Hey Shanshan - I can address the spacing of meals issue.  I find every day is different, but there are definitely days when I go several hours without eating (and it always surprises me, because I’m usually eating every 2-3 hours).  It’s usually because I had something with more fat (like putting avocado on my scrambled eggs) or I ate really, really well my first two meals so I’m not hungry for lunch til later.

Good and logical questions and I hope I don’t make you crazy if I say don’t think about it so much! Seriously, like Jean once said to me “stop trying to do your body’s job.” Eat when you think you are hungry. Try some food if you’re not sure. If you mess up, there’s always tomorrow.  Don’t try to analyze how many hours it’s been and how you think you should be hungry. When you are hungry, go with it.

I still think about my food every day, have plenty on hand, know where to get a good meal if I get hungry when I’m out and about, make sure I’m prepared. If I ignore my hunger or let it “go away and come back,” I’ll have to eat more to make up, plus I’ll get a headache… so I have learned to eat enough.

Meal spacing varies from day to day and by season and by my choices. Today I ate 3 or 4 times before 1 pm and then wasn’t even hungry when we went out to