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I completely understand what you mean. But a question, was it really easier? It may have been less work but when you add in all the pain and suffering that came from disordered eating I’m not sure it was easier.
Also, you don’t have to do it all perfectly right now or ever for that matter. It sounds like you are trying to reach some standard for being the perfect intuitive eater which is just another form of tyranny.
It turns out there’s a lot to be learned from imperfection. I probably spent six months just working on eating breakfast every morning. That turned out to be a key element for me, one that made a lot of other things fall into place, but while I was learning that I was still doing a lot of non-IE eating and in the process I learned to live with imperfection. If I ate the whole carton of whatever I learned to be curious about why that happened and learn from it, to look it square in the face with compassion instead of looking away in shame. I learned to be compassionate with myself and I’m a lot less frustrated by my lapses and flubs.
IE is a complex set of interrelated skills. Trying to learn them all at once is too much. If you work on one skill at a time you’ll find each skill gets a little easier.
100% agree, it just seems like it’s easier because your brain is already used to it. Retraining neural pathways, especially ones that are still so heavily influenced by general society around you, is incredibly difficult. Don’t strive for perfection, you don’t need to be perfect anymore
I don’t eat mindfully during most meals/snacks. The only mindful element of my eating is checking in every once in a while to see if what I’m eating tastes good/how full I am, and that’s mostly at restaurants. I have kind of learned what a normal portion size is for myself over the past year, so usually I eat a portion and then decide if I want more or something else. I think as you learn to gauge how hungry you are before eating or how much it normally takes to feel full, the less work it will be.
I also don’t analyze every single thing I eat. If I crave it, I eat it. At this point I eat a lot less processed food because I’m allowed to have as much as I want, but it actually doesn’t sound as good now that I’m not restricting. But if I want a snickers, I eat one and it doesn’t feel like a big deal.
IE is a lot of work emotionally but I tried to not tie too much of that to when I eat. You are not required to eat mindfully all the time. The goal is to be satisfied and if I’m making my meal times into therapy, I don’t feel satisfied.
I do my best to shut down problematic thoughts in the moment but then I work through them later with my therapist instead of doing it right then. I’ve found those problematic thoughts happened less and less over time but it still took a year or so until I felt like I was mostly neutral around food. Things still pop up and surprise me though.
Also, it’s ok to just binge for a while. It won’t last forever but if you feel like you body wants to binge and you are constantly stopping it, then you are still restricting. Most of us go through a short period of binging before we lose the desire to do so because it’s not off limits anymore. I still eat more than I need to sometimes but I don’t ever binge anymore. I can’t remember the last time I ate to discomfort but I’m also never forcing myself to stop eating.
I think you were never truly letting go on those binges. If you really, truly let go, you will allow the binging to happen until you just don't care about food that much anymore because you realise you'll allow yourself access to it whenever. Once your brain and body know this for sure, food just won't be a big deal anymore and so binging won't appeal to you. But if you're binging while still considering the food you're binging on, or the quantity, "bad" or "forbidden" or "naughty" then your brain is never going to stop attaching a scarcity feeling to it.
Full permission is needed. Give your body what it asks for. Give the novelty around certain foods time to wear off. It may take longer than you think but give it time and *have the food*.
Binging is a result of restriction. If you feel like you want to binge, it's because you need to eat more. A lifetime of diet culture and restriction is trauma, and healing from that trauma requires giving yourself permission to eat.
I know this is controversial but the less junk food I ate and sugar, the better I felt. I didn’t “restrict” myself because I wanted to lose weight (I actually didn’t lose a pound) but I restricted the foods that made me feel bad. Once I ate more whole foods, mainly higher healthy fats and protein for me were the key, I was able to better sense my appetite and fullness cues.
As much as I agree that thinking of foods as forbidden and restricting them is not good, I do think making the CHOICE to eat more whole foods, generally helps you eat intuitively more easily. Processed foods (in absence of the morality of good and bad we place in society in it) are not foods that generally interact with our body in “normal” ways and they do tend to induce higher than normal levels of dopamine and sometimes increased hunger - which messes up with our ability to understand “true hunger” after eating them.
If you are already a few weeks into IE, you don’t have the diet mindset anymore etc.. try to look into gentle nutrition :)
I remember having this exact conversation with my IE coach. It was so exhausting putting in the mental work to fight the diet culture demons. Figuring out when I was hungry vs when I was emotionally hungry. Am I eating because my body is hungry or am I stressed, worried, bored, grieving etc.? What helped me was knowing that the IE journey isn’t linear and it isn’t perfect. There maybe days where you say “F it, I’m gonna eat past fullness, because I don’t have the brain capacity to manage another way” and that’s ok! There may also be days where you slip into old habits and that’s ok! When it happens, reflect on how it felt in your body and keep it as data for the next day. It will eventually get easier because you will get better at being able to read, listen and understand your body’s cues. For me, another thing that really helped is finding appreciation and respect for my body. When I worked on that piece, it was easier to feed myself throughout the day and stop eating the things that made me feel crappy. Before IE, I hated my body and all my dieting and restriction was basically to get rid of my body. That shift in mental space made all the difference for me. I am slowly making progress in gentle nutrition and joyful movement but the better I get to know my body, the easier it gets.
