Criticisms for Intuitive Eating?

[BritishFool]

Just curious.

I also would be interested in No S vs. Intuitive Eating, particularly in terms of sustainability.

[wosnes]

Just curious.

I also would be interested in No S vs. Intuitive Eating, particularly in terms of sustainability.

I know nothing about Intuitive Eating, but No-S (or some variation of it) was the standard for decades, maybe centuries. It wasn't until we started wandering away from those habits that we started having problems.

[BrightAngel]

Just curious.

I also would be interested in No S vs. Intuitive Eating, particularly in terms of sustainability.

Here is my take on No S v. Intuitive Eating.

No S accepts that it is a diet,
and gives specific and objective (although flexible) rules...such as:
"No snacks, no sweets, no seconds except ..sometimes..on days beginning with S".

Intuitive Eating is one of those diets that refuses to admit it is a diet,
and gives vague and subjective rules...such as:
"Eat only when hungry, eat what you want, stop when you're full".

No S relies on the principle that: when a person who is interested in moderation,
sees and actually realizes the amount of food they are eating,
they will choose to reduce that amount,
and through that behavior, they will achieve and maintain a more normal bodyweight.

Intutive Eating relies on the principle that: when a person gets rid of outside rules,
....except for the Intuitive Eating rules about eating when hungry etc....
and relies on their BODY to tell them what and how much to eat,
that their own body signals will cause them to reduce the amounts they eat
and eventually acheive and maintain a normal bodyweight.
(Note: This is a diet used by many "eating disorder experts",
although it has absolutely zero scientific basis, and a dismal success rate.)

No S is objective and primarily based on common sense.
Intutitive Eating is subjective and primarily based on magic.

[Imogen Morley]

Science is pooh-poohing intuitive eating.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... dys-wisdom

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the ... -junk-food

For me, it's never worked.

[eschano]

Intutitive Eating is subjective and primarily based on magic. [/color]

Hilarious Bright Angel! I laughed so hard. I tried this approach for so long and the results: gaining a pound a month as my body tells me: Eat Sweets Now (every ten minutes or so)

I think that only works for people with a very stable history of healthy eating and a short blip of a month or even 6 months of unhealthy eating if at all.

[freegirl]

Echano, I agree. Ten years ago my husband told me 'Just listen to your body and eat what it needs'. I said 'I am listening to my body and I hear ......I WANT CHOCOLATE!

[BritishFool]

All too true! (:

[vmsurbat]

I've never experimented with IE, but I can say, that after 4 years of NoS (not perfectly, but ever continuing), I really do believe that I am "in tune" with what my body wants. However, I think I needed (and continue to need!) my NoS habits FIRST to train my body in the way it should go and now it tends to run that way.

Also, I think we are fooling ourselves if we think we can fall back to relying exclusively on feeling "what do I want right now." I can think of no healthy food culture where that prevails....but set meals? Few sweets? Moderate portions? Treats on occasion? Those food cultures exist all over the world.

[BrightAngel]

The question in this post inspired me to post the following article on DietHobby.
http://www.diethobby.com/blog.php?ax=v&nid=700

[Nicest of the Damned]

A problem with "eat only when you're hungry": eating isn't always a solitary activity, like going to the bathroom. People like to eat with other people. If you're eating only when you're hungry, you aren't going to be able to schedule times to eat with other people. With No S, you can arrange your schedule so you can eat with other people.

Intuitive eating might not work so well for people who are suggestible. If you see or smell food, or see other people eating, you might get hungry. I saw this happen to my then-two-month-old baby- she saw (more likely heard or smelled) another baby nursing, and then she wanted to nurse, even though it had not been very long since she had eaten. This kind of thing happens to adults, too- we see other people eating, or we see or smell food, and we feel something that, if it's not genuine hunger, it's awfully hard to tell apart from genuine hunger. We see food or cues associated with food an awful lot. Avoiding all of them isn't practical.

[wosnes]

Also, I think we are fooling ourselves if we think we can fall back to relying exclusively on feeling "what do I want right now." I can think of no healthy food culture where that prevails....but set meals? Few sweets? Moderate portions? Treats on occasion? Those food cultures exist all over the world.

Agreed and well said.

[Kathleen]

The saying "Follow your heart" makes me cringe since I am dealing with a 16 year old boy whose heart tells him to waste hours playing a game called Runescape. IE says you will eventually want to eat what is good for you. My experience was that I just kept eating and was constantly evaluating if I was hungry. It was a relief to have some solid rules to follow.

Reinhard in his book has a funny question along the lines of "At 4 AM are you hungry?" is a harder question to answer than "Is it mealtime?" You can rely on objective external criteria when you follow No S.

Kathleen

[BritishFool]

If I'm going to be completely honest, I tried very hard with intuitive eating for a couple of months and I COMPLETELY blame it for my current binge aging problem...

