This is an interesting thread and I appreciate Woo posting the questions. Let me add....

Woo is probably going to get the response of "if you are hungry, eat" but I think it's deeper than that. For me, personally, I can put some food away. For example, prior to LC I could eat an entire pack of cookies on my own before I got full. I wouldn't classify this as binging because my eating these cookies had nothing to do with stress, worries, etc. It was just I had a huge appetite and can put food away.

Fast forward to today - even now I have that same appetite. Even if it's LC I can eat my weight in some of the foods. For example - the mock danish. One of my favorite recipes. One, to me, is a tease. Two is somewhat filling and I normally stop there. But in reality - I could easily eat four of them in one setting before I became 'full'. It is very rare that I sit back after a meal and say "I am full" - for me, it's "Well, I've eaten enough". While I don't deny that LC has helped me achieve my weight loss goals, I know that restriction of my overall food intake has been a contributor in meeting my goals as well. Now, I don't walk around here starving (i.e. aneroxia) - one look at my journal will tell you that I eat. But there are days that I do not eat a lot, by choice and/or by circumstance.

For me, and my appetite, I know I would not be weighing what I weigh now if I ate until I was 'full' at each meal. I'd be curious to see if you, Woo, are like me. Do you have a very large appetite, even now at your size/weight? How about everyone else?

huh. See, I just don't get that. Seriously, I so don't get it that I think it's a perspective problem. The only analogy that springs to mind at the moment is childbirth. I had both my children at home with no drugs of any kind. It was the hardest WORK I ever did in my life but I did not find anything about it PAINFUL (except for one push when the shoulders crowned. ). Yet, if you ask 10 women about their childbirth experience, most of them talk at length about the pain.
Hunger is not a way that I control my weight (by denying it). I control my weight by sticking to the eating guidelines of my chosen plan. By exercising. By laughing through life. Sure, my weight fluctuates by about 5 pounds +/-
I think it's unrealistic to expect that weight will remain static. Just as it's unrealistic to think that gravity won't have an effect over time with certain body parts.

Anyhoo, I think Woo's question demonstrates once again the mental games we play and the importance of recognizing that our perceptions are NOT necessarily the same as reality when REALITY is determined by social agreement. (Witness an anorexic's view of her body vs society's view)

Sometimes I think MY grasp of English is not the same as everyone else's.

I'm with Scarlett O'Hara on that one: "I'll never be hungry again!" There are times I get hungry and am not in the position to eat: in the middle of exercising or working, in a place where no LC foods are available, etc. There are times I feel "peckish" and realize it's mostly out of boredom, so resist the urge to eat (note to self: do this more often!). But the feeling of continual hunger is so aversive to me, physically and mentally, that there's no way I can use it as a tool to maintain a lower weight than my body "wants" to go, for whatever reason. I could still stand to lose 5-10 pounds, but if it won't come off without feelings of constant deprivation, I'll have to accept that I'm in pre-maintenance or maintenance, no matter what the scale "should" say.

Rachel

I'm with you on this.

In my past, I was taught that hunger was an admirable state of being. I was constantly on the "diet du jour" and hunger was a given in dieting mode.

When I started this time and realized that this plan(SBD) tells me to eat when hungry!!....I was blown away by this concept and it was very freeing for me. I do follow this now and it has made my life and my eating more a joy than anything it used to be.

I've learned that I enjoy being a grazer. I eat small things throughout the day. It works for me. I am maintaining my weight without struggling and I do eat alot of food...its my choices that have changed.

I do not now nor will I ever again deal with hunger!! It is symbolic with suffering to me and I've suffered enough for one lifetime!!

On the subject of emotional over-eating......isn't restricting a form of managing your emotions? To me, its the flip side of emotional over-eating. I think that is why we see yo-yo'ing among those of us who do struggle with our emotions. Going from one extreme to its opposite was common around the OA meetings I used to attend.

Leslieam,
Isn't it true you have a history of restrictive dieting? How can you separate what is "just your appetite" (metabolically invalid) from what is the affects of self starvation? The effects of a diet (self starvation) don't end when the diet does. In the minnesota starvation experiment, participants reported a similar phenomena of rebound over eating, feeling satiety only a short while, and actually *gaining* weight in excess of pre-restriction weight. Over time, weight was lost, weight stabilized.

