthieroutcomes.com/newsletter.html. No strings, you can unsubscribe whenever you want and I won't drive you nuts with worthless annoying emails. I'm not here to over-promote myself or push my services, but if there is something that I feel will be helpful for some of you, I will share it. Especially if it's a no charge resource, mine or otherwise! In fact, I have a few things I'll be sharing with you that I've been collecting on my list of IE resources.

Thanks!GillianGillian Hood-son, MS, ACSM

Get your report, "The 6 Steps to Guilt-Fr*e Eating" at http://www.HealthierOutcomes.com Follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gillianhood

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice."Native American Saying

I am right along with you on the need to classify a day as good or bad. Then comes the frustration of finding myself classifying a day as bad but unable to tell myself I'll try harder tomorrow because there's no plan to try harder to follow.

I've given up the scale mostly and the food journal completely and it freaks me our daily.

But it is a journey and I'm so glad to have you all as my travel mates.

Jon

On Feb 27, 2010, at 7:27 PM, "jeni4305" <jmdolenga> wrote:

Thank you so much for the responses everyone I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond because like I mentioned, this is SO frustrating for me!Meg, what you wrote about emotional eating and never feeling satisfied really struck a chord with me. I feel like that a LOT! After I'm done eating, I'm no longer hungry, but I'm still looking for something to fill me up. And I can't put my finger on what it is.Another thing I'm struggling with is keeping a food journal. I've done it for so long with diets, counting calories etc. that it feels like I'm forgetting something when I don't write food down. I've been trying to just write times and what I'm eating instead of counting. But, I still find myself using that just like the scale, as another way of judging myself and classifying a day as 'good' or 'bad.' Part of me thinks ditching the food journal is the best option, just like I threw out the scale But, I guess I'm scared... Maybe I could just use it as a 'feelings' journal?It's a complicated journey ;)Thanks for reading, >> Hi ,> > I know what you mean about feeling frustrated but wanting to make it work. I've been working at it for about five months now, on and off, and while sometimes I feel like I do a really good job of locating and responding to my hunger, much of the time I feel like not much has changed. I do think that my outlook on eating and food issues is changing, though, and I think that is an important first step.> > One of the things that I focused on from the beginning was learning to distinguish when I am hungry. For me, this feeling includes a physical feeling of hunger- pangs, feeling lighter, etc. I have also noticed that when I'm hungry, or about to be hungry, I start thinking about food and it seems very appealing- like I am excited to find something to eat and know I will be satisfied by it. This is different from when I want to binge or overeat for emotional reasons. In those cases, I want food and I often eat something, but it doesn't really do the same trick or seem appealing in the same way as when I'm physically hungry. In those cases, I am often left with a feeling that I could eat mountains of more food and still be searching for something to satisfy me. > > Hope that helped.> > Meg>

[Guest guest]

Thank you so much for the responses everyone I really appreciate you all

taking the time to respond because like I mentioned, this is SO frustrating for

me!

Meg, what you wrote about emotional eating and never feeling satisfied really

struck a chord with me. I feel like that a LOT! After I'm done eating, I'm no

longer hungry, but I'm still looking for something to fill me up. And I can't

put my finger on what it is.

Another thing I'm struggling with is keeping a food journal. I've done it for

so long with diets, counting calories etc. that it feels like I'm forgetting

something when I don't write food down. I've been trying to just write times

and what I'm eating instead of counting. But, I still find myself using that

just like the scale, as another way of judging myself and classifying a day as

'good' or 'bad.' Part of me thinks ditching the food journal is the best

option, just like I threw out the scale But, I guess I'm scared... Maybe I

could just use it as a 'feelings' journal?

It's a complicated journey

Thanks for reading,

>

> Hi ,

>

> I know what you mean about feeling frustrated but wanting to make it work.

I've been working at it for about five months now, on and off, and while

sometimes I feel like I do a really good job of locating and responding to my

hunger, much of the time I feel like not much has changed. I do think that my

outlook on eating and food issues is changing, though, and I think that is an

important first step.

>

> One of the things that I focused on from the beginning was learning to

distinguish when I am hungry. For me, this feeling includes a physical feeling

of hunger- pangs, feeling lighter, etc. I have also noticed that when I'm

hungry, or about to be hungry, I start thinking about food and it seems very

appealing- like I am excited to find something to eat and know I will be

satisfied by it. This is different from when I want to binge or overeat for

emotional reasons. In those cases, I want food and I often eat something, but it

doesn't really do the same trick or seem appealing in the same way as when I'm

physically hungry. In those cases, I am often left with a feeling that I could

eat mountains of more food and still be searching for something to satisfy me.

>

> Hope that helped.