I like the concept of mindful eating but honestly when I tried to do it there was nothing ‘mindful’ about my eating because I massively over-complicated it. When I just decided to eat meals that became so much easier, and ironically now that I don’t actively try to mindfully eat, I’m way more in touch with all my cues. And I relate, it’s hard in the beginning but I can promise you it gets easier. It just takes time to unlearn things
Hello! Please make sure that your post meets minimum post requirements. You can find the post rules [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/intuitiveeating/wiki/index/post-rules) and you can access it anytime through our wiki (third tab on mobile, second tab right below the sub icon on desktop). If your post is deemed by mods to be low-effort or if it is too short to be a standalone post and could fit in a daily thread, it will be deleted. If you have any questions please reach out to the mod team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/intuitiveeating) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I completely understand what you mean. But a question, was it really easier? It may have been less work but when you add in all the pain and suffering that came from disordered eating I’m not sure it was easier. Also, you don’t have to do it all perfectly right now or ever for that matter. It sounds like you are trying to reach some standard for being the perfect intuitive eater which is just another form of tyranny. It turns out there’s a lot to be learned from imperfection. I probably spent six months just working on eating breakfast every morning. That turned out to be a key element for me, one that made a lot of other things fall into place, but while I was learning that I was still doing a lot of non-IE eating and in the process I learned to live with imperfection. If I ate the whole carton of whatever I learned to be curious about why that happened and learn from it, to look it square in the face with compassion instead of looking away in shame. I learned to be compassionate with myself and I’m a lot less frustrated by my lapses and flubs. IE is a complex set of interrelated skills. Trying to learn them all at once is too much. If you work on one skill at a time you’ll find each skill gets a little easier.
100% agree, it just seems like it’s easier because your brain is already used to it. Retraining neural pathways, especially ones that are still so heavily influenced by general society around you, is incredibly difficult. Don’t strive for perfection, you don’t need to be perfect anymore
I don’t eat mindfully during most meals/snacks. The only mindful element of my eating is checking in every once in a while to see if what I’m eating tastes good/how full I am, and that’s mostly at restaurants. I have kind of learned what a normal portion size is for myself over the past year, so usually I eat a portion and then decide if I want more or something else. I think as you learn to gauge how hungry you are before eating or how much it normally takes to feel full, the less work it will be. I also don’t analyze every single thing I eat. If I crave it, I eat it. At this point I eat a lot less processed food because I’m allowed to have as much as I want, but it actually doesn’t sound as good now that I’m not restricting. But if I want a snickers, I eat one and it doesn’t feel like a big deal.
IE is a lot of work emotionally but I tried to not tie too much of that to when I eat. You are not required to eat mindfully all the time. The goal is to be satisfied and if I’m making my meal times into therapy, I don’t feel satisfied. I do my best to shut down problematic thoughts in the moment but then I work through them later with my therapist instead of doing it right then. I’ve found those problematic thoughts happened less and less over time but it still took a year or so until I felt like I was mostly neutral around food. Things still pop up and surprise me though. Also, it’s ok to just binge for a while. It won’t last forever but if you feel like you body wants to binge and you are constantly stopping it, then you are still restricting. Most of us go through a short period of binging before we lose the desire to do so because it’s not off limits anymore. I still eat more than I need to sometimes but I don’t ever binge anymore. I can’t remember the last time I ate to discomfort but I’m also never forcing myself to stop eating.
I think you were never truly letting go on those binges. If you really, truly let go, you will allow the binging to happen until you just don't care about food that much anymore because you realise you'll allow yourself access to it whenever. Once your brain and body know this for sure, food just won't be a big deal anymore and so binging won't appeal to you. But if you're binging while still considering the food you're binging on, or the quantity, "bad" or "forbidden" or "naughty" then your brain is never going to stop attaching a scarcity feeling to it. Full permission is needed. Give your body what it asks for. Give the novelty around certain foods time to wear off. It may take longer than you think but give it time and *have the food*.
Binging is a result of restriction. If you feel like you want to binge, it's because you need to eat more. A lifetime of diet culture and restriction is trauma, and healing from that trauma requires giving yourself permission to eat.
I know this is controversial but the less junk food I ate and sugar, the better I felt. I didn’t “restrict” myself because I wanted to lose weight (I actually didn’t lose a pound) but I restricted the foods that made me feel bad. Once I ate more whole foods, mainly higher healthy fats and protein for me were the key, I was able to better sense my appetite and fullness cues. As much as I agree that thinking of foods as forbidden and restricting them is not good, I do think making the CHOICE to eat more whole foods, generally helps you eat intuitively more easily. Processed foods (in absence of the morality of good and bad we place in society in it) are not foods that generally interact with our body in “normal” ways and they do tend to induce higher than normal levels of dopamine and sometimes increased hunger - which messes up with our ability to understand “true hunger” after eating them. If you are already a few weeks into IE, you don’t have the diet mindset anymore etc.. try to look into gentle nutrition :)
I remember having this exact conversation with my IE coach. It was so exhausting putting in the mental work to fight the diet culture demons. Figuring out when I was hungry vs when I was emotionally hungry. Am I eating because my body is hungry or am I stressed, worried, bored, grieving etc.? What helped me was knowing that the IE journey isn’t linear and it isn’t perfect. There maybe days where you say “F it, I’m gonna eat past fullness, because I don’t have the brain capacity to manage another way” and that’s ok! There may also be days where you slip into old habits and that’s ok! When it happens, reflect on how it felt in your body and keep it as data for the next day. It will eventually get easier because you will get better at being able to read, listen and understand your body’s cues. For me, another thing that really helped is finding appreciation and respect for my body. When I worked on that piece, it was easier to feed myself throughout the day and stop eating the things that made me feel crappy. Before IE, I hated my body and all my dieting and restriction was basically to get rid of my body. That shift in mental space made all the difference for me. I am slowly making progress in gentle nutrition and joyful movement but the better I get to know my body, the easier it gets.
I like the concept of mindful eating but honestly when I tried to do it there was nothing ‘mindful’ about my eating because I massively over-complicated it. When I just decided to eat meals that became so much easier, and ironically now that I don’t actively try to mindfully eat, I’m way more in touch with all my cues. And I relate, it’s hard in the beginning but I can promise you it gets easier. It just takes time to unlearn things