[BritishFool]

If I'm going to be completely honest, I tried very hard with intuitive eating for a couple of months and I COMPLETELY blame it for my current binge aging problem...

[d0gen]

The environnement is very agressive , sight and smell of food, price of food,super sizing , temperature room, size and shape of containers,variety, numbers of guest and people you are eating with...a lot of varibale influence us and our eating,even the naturally thin are tricked. I wouldn't be fat in the first place if it worked for me. Some people may be wired differently but considering how people are growing fat i'm sceptical.

You can relearn to be hungry at mealtimes and ok/satisfied between them.Because you are eating enough food but not too much,and beacause the body adapt to a schedule.That is what people used to do 30 years ago or in some countries like france,japan, italia. If i crave fries or cheese i will put it soon on my next plate or the next day. It's also a problem of immediate gratification. I just need some kind of on/off button. Will i take a nap at work if i feel sleepy? No i will have a good night sleep and correct my pattern.

[wosnes]

It seems to me that the problem with intuitive eating may be differentiating between hunger and simply wanting to eat.

[BrightAngel]

It seems to me that the problem with intuitive eating may be differentiating between hunger and simply wanting to eat.

That could be the basic problem for people who are merely overweight,
who are just across the border into obese, or who have been quite obese for less than 6 months or so.

However, once a person is well into obesity, and has been there for some time,
that situation changes.
One consideration is that the person's body has additional fat cells
... which are NOT merely inactive storage containers...
but have survival functions of their own.
Even if those additional fat cells are reduced in size, they never leave the body,
and these fat cells contain hormones which provide hunger signals.

The goal of the BODY of an obese, or reduced obese person, is not to be a "healthy, normal weight".
That BODY wants to return to obesity, -- which it mistakenly sees as the best case scenario for survival,
and that BODY will do everything possible to cause this to happen,
which includes providing far more signals of physical hunger
than are appropriate to sustain a "normal" size body.
In fact, this is probably the primary reason why 95% of "successful" dieters regain all of their lost weight .. plus more.

Even now, after being normal weight - and very close to the border of overweight - for almost 8 years,
my BODY continually gives inappropriate hunger signals,
and it is necessary for me to rely on my CONSCIOUS MIND and positive Habits to overcome that problem.

[Dale]

I watched a TV programme about obesity a while ago. The thing that really stuck with me was the programme saying that fat people's levels of hormones which control hunger and satiety followed a different pattern to slim people's, meaning that we're always a bit hungry and never completely satiated. If that's really the case then "intuitive eating" just isn't going to work as we're not getting the right signals.

I have tried intuitive eating and I found it impractical and antisocial. Eating times tend to be partially determined by routines, work, socialising, etc. I'm not going to suddenly start eating during a meeting at work, because that's when I feel peckish, for instance.

I love the idea of it because it seems so natural and healthy. But I don't think it works well in practice.

[ironchef]

I love the idea of it because it seems so natural and healthy.

I have always questioned whether it is "natural" though. It is only in the last century or so that people are wealthy enough to eat whenever they are hungry. In fact, in many parts of the world that still isn't the case. "Natural" eating, from a human historical standpoint, means hunting, gathering, farming or some other kind of hard labor, with no guarantee of a full meal at the end. In times of plenty, you would feast, but that was because you didn't always know when the next meal was coming from. Certainly food wasn't just sitting there waiting for people to decide they were hungry.

[Dale]

Oh, I agree and historically it might be also be natural to have periods of starvation or overeating. I was meaning more that it feels natural in terms of weight control (something that wasn't such a big issue in the past).

But before I got overweight I (mostly) didn't watch what I ate at all, and yet my weight seemed to be "naturally" and actually quite precisely controlled. I'd love to be able to go back to that "natural" weight control. But for the reasons, I mentioned, I don't think it's possible. My appetite lies to me these days .

[sarahkay]

I hate how people seem to criticize intuitive eating so much. It actually is completely normal and how we should eat. it is our minds telling us eat sweets! I want more food! Our stomach is either obviously hungry, its growling consistently or hunger pangs... we know what hunger feels like. Or it is fine and not doing any of that. The problem is, we usually want to eat even when we're not hungry and if you don't have some "rules" or "habits" in place it is easy to give in.

No S is good because it generally coincides with hunger but makes it very obvious when it is not okay to eat... snacks, sweets on N days, etc.

[BrightAngel]

intuitive eating ...It actually is completely normal and how we should eat.

Just a Note: That belief has ZERO scientific basis,
although it is a lovely Fantasy which is often taken as Fact
because we WISH it were true so much that it SEEMS like it SHOULD be true.

[ironchef]

I hate how people seem to criticize intuitive eating so much.