I think a lot of this is we are just really metabolically screwed up from dieting... and if we trusted our bodies, and ate healthfully, weight and eating would stabilize eventually.

Of course this would take a lot of self confidence and lack of weight concern, which itself presents the fundamental problem which drives us to diet in the first place - low self confidence and excessive weight concern.

I have no doubt weight would stabilize if we focused on eating right and validating our body. There's no guarantee the weight would be what you wanted, but, I think in the long run it's better to accept yourself than it is to try to fix low self acceptance by weight concern. It's like taking drugs to lift mood or release stress. It makes things worse long run.


I do feel the compulsion to eat more foods just because they taste good, even though I feel full and satisfied. This is appetite. Appetite and hunger are different. Hunger involves feeling symptoms of true metabolic need for energy and food. Even appetite itself isn't really something one should need to control, IMO. Even if something tastes good, a normal metabolism feels satisfied longer and makes more energy; obesity and over eating does not result. High appetite reflects some kind of imbalance in the body, as does a tendency to take food and store it/preserve it as fat.

Appetite aside, the real focus here is validating true hunger when it presents. It is not normal to not eat if you feel metabolic symptoms of low energy like hypoglycemia. I say this because I think to observations of normal eaters, and that's not what normal people do. If a person has access to food, and if that person feels metabolic slow down/hunger, that person is going to eat. He or she will eat and they won't even *question* it.

It seems some of us make rules and find ways of ignoring hunger... and it seems to be pretty common in weight maintenance, by your own admission.

Really, I feel very frustrated trying to "eat normally", because there is so much confusion over what exactly IS normal.

I have an infuriating difficulty with seeing the grey on this issue. I feel like this is an elaborate game and I am retarded to the rules. On one hand I'm told it's bad and unhealthy to be obsessive and to deny your body... but apparently, just a *little* is acceptable and okay and it's *common*. I am not being judgmental but it is only fair to say it's *not* normal to ignore hunger and to have a million rules about when it's okay to "give in" to a weak body. It was easier when I was ignorant and thought it was good. Now when I'm around normal people and they say "I'm so hungry I need to eat" I feel so embarassed in a way. Really, it was easier *before* when I didn't question or think about the validity of all this, I for granted threw myself at it.

Because, now I can see how hypocritical and pointless it is to diet at all.*

I'm starting to think the "proper balance" is all just about conformity. There is no fundamental difference in what I used to do, and what I am supposed to do (diet to stay thin). Like, the message seems to be, do whatever you have to do, just make sure you look normal and your behavior seems healthy. Before I was so thin, it was like I was fat again, I made myself an outcast.

In reality, the difference between too far and just right is one of extremes and not fundamentals.

The entire notion of a "goal weight" defies normal eating. How can you MAKE your body weigh x amount, or have body fat amount x, by anything resembling self acceptance and a harmony with mind and body?

Okay, so let's assume one is eating to hunger, eating healthy food, feeling great... but then weight loss stops 30 pounds from goal. What next? I don't see the fundamental difference between attacking the body a little, and attacking it a lot. If I'm going to be dizzy and tired and cold and feel hunger, I'd rather weigh what makes me feel comfortable...



(*When I speak of dieting, I mean doing things to be a certain weight, not healthy eating which has nothing to do with trying to be a certain weight).

I will tell you this Nora.....I picked a high goal weight on purpose. 20 yrs ago when I was in my early 30s, I got my weight down to below 140...which is very thin for my body. I got to 136 and stayed there for about 15 minutes. It was way too low for my body and I'd needed to eat practically no food to stay there. Not good for me!!

So I chose 160 as my goal weight as I knew that this is a weight that I could maintain...and it appears as if I was right.

I've been doing the yo-yo thing for 40 yrs so it was about time that I finally figured this thing out for my body. Sure I could keep going now and try to lose and get to 140...but ya know what? I would not look well at that weight and I would not be able to maintain it without struggling....and I'm so not into struggling any longer.

