Does anyone here eat normally? (Without rules applied to food)

[Falafellygood]

And by normally, I mean without any rules or restrictions. Just eat whatever you want, start when you're hungry, finish when you're full.
Nothing about low carb, too much fruit, not allowed bread or pasta, chocolate=bad and salad=good, no intermittent fasting, etc.

This isn't a criticism or to be goady, just genuinely curious, because so many people (on here and IRL) seem to have such extreme rules about eating.

So I'm just curious who here eats by following their own hunger/fullness cues and cravings? Not applying moral values to food and everything can be enjoyed.

I keep trying to eat what I want when I want but I get over-ruled by the in house chef.

I truly believe that we need to step away from thin=health.

You miss the point. Fat= not healthy. We can't move away from that, its reality.

And to answer your question, I eat what I want when I want.

I have to calorie count but I eat whatever I want within than allowance. If I want to waste all my calories on empty calories then I will. No banned foods nothing good or bad just a balance.

I spent my 20s, 30s and 40s on one diet or another. Once I hit 50 (am 61 now) I gave up on it all and ate what I fancied. I'm the same size I was at 50 - which is not small, but it's not obese either - somewhere in the midlands of plump, I suppose. I have no idea what clothes size I am - I wear leggings, T-shirts and fleeces (we live in the country) and they stretch :)

I do go through phases of craving certain foods (at the moment, it's lentils, which is a bit odd) - and when I do, I give in to them and eat The Thing. I tend to have one meal around midday, and then another in the evening with DH, but if I wake up and fancy eggs and bacon for breakfast, I'll go cook them. If I'm not hungry in the evening, I'll cook for him but not for me - it's just intuitive, I suppose. The only 'bad' foods are those that make me feel ill (currently doughnuts, I'm sad about that).

I dread to think how much time and energy I spent obsessing about food earlier in life - my weight varied from a low of 9 stone to a high of 14 stone - I'm probably around 11 or 12 stone now - but I was never happy with it. Now I don't really think about it - I'm fine as I am and if anyone else doesn't like it, they can bog off :)

I don't eat 'normally' but I also have a pretty severe eating disorder so the rules and rigidity I have are definitely not to be recommended if you want to stay out of hospital.

I generally try and avoid meal/food threads but the ones I have seen, some people are very judgy towards others- and descriptions such as bad, greedy, crap about foods or diets, or the need to cut out complete food groups.

I think everyone should just do whatever works for them, but a little empathy towards others wouldn't hurt sometimes.

I've spent hours in therapy being told to try and stop thinking of some foods as bad, or naughty, or whatever. It's just food, and aiming for a balance is best. But it's so hard to honestly believe that message when the 'real world' is shouting the opposite, be it from individuals, media, tv. I don't find it that surprising that a lot of people struggle

I do, I don't eat sweet stuff much as I don't have a sweet tooth but I love cheese and eat it everyday

That's what I did for most of 2019/2020...ate according to appetite, didnt weigh myself more than a few times. I gained nearly 2 stone.

I grew up in a household of ‘nobody needs to diet. You can eat anything in moderation.’ Which was my mum saying eat anything, but don't be greedy. My mum had never been on a diet and was always a size 10. Ive never been on a diet in my life and have never been above a size 10. That is because of my eating habits learned in childhood. My mum was never a sahm either, and often had two jobs to fit around the children. But still we didnt eat highly processed food. Very, very little red meat. But we did eat Lots of veg.

I see a parent at my child’s school who has always battled with her weight, as do her siblings, but is currently very slim, but her social media is still so very full of food. Her children are constantly baking and eating. Afternoon teas. Cakes. They have sleepover nights with a table full of sweets. They're being raised to see food as a treat and reward. One is already, at 9, quite overweight. She will struggle with eating normally as an adult.

I ate what I fancied and it ended with weight loss surgery as I was so big and unable to maintain any of the times I lost significant amounts of weight. Even now I have to be careful as I can easily put it on and am currently back into overweight BMI, attempting to return to the healthy category. Not everyone can do intuitive eating.

Factors that affect me being unable to eat without rules to a greater or lesser extent:

• Raging sweet tooth that is much easier to control when I avoid sugar entirely.
• PCOS which fucks with insulin and other metabolic functions.
• Developing large boobs as a young teen which made exercise uncomfortable. Slight issues with my legs that makes running a bit more challenging.
• Being a naturally fairly lazy person who has to talk myself into exercise even when I do enjoy it.
• A history of comfort/secret eating.
• The science behind a lot of the processed food out there which is designed to target the pleasure centres of our brain.

I hated being fat. The feeling of my body, the pain, the heat, the chafing, the breathlessness, the lack of nice clothes, the feeling of ugliness, avoiding mirrors, small chairs which hurt to sit in etc. I'm never going back and have to accept this means rules. I will struggle with my weight forever I think.

