One of the responses to the Intuitive Eating principle of eating when hungry is “if I eat every time I’m hungry I’ll get fat (or stay fat)!”.
Take note. The IE message is to eat --not overeat--when hungry. Overeating packs on the pounds. To repeat: the message is “eat“….not “overeat”.
Eating is a necessity. If we don’t eat we will eventually die of starvation.
How to “eat” without “overeating”? Stop eating when you are physiologically full. Many of us don’t know when that is…chronic dieting has given us a different scale/measure to determine how, when, how much, where, etc. to eat.
But we can relearn what fullness feels like. If we eat when we are hungry and stop when we are full---not overfull--but to just to the point of full, the result should be that we reach and/or maintain our natural healthy body weight. Unless we have other physiological problems this, I believe, is the best way to eat.
True, it is scary to try. I was scared at first because I‘ve lost 15 pounds and it‘s taken me several months to do that. But it made way too much sense for me to ignore.
Being a realist I’m not looking for a magic bullet. But I am a truth seeker, and when the truth is that the majority of us who lose weight the conventional way will eventually regain it …well, that sucks. There has got to be a better way. I heard at WW that “ to repeat a behavior that results in failure is the definition of insanity”. I got the message and I’m giving up on insane behavior. (To borrow a phrase from Susan Powter: “Stop the insanity!!”)
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I must emphasize the importance of reading Intuitive Eating in its entirety. I’m only able to give you a snapshot of portions of it. You need the whole picture.
A piece of the puzzle is this: when you give yourself permission to eat when you are hungry--you will find that it is easy to stop at “full”…to not go past full…because you know--you believe--you will get to eat again--without restriction--anytime you are physiologically hungry.
Also note: the books teaches how to deal with eating issues that don’t stem from physiological hunger..that is why it is important to read it…but let me emphasize: there is no gimmick…the rug will not be pulled out as it is all too often in other “diet” methods that say eat anything you want anytime you want and then in the third chapter give you a list of exceptions and/or restrictions.