I agree. I think the difference between where I am, and where some other maintainers are coming from, is one of perspective. There was a time when I held my rules and rituals as being GOOD habits and I thought nothing of what it meant to deny the body, feel a bit weak and dizzy and cold and tired.
Now, I associate this with shame. I think attacking the body it is not productive or healthy in any magnitude.

From where I am sitting, so much of dieting seems to be a sham. It is fundamentally no different from disordered eating, the only difference is the extremes. Dieters do not draw attention because they seem normal and they can lead functional lives. The message seems to be "don't look fat, don't look too thin, whatever you have to do to seem well adjusted and stay productive is what you need to do no matter how you actually feel and what you have to experience".

I wish I were less conscious to this. If I never experienced what I experienced re: low weight and the reactions of family and stranger I probably wouldn't feel as confused and stuck.

OK...now I see what you were asking...

And the short answer to this would be "no"...especially when I know that when I skip meals, whether intentionally or not, I do NOT lose weight (example below). So it seems counterproductive to me in the long run "as a means to control weight", not to mention the emotional issues I have when NOT eating!

I went on this liver/gallbladder cleanse almost a year ago...didn't last very long, but in the end I ended up gaining weight?? And luckily that was not the point of doing it, but I was awfully surprised to see a gain considering what I was having.

And in all honesty, I would not be willing to experience the physical effects of hunger to lose weight.

OK, I'm replying a little late in the game here, but I just saw this thread and found it intriguing:


1) Do you restrict food calories/quantities to maintain weight, or, do you eat ad lib?I at least eyeball quantities, since I am pretty good about knowing calories per serving, but my weight creeps up when I stop entering my food into fitday.

2) Do you experience physical hunger?
If so, is it constant or does it come in episodic "jags and lulls" where it is alternating between starving and normal?
I am hungry quite a bit. I stop eating before I am full, and I am often hungry an hour after eating. Sometimes I wake up in the night too hungry to go back to sleep. It is episodic, though.

3) Do you find this hunger emotionally distressful and discouraging, or, is it easy for you to tolerate because you accept it? I find it frustrating. I have tried many different diets, but the bottom line is that if my calories are restricted I am hungry. Periodically I get frustrated and rebel, which causes me to gain a few pounds, so then I crack down again and take them off.

4) What is your high BMI? 23.9

5) What is your present BMI? 19.5

6) How long have you been maintaining within 5 pounds of goal? about 4 years

7) If you know, how many carbs & calories do you eat? About 175-200g TOTAL carbs, about 2000-2200 calories except for my day which has a free meal. Yeah, I know, tons of carbs, but still less than the food pyramid or other runners recommend. I have tried carb-cycling, but with my amount of running I need more carbs every day to have decent runs. BTW, I do have less hunger when my carbs are lower, but I also have less energy.

That is an understatement ( ) but yes, I do have a history with restrictive dieting.
You know, Nora, I can't. When I really stop to think about it I don't know the difference. In my mind, I suppose, it is "just my appetite" - however in reality perhaps it is the affect(s) of not giving my body enough food. You know how some people can go out to dinner, get a plate of food (normally big) and eat half of it and stop? Not me - I can and will clear the plate 98% of the time. I was not raised in a "clean your plate" household while growing up - it's more like my brain does NOT have the 'stop eating you are full' signal or something. If it's there - I'll eat it. so for me, I feel like the "just your appetite" signal and perhaps the self starvation affects kind of mix in together for me. I'd love to read more about this - do you have the link?
Gosh I agree with this!!! For me, it's that AND my head playing games with me. Besides the fear of something happening to my kids, there is nothing that scares me more than gaining my weight back.
YES!!!! And don't you think those of us that have dieted/changed our eating ways constantly fight with our self-confidence and have constant weight concerns even now? I think there has to be a balance of this (to successfully maintain) but finding that balance is the key......
I HEAR you on this - I really do. Gosh I could write a full page on my inner-thoughts and concerns on accepting myself. I won't bore everyone with my details. For me - I am JUST being able to accept my size/weight for what it is and to stop worrying so darn much about it - trying to find that balance is the trick. Everyone in my family (extended - not my DH) and my friends think I am obssessed with my weight by watching everything I eat and NOT coming off plan. The peer pressure (for lack of better terms) is extreme sometimes for me. It's like I WANT to eat off plan to make them shut-up! And sometimes, just sometimes, I eat off plan for ME! Because it's something I want - but not because they 'make' me. I think a little bit of 'obsession' is criticial in keeping us at our goal weights and insuring we don't go back down a path that we've all been on. I don't call it obsession - I call it being very aware of what I put into my mouth and it's affects on my body (from both a weight gain AND overall feeling perspective).
You know - this has given me a lot to think about. There is someone on this forum that I have spoken to over the phone - she is a lovely person. Recently she called me and we talked about my dieting history, etc. She gave me a lot to think about then, and this has certainly added to it.

