How to eat when hungry

This may be a simple thing for some people but when all you've known is how to diet you lose the natural instinct to eat when hungry.  When you diet all the time you need to eat certain foods at certain times.  Some say eat 3 times a day and 2 small snacks.  Some say eat 5 or 6 mini meals and you will loose weight. Diets never worked for me even though I gave it my all, by a certain amount of days I loose the diet battle and fall of the wagon.  I would eat some forbidden food not listed on the diet and that would send me into a downward spiral of emotions of how I can't do anything.  It would follow with a feeling of failure longing for the day I would be slim.  But that day never came, it was only a dream.  When I started eating when hungry only all the emotions that I had tucked away surfaced and for the first time I really had to feel my emotions.  I was not thinking about dieting so my feelings all surfaced around me.  Why am I feeling this way?  Dieting had given me something to think about all day and I was not living a full life.  All my attention was on counting calories and feeling heavy.  I used food to cover all my problems because when I would eat, I would sedate myself and fall into a lazy feeling and just sit and watch TV. Numb to the world and each day passing by waiting for the day to live, the day I will be slim.  One day I thought, what if I will be this size forever?  The thought of being fat for the rest of my life frightened me by I decided to except me as I am but i would try to use my natural instincts, "eating when hungry ".  That meant being patient to wait for hunger but when it was all said and done, the scale moved.  I noticed when I eat when I was not hungry I would gain a few pounds so I vowed to wait for the hungry feeling then eat what ever I wanted.  I wanted Nutty Coconut Ice cream from Baskin Robbins  and got two scoops on a cone.  Can you image getting full off ice cream and not snacking for the rest of the night like I usually do.  No thought of more food.  I decided to give this way of eating a try no longer how long it takes. 

Eat when hungry and stop when you are no longer hungry any more

Back to the drawing board, no more diets.  I have been slipping back into the diet mentality by counting calories.  I have slipped back into eating "diet foods", " the right foods".  I was talking with a friend, Ms L who is a small woman.  She came to my office to share her fried shrimp with me because she could not eat all of them.  She said I can only eat 3 or 4 of them and would be full.  That statement alone resonated with me because I started thinking about the eat when hungry concept.  She ate the shrimp enjoying every bite and when she was full I asked her why is she stopping and she responded the next one won't have any taste to it and I feel content.   I went back to the journey I started over a year and a half ago.  The reason I keep trying it is, I feel better and it sounds so logical and natural that I can't help to be drawn back to eat when hungry and stop when I am no longer hungry any more.
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