>

> Meg

>

[Guest guest]

I am right along with you on the need to classify a day as good or bad. Then comes the frustration of finding myself classifying a day as bad but unable to tell myself I'll try harder tomorrow because there's no plan to try harder to follow.I've given up the scale mostly and the food journal completely and it freaks me our daily. But it is a journey and I'm so glad to have you all as my travel mates.Jon

Thank you so much for the responses everyone I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond because like I mentioned, this is SO frustrating for me!

Meg, what you wrote about emotional eating and never feeling satisfied really struck a chord with me. I feel like that a LOT! After I'm done eating, I'm no longer hungry, but I'm still looking for something to fill me up. And I can't put my finger on what it is.

Another thing I'm struggling with is keeping a food journal. I've done it for so long with diets, counting calories etc. that it feels like I'm forgetting something when I don't write food down. I've been trying to just write times and what I'm eating instead of counting. But, I still find myself using that just like the scale, as another way of judging myself and classifying a day as 'good' or 'bad.' Part of me thinks ditching the food journal is the best option, just like I threw out the scale But, I guess I'm scared... Maybe I could just use it as a 'feelings' journal?

It's a complicated journey

Thanks for reading,

>

> Hi ,

>

> I know what you mean about feeling frustrated but wanting to make it work. I've been working at it for about five months now, on and off, and while sometimes I feel like I do a really good job of locating and responding to my hunger, much of the time I feel like not much has changed. I do think that my outlook on eating and food issues is changing, though, and I think that is an important first step.

>

> One of the things that I focused on from the beginning was learning to distinguish when I am hungry. For me, this feeling includes a physical feeling of hunger- pangs, feeling lighter, etc. I have also noticed that when I'm hungry, or about to be hungry, I start thinking about food and it seems very appealing- like I am excited to find something to eat and know I will be satisfied by it. This is different from when I want to binge or overeat for emotional reasons. In those cases, I want food and I often eat something, but it doesn't really do the same trick or seem appealing in the same way as when I'm physically hungry. In those cases, I am often left with a feeling that I could eat mountains of more food and still be searching for something to satisfy me.

>

> Hope that helped.

>

> Meg

>

[Guest guest]

I have been doing IE for almost a year and a half now and there is still no way that I can do a food journal. And it's not like I had an incredibly long history with using them when dieting, either. But there's just something about all that THINKING about food that I completely rebel against.

I was to eat naturally, like I breathe, not analytically.I know others use them successfully, which I think is great. But I can't.Maybe you need to take a break from the journalling and try again later, when you've been away from dieting for longer?

But if you do want to journal, what if you ONLY wrote down how you felt, and didn't even say anything about the food? good luck!~abby

 

I am right along with you on the need to classify a day as good or bad.  Then comes the frustration of finding myself classifying a day as bad but unable to tell myself I'll try harder tomorrow because there's no plan to try harder to follow.

I've given up the scale mostly and the food journal completely and it freaks me our daily.  But it is a journey and I'm so glad to have you all as my travel mates.

Jon

 

Thank you so much for the responses everyone I really appreciate you all taking the time to respond because like I mentioned, this is SO frustrating for me!

Meg, what you wrote about emotional eating and never feeling satisfied really struck a chord with me. I feel like that a LOT! After I'm done eating, I'm no longer hungry, but I'm still looking for something to fill me up. And I can't put my finger on what it is.

Another thing I'm struggling with is keeping a food journal. I've done it for so long with diets, counting calories etc. that it feels like I'm forgetting something when I don't write food down. I've been trying to just write times and what I'm eating instead of counting. But, I still find myself using that just like the scale, as another way of judging myself and classifying a day as 'good' or 'bad.' Part of me thinks ditching the food journal is the best option, just like I threw out the scale But, I guess I'm scared... Maybe I could just use it as a 'feelings' journal?

It's a complicated journey

Thanks for reading,

>

> Hi ,

>

> I know what you mean about feeling frustrated but wanting to make it work. I've been working at it for about five months now, on and off, and while sometimes I feel like I do a really good job of locating and responding to my hunger, much of the time I feel like not much has changed. I do think that my outlook on eating and food issues is changing, though, and I think that is an important first step.

>

> One of the things that I focused on from the beginning was learning to distinguish when I am hungry. For me, this feeling includes a physical feeling of hunger- pangs, feeling lighter, etc. I have also noticed that when I'm hungry, or about to be hungry, I start thinking about food and it seems very appealing- like I am excited to find something to eat and know I will be satisfied by it. This is different from when I want to binge or overeat for emotional reasons. In those cases, I want food and I often eat something, but it doesn't really do the same trick or seem appealing in the same way as when I'm physically hungry. In those cases, I am often left with a feeling that I could eat mountains of more food and still be searching for something to satisfy me.

>

> Hope that helped.

>

> Meg

>