I listen to my body and eat whatever I feel like, and always stop when I'm full
However, at 56, I have next to no appetite and have never eaten breakfast
I'm 5'4 and 8 stone 10, but size 12 as I carry weight on my stomach, although I have not gained weight, my shape has changed post menopause

BTW none of my family are fat and all have healthy eating habits which I grew up with. Sometimes weight problems are more nature than nurture.

I was brought up with very little sweet stuff or crisps in the house. We didn’t have pudding except at parties and occasional ice creams in the summer. Occasionally a mars bar, kept in the fridge and sliced thinly. Snacks were carrots, rice cakes, raisins or sunflower seeds.

I have seen it said time and time again on MN that this approach will lead to a child who binges on junk as soon as they are able to buy their own food. I disagree. In my case it meant I didn’t develop a sweet tooth - I still find a lot of puddings and chocolate bars too sweet - and I didn’t get into the habit of thinking a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar is a normal kind of snack. I’m grateful.

I eat what and when I want. But naturally have a good routine and decent diet, I guess thanks to my fantastic cook and healthy mealmaking mum. I'm a size 10. Sometimes I eat something ridiculous like two chocolate bars and a large bag if crisps, because I feel like it, but it would be rare the urge would take me to do that. It's a bit gross and enjoyment is well gone by the the ive eaten that amount of something unhealthy.

I don't consciously think about food in the context of calories or healthiness. I make and eat what I fancy. But I love all foods so naturally have a good varied diet.

I didn't really start getting over a healthy BMI until I was about 15/16 and started really piling it on at uni.

I agree wholeheartedly with Minipie. We had no sweets or crisps ever in the house. They were bought with pocket money once a week or gifts from visitors. Or for taking on holidays. It's total bullshit that it makes people binge on it later. The opposite us true. I can't bring myself to binge on it because I've never been let or seen my family treating treat food like that.

Unfortunately this doesn’t work for me because I’m an addict. The best analogy is alcoholism - a ‘normal’ person might be able to eat a couple of biscuits and then balance it with veg (just as a non-alcoholic might have a few glasses of wine and then naturally not fancy more). I, however, will eat the whole packet, then a family bag of crisps, then cheese on toast, then pick food out of the bin, then (possibly) purge. I cannot control myself around certain kinds of food, it is an addiction. I manage it by abstaining from all forms of starchy carbs. By eating low carb and high fat, i am able to eat ‘normally’, enjoy my food, and stop when full. It has improved my life immensely, irrespective of weight loss/gain.

It took me a long time to accept this - I wanted to be ‘normal’. But different things work for different people.

I eat the recommended portions, don’t snack and use Hello Fresh 5 nights a week which is really nice. I seem to have found my natural weight though as I really need to lose another stone. However, I’m not fussing and am just enjoying eating healthily and not counting calories.

The only time I have done this, results in me being very fat

We never has desserts as a child. I dont have a sweet tooth either.

I ate what I wanted for a month and put on a stone.

Unfortunately what I wanted was cake, biscuits, chocolate and nuts. I rarely had a "proper" meal in those 4 weeks. I have to have rules as I do not intuitively crave fruit, vegetables or protein (other than nuts).

Yep! I know too many people with an eating disorder and I have a child now so I'm done with that s*. You can be healthy without constantly restricting everything.

Yes, I agree the if you don’t give it to them now they’ll binge when they’re older is often rubbish. Sure, if all treat type foods are outright banned and demonised it might well result in dc getting carried away when they’re making their own food choices but for the most part it’s trotted out to justify giving crisps and chocolate daily to dc.

From the many packed lunch threads on MN it seems to have become completely normalised to give these to dc 5 days a week which is just odd to me and while people argue it’s fine as part of a healthy diet, I don’t think it can be a particularly healthy diet if it includes these in every packed lunch! I’m glad that where we live the primary schools don’t allow crisps, sweets, chocolate, cakes etc so the dc don’t see them as something to expect every day. Obviously plenty of parents will give them daily outside of school but it takes the pressure off for those who don’t think it’s a great idea.

We always had desserts every day as a child. We had cake and biscuits and crisps every day. We did not really have sweets. I was really slim as a child and teen, and I’ve remained slim my whole life.

Well it is goady isn’t it?
Ooh look at me I don’t have to diet!
Well bully for you.
You remind me of a colleague who once said to a slightly overweight 60 something colleague “Well I don’t go home and GORGE myself every night!”
My colleague, suffering from a range of weight inducing health issues, was devastated.
No one size fits all. If you don’t have to diet, just be kinder to those that do.
And don’t imply they’re not ‘normal’

I ate like this all my life until I hit menopause, and now I have to eat less to stay near the same weight. Doc says 25% less is not uncommon!