To be fair, the title of the thread and person asking the question were specific to criticisms of IE. If someone asked for "criticisms of WW" that thread would be equally long I'm sure.

[oolala53]

I have many of the same criticisms as others. I think I have one to add. I found I just didn't get hungry often enough. If I waited until I was hungry, and eating what I wanted, I was getting hungry only once or twice a day. But just because I wasnt hungry didn't mean I didn't long for the experience of eating. Often it was the social issue. I'd be hungry before everyone else and then miss out on the shared meal. Sure, even now on No S I sometimes sit with others while they eat, but not often and it feels fine. But I get to share meals! yay.

I feel No S offers the best of both worlds. You can be intuitive all you want on S days. You can even be intuitive about what you want at your meals on N days, if that works with your schedule. But most of the world is not eating intuitively. They don't wait until they're hungry to decide what to eat and then start cooking it. They don't have that freedom.

I've also found with No S I can go much longer, getting very hungry, than I would if I got to choose to eat when I was first hungry, and I'm glad for the experience. I sometimes even prolong it! But it's not a marathon.

BTW, this has been discussed before but I'm terrible at searching.

[Kimbo]

I'm returning to No-S after a long, ridiculous journey off in diet land. I spent money and time and now am heavier than I was... Surprise, surprise.

I'm so glad the OP brought this up. Intuitive Eating is indeed very, very tempting -- it sounds so natural and so "right." I can't tell you the number of times in IE books I read things like, "this is how thin people eat all the time." Coming from a thin family (I'm the only one with weight issues) - I can tell you, yes, they are tuned in to hunger but they also eat at the normal meal times and never give up the social aspect of eating. I mean, my dad, for instance, may eat dinner 30 minutes or 60 minutes later because he isn't really hungry yet, but he doesn't eat at 9 at night. He simply habitually eats just the amount he needs to get to the next mealtime.

I have promised myself to never buy another diet book (I have the No S book) EVER AGAIN. And I'll not be venturing into the intuitive eating realm again, either. No S allows me to prepare normal food for my family, eat out, go on vacation, enjoy holiday food, and eat at normal times. It's sane and it's simple.

[DaveMc]

There may be people in the world for whom intuitive eating would work, but I'm definitely not one of them. I'd venture to guess that most of us are here because we don't intuitively eat just the right amount of just the right foods.

NoS gives me just enough structure to be effective, and it's become pretty darn intuitive over the past three years!

[noni]

I've done IE for many years, off and on. I have owned many books on the subject. It has helped me get off the low-fat diet craze and other fad diets. It helped me to lose weight a couple of times, and kept a pregnancy weight from ballooning out of control like my others. For this, I was grateful.

But it was not something I could do as a lifestyle and that part was frustrating to me. Especially when we are being told that eating this way is normal behavior. I would always wonder why I couldn't figure out what I really wanted to eat...and I WAS hungry. Why I couldn't have my favorite chocolate bars around, like they told me to do. I worried that I wouldn't feel a stomach growl when I put dinner on the table for my family...so that I ate a tiny lunch. That tiny lunch would make me hungry and irritable if a delayed dinner was unavoidable. The three meals at mealtime is so freeing!

[Over43]

I think intuitive eating assumes that we are hunters and gatherers and need to expend calories to obtain our food. The caveman diet approach, eat all the meat and vegetables and fruits you want and all is well. Of course if you live in the wilds of New Guinea that is perfectly fine. But truthfully I don't jog the four miles to the market for my food. I sit my duff in my Subaru and drive there, park as close as I can to the entrance (hence the treamill in my shop, irony?), and push a cart around for 15 minutes. And I don't buy wild pork or tarro root either.


Since I have never read anything on intuitive eating take the above with a grain of salt.

[leafy_greens]

my body tells me: Eat Sweets Now (every ten minutes or so)

'I am listening to my body and I hear ......I WANT CHOCOLATE!

My body says this also. The first time I tried IE (after reading Weigh Down), I grabbed a plate and filled it with three types of chocolate cake for dinner. My life has never been the same (in a bad way).

[JustForToday]

I just went back and re-read this whole thread - it's a good one for me to re-visit right now. With the exception of my first week I've been No-S'ing very inconsistently. Last week I panicked and decided to do the whole "eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full" thing.

Why, oh WHY do I always fall for that line? What makes me think this will actually work?? I had a very "intuitive" weekend where I ate nothing but a bowl of rice and beans and a hot chocolate .. and then commenced to overeat for the next two and a half days right up until now. I won't call it bingeing because I've done that before and it's nowhere near as crazy as all that.. but it's like my body won't let me stop grabbing food every hour and a half. Like some sort of horrible atonement for eating next to nothing for two days.

Needless to say I feel disgusting - and really needed this thread to remind me that scheduled eating has it's benefits and that the concept of intuitive eating isn't the pot of gold its cracked up to be.