We are all work in progress, aren't we?

That is normal if you've been basically starving yourself your whole life. If you got used to eating normally mentally (that is, in response to a calling for food), eventually you would find yourself eating normally behaviorally.

There is something else you should realize. Even if you DO eat too much at one meal, assuming otherwise good health, a normal metabolism just increases energy and reduces appetite later on. I've experienced this for myself. If I over eat and put on a bit of fat, my metabolism goes up like whoa (and I feel fabulous, unlike the normal semi-dead state I feel day to day). The trend is toward weight gain, but that's because my weight and eating is suppressed.

That's a major reason LC is so effective, because it focuses on healing the body, not hurting it and forcing it to be something it's not. Weight really does regulate itself, if you are physically and mentally healthy. There might be some weight gain at first during the mental and/or physical recovery period... but your body does have a set point it will maintain at if you trust it. I have faith this is true, because only dieters have fluctuating weights. Mentally and physically healthy people have stable weights.

Remember: heaviness is a sign of imbalance in the body and mind. It's never fixed by this neurotic obsession with weight and food. That just makes imbalances worse, and heaps on a few new ones. If you sleep right, take care of your emotions by addressing stress and conflicts, and eat balanced healthful meals that take care of your body, it's not *possible* to be unhealthy (thus heavy).

I'm not going to lie and say your final weight is going to be the weight you are now. It might, or it might not. But I do think there is a healthy stable *normal* weight for you... and you can give up this diet obsession if you are prepared to actually address the problems that make you care so much about dieting and staying thin.

Only in a crazy irrational world is being thin more important than being the real you. I am NOT me if I live my life with the aim of staying thin, where every problem is food/fat, and every action is to prevent getting fat.


BTW: I posted something about the minnesota starvation experiment like awhile ago, here's the thread:
http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=271428


I say this to myself just as much to you: I don't think that's normal.
Normal people don't go about life caring only about staying the "right" weight.
I think this attitude implies problems not being addressed.

I think the difference between an extreme professional dieter and someone with an eating disorder is one of magnitude, not fundamentals.

Ask yourself, honestly: Did weight really make your life so bad that you should be AFRAID of regaining it? That this fear should be a driving force in your life?
Even as fat as I was, if I'm honest, most of my misery was my fault for being immature and not dealing with problems. I'm not going to pretend being morbidly obese isn't a problem, it is, and it indicates a problem. But, only some of my misery can be attributed to that. I have to own the rest of it.
... But I am not, which is why I'm obsessed with weight now.

Actually I think excessive weight concern is a way of dealing with problems. Speaking of myself, I blame fat for all my problems, when in reality the problem is my low self confidence, and my emotional immaturity. So, I spend life focusing on food and weight because it's just easier than actually trying to live life for real. Was your life really so bad because of fat? Is being thin really solving your problems? Or is it more likely that you blamed your body for conflicts between self/self self/environment?




I look at it like this. There's healthy eating and then there's unhealthy eating. Even though we've been brainwashed our entire lives to think healthy eating is dieting, and dieting is healthy eating... dieting is actually a form of unhealthy eating.

I define healthy eating as eating in a way that is responsible. Eating healthy means taking good care of your body - that means physical and mental health. Nothing else is important besides how we feel. If we feel content, and the body is made strong, that's healthy eating.

Dieting is a form of unhealthy eating. Dieting destroys the mind and it weakens the body. Dieting is the same as eating garbage, which is why I suppose dieters often waver between that and garbage-eating. It's all self neglect.

