I came across the expression "eating intuitively" and had no idea what it meant. By googling it I came across this link. Later I purchased the book "Intuitive Eating" by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch. It has been a godsend.
From it I have learned how to eat like a normal person...like I did as a kid and before I felt fat and began dieting.
The hunger scale is a great tool for anyone to use who has lost the ability to eat when hungry and stop when full. Most of us who are chronic dieters are using a diet as the measure or tool of how much and how often to eat. The restrictions that we find on most diets often leave us feeling deprived, which eventually leads to binging on the denied food and finally most of us feel guilty, like we have no will power or discipline.
The scale works like this: "0" is starving, 5 is neutral--not hungry, not full--and 10 is stuffed to the point of misery or sickness. The goal is to honor your hunger and respect your fullness.
This means, when you are hungry, at a 3-4 on the hunger scale, you eat...and when you reach a 7-8 you stop. How, say you, do you stop? Well...just knowing that when you are hungry again you can eat again makes it easy to stop. And beyond that, you even have permission to eat past full. The important thing is to recognize when you reach "full"...then if you desire you can continue to eat. But having removed the restriction, you will find there is no point in eating past full most of the time. The exception to this might be, for example, if you are in a situation where you are eating a food you may never have available again.
Honestly...when I first tried this I really didn't trust myself to stop when I was full, but I decided to give it a shot. And lo and behold...it worked for me. In fact, I found I was actually eating less food than I did counting calories and I was feeling more satisfied.
So...to you I say...read the book!! I can't say enough good things about it..and I can't do it justice here in a short post. I only wish I'd had this book years ago or at least the knowlege I derived from it.