Obviously I would like to recommit to NoS. I hate that I'm one of the ones who has a hard time making this happen. I hate that I've wasted the past several weeks going back and forth. And I hate how disgusting I feel after eating a banana with peanut butter, cheese, a bowl of soup, 6 sugar cookies, a glass of milk and a handful of chocolate chips (all since 11:00).

Ugh... so to anyone re-visiting this thread with me, should I re-start NoS today at dinner regardless of whether I'm hungry or not? Or wait until tommorrow? Is it even worth trying to begin on a Thursday when it will be just two days and then a whole long unstructured weekend to get through?

And please, next time I feel like going all "intuitive eating" on myself, someone smack me??!

I don't even care about losing weight right now. I just want to not feel disgusting and crazy from undereating/overeating in a repetitive cycle.

[BrightAngel]

Ugh... so to anyone re-visiting this thread with me, should I re-start NoS today at dinner regardless of whether I'm hungry or not? Or wait until tommorrow? Is it even worth trying to begin on a Thursday when it will be just two days and then a whole long unstructured weekend to get through?

My advice is start IMMEDIATELY, right now.
Remember, just because S days don't REQUIRE structure,
doesn't mean you can't CHOOSE structure.

The words "Except SOMETIMES on days beginng with S" .... means
that it is perfectly okay to wake up on Sat and /or on Sun
and decide you'd just rather eat your normal 3 meals that day.

You don't have to modify or do away with S days
in order to treat some of them like N days,
you can just give yourself permission to do that whenever you like.

[oolala53]

I'm with BrightAngel for starting today. Be honest and assess your hunger for dinner, though don't skip it. Try to see that perhaps having a broth-based soup and a hunk of bread or the like is just a rational way to have the semblance of a meal without eating a lot, much like a "normal" person would do.

I started also more focused on just bringing order to my eating. That has actually remained my focus, though I have lost weight. Sanity comes first, but sanity often involves eating less.

You must believe that what you are doing is fair and is going to benefit you, not hurt you. If you are convinced that any limits at all on your eating is not fair or will harm you in the end, you are going to keep giving in to all urges- and you are going to be miserable. I'm pretty sure you are perfectly safe on No S. You are not going to destroy your metabolism, starve unnecessarily, or be horribly deprived of pleasure from food for the forseeable future. If you look through the testimonials, you will see that most people feel they enjoy food even more.

This is totally worth at least three months' great effort, even during Christmas. Though I'm a fan of giving it a year.

BTW, your body can't make you pick up food and put it in your mouth. It can give you a signal to do that, but you can choose to wait to do it until mealtime. You can get a tremendous amount of pleasure just from learning that waiting to eat is not only doable but preferable!

And eat real, good, delicious meals.

[JustForToday]

Well I didn't get myself on track too well yesterday - a holiday party in the evening didn't help. (Although I did manage to exercise which helped me be reasonable at dinner).

Thanks for the advice, oolala and BrightAngel. I know I still get stuck in a diet mentality in which I give up my autonomy to sets of rules and regulations. It's true though - no one can make me food in my mouth and no one can tell me when I can or can't eat. It's 100% my own personal choice.

I am totally staying away from anything even remotely "intutive" and will re-commence NoS today. I also will try to incorporate a basic three meal structure into the weekend as well, whether I eat sweet things or not.

Probably being less concerned about weight loss and more concerned about regular, normal eating isn't a bad place to jump back into NoS. I love reading your guys' posts - I have found more intelligent and thoughtful advice here than any other weight loss/diet focused website that I've ever browsed.

[jellybeans01]

I think I posted here earlier but I LOVE the idea of Intuitive eating! It just does not quite work for me very well. I usually can't sit and eat for 20-30 minutes to check in with my body of how full I am. What I have personally found freeing is that I have my small plate and my food and I eat it until it is gone and I don't have to think about every stinking bite. What I have found is that no s can help with intuitive eating because once you figure really how much you need you can manage portions to where you do feel stomach hunger for the next meal. Just last week when I was yet again trying to do intuitive eating, I was feeding my kids at 5, I was not quite stomach growl hungry,but I was trying to figure out what is the difference of eating my meal now or at 7 when I would be eating all alone, and trying to get the kids ready for bed?

[oolala53]

Do you have the book? There is some good stuff on eating when hungry starting on page 50.

I think Reinhard has said that his dinner time is earlier now than when he wrote the book because of his kids. For the sake of routine and sociability, I think the idea is to eat together. This would mean you'd have to eat a very light lunch to be hungry for dinner. Or don't be very hungry at dinner but eat off a small plate.

However, I have heard of parents who ate separately from their children as a routine because they liked to eat later.

I understand that in France, children have a snack around 4 p.m. The family dinner isn't until 7 or 8. If you want your kids to eat with you later, maybe you could try this?