The details of what we do and when we do and how we do are not important. All that matters is how we feel, and how the results make us feel. I think we should all ask ourselves if we can honestly say we feel BETTER physically and mentally for this.

How many of us in this forum can really say that?

I don't agree with alot of this Nora.

I can say that I feel better physically and mentally....alot better!! but I also know that even though I was very focused as I lost my weight, I was eating healthy foods for maybe the first time in my life. The plan I am on has taught me alot about processed foods. Knowing that the GI of a food is raised by the processing of it, leads me to finds foods that are not as processed.

I used to go to the health food store wanting to buy healthy foods and would walk out with nothing becuase I did not know what to buy or what I'd even like. Now I have a list of things that I can only find at my local health food store and I shop there frequently.

I can also say that every other attempt at dieting that I've been through, never taught me nearly as much as I've learned since being part of this forum. For me, all in all, this has been my most thorough learning experience while losing weight.

I too can say that I feel better physically and mentally than ever before. I have never eaten healthier in my life! I have been a role model for my children and they too are eating much healthier and not eating as much processed foods as they used to. I learned to stay away from processed foods and eat whole foods as well as eating more fresh fish instead of a lot of beef.

1) Do you restrict food calories/quantities to maintain weight, or, do you eat ad lib?
I limit carbs and eat to satisfy normal hunger with fat & protein. I do NOT deprive myself. That lead to going "off" diets & maintenance in my prior 35 years of dieting.

2) Do you experience physical hunger? If so, is it constant or does it come in episodic "jags and lulls" where it is alternating between starving and normal?
I now only feel "normal" hunger and never let myself get to "starving" as that led to my downfall in the past. I always have 1/4-1/2 cup of unsalted almonds on me to tide me over until my next meal if I need them. I'll even eat them in the middle of a meeting with bigwigs if I need to, like diabetics who must eat when they must eat (I'm not diabetic, but now feel my health is worth more than what anyone might think).

3) Do you find this hunger emotionally distressful and discouraging, or, is it easy for you to tolerate because you accept it?
I do not allow myself to stay hungry for long as that approach sabotaged my previous attempts at weight loss & maintenance. In my low-cal/high-carb days, I revelled in self-righteousness when I starved myself to the extent that my loudly growling stomach disturbed those around me, but then I craved, binged & got fatter. NO MORE of that for me!

4) What was your high BMI?
33

5) What is your present BMI?
23

6) How long have you been maintaining within 5 pounds of goal?
5 effortless months. I chose to lose weight on maintenance levels of food this time so I didn't have to change anything, and I have been eating like this consistently for 12 months. I haven't had such a "normal" relationship with food since I was in gradeschool. At puberty I became a binger who never purged (I have a cast iron stomach, and like Seinfeld can remember when I last vomited - due to stomach flu - in 1980).

7) If you know, how many carbs & calories do you eat?
I average and typically eat 1700 calories and 30g net carbs per day, but range from 1400-3500 calories and 18-55 net carbs per day. I know from 6 years of LC dieting and carefully trying to increase my carbs that I cannot exceed 35g for more than 1 day in a row or my cravings return. I find by limiting carbs that food no longer controls me. If I am eating out I may eat a lot more food than I need at some meals, but find that my normal hunger/appetite causes me to naturally cut back later. I was out of town and ate 20 meals in restaurants last week and only just added the last 13 days into my DietPower software. The amounts eaten varied across the ranges given above, but averaged exactly what I eat when I am paying closer attention.

I still track everything I eat and all my exercise in DietPower and eat primarily real food (meat & veggies), not junk. And I make sure I eat plenty of fat (65% of calories) and protein (25%). If I'm feeling peckish at the end of the day, I will check DietPower to see if I am low on protein and/or fat and have an egg or protein powder or homemade chocolate & coconut oil candy to "top myself up" so that I do not wake up starving.

I should also mention that in the past 4 months I have been reading everything I can on food allergies & intolerance & have eliminated things that I am sensitive to and my weight continued to effortlessly drop below my high-end-of-normal goal weight. I now believe that food allergies & intolerances were the root of all or most of my food & health issues.