Why are people so negative about Intuitive eating?

I believe we as a whole have been so brainwashed that we cannot except the concept that we do not have to be dieting. We have been so well indoctrinated that we believe that what ever we eat is a diet. I am here to say that dieting as it is understood in the country and in most of the modern world is a means to get us to buy special foods. It is to keep us looking for the next great diet plan, diet book and things to make us buy what ever they decide they want to sell us. It does not have to be that way. We seem to have created a generation of people that do not understand how to eat and enjoy what they are eating. I was raised to eat what ever was available, and that is what I have decided to allow myself to do again in my life. It is so much of a relief to be able to not have to think I am going out and cannot enjoy it due to being on some special diet. Sure we need to make good choices whenever we can, and I do my best to eat a good nutritional diet. We need to stop stressing over eating, we have to stop stressing about what we have to deprive ourselves of in our food choices. Most people I have seen deprive themselves of the very nutrition that they need most. When you do that your body will force you to binge eat.  

So before I go any farther let me say. I was born in late 1947, on a farm. I lived on that farm and ate like a farmer until I went in the Navy at age 21 in late 1968. When I turned 21 I was by all standards a skinny person. I was almost 6 feet and 167 pounds. I had a waist of 28 inches. I went in the Navy that way and 11 weeks later I was up to 215 pounds and a 33 inch waist. I felt fat and I was fat. I managed to stay about that weight and waist size until I left the Navy in the early part of 1977. My weight slowly climbed from that point on. In 1980 I was up to somewhere around 235 and I decided I was going on the Atkin’s Diet and I lost down to 163 pounds, my waist was down to 32 inches, but I was not able to stay on the Atkin’s Diet for obvious  reasons. You just cannot live on that type of diet my body was crying for food for energy so I could keep up with my activity. We have to have carbs for energy, protein for muscles, and we have to have fat for rebuilding our bodies. I started gaining my weight back because I was bingeing on the foods that I had deprived myself of so long, and I gained back more weight that I lost. This was also a time in my life that my wife and I were very busy raising family. We were body working and we had two children to keep up with, so we did what so many did we ate a lot of fast food. I was an active person, keeping up with a teenage son, going bicycle riding, camping and hiking but was over eating and still gained weight. I did not decide to try to lose again seriously until after I lost my first wife in an auto accident when I was about 54 years old. I did not eat well for a while then and I even gained more after my wifed died. I finally got to the point I could not wear my pants and decided I had to lose the weight. I did not want to go back on the Atkin’s diet so I tried the South Beach diet, I did lose some weight but then again the fact I was depriving myself of foods I loved got me to bingeing again. I stopped that diet and gave in to my old eating habits. I I finally really made my mine up to lose weight on my birthday, Thanksgiving 2010. I decided on portion control only, and by the New Year I was down 10 pounds. Yes, I lost weight over the holidays. I just stayed with portion control eating, and by March 2011 I was down a total of about 35 pounds, I started walking. It was slow going at first then I managed to get more and more distance in. July of 2011 I found loseit.com and that led me to Fitbit devices. Using loseit and Fitbit I lost down to just about 200 and just below.  Then February of 2014 I was forced to retire due to company reorganization and my hearing. I was not ready for that. I stayed busy and I kept logging my food but I still gained back about 50 pounds. I believe mostly due to not walking regularly like I was. I kept trying but could not get the weight to drop, In 2016 at one of my doctor’s appointment I asked to be referred to a dietitian. And from that visit I found that my metabolism was messed up from not eating enough. I have been working on my eating and walking again since that appointment. I have now lost down to 188 average, I eat approximately 2000 calories a day. 

I eat what I wish to eat and I still log my food and my weight. I do not sweat over a few pounds of swing in my weight. I do not try to be exact with my food amounts, for me now it is just keeping track of what I eat not so much with how much. Also I have left Fitbit behind, and I have switched to the Apple Watch and Apple Health. I credit the two of them in getting my weight down below what I was managing using Fitbit. 

For me it is about enjoying my food, and eating what I want to eat, and not depriving myself of the things I love. It is about being active and not really exercising. It is also about not stressing over what is available to eat, or worrying about what someone thinks about my food choices. And it is about learning to know when I need something to eat and knowing when to stop eating. That is getting easier as I except intuitive eating as my norm again after about 50 years of dieting. 

If you accept that you do not have to deprive yourself, and you come to love food again, and love your self again you are over half way there. I am also, finding that you do not have to follow the intuitive eating like the book says. I have created my on working plan. I weigh myself and the purist will not do that. I log my foods, and somewhat count calories the purist would scream over that. But I will say this intuitive eating was come by for people with eating disorders. I do not believe I have an eating disorder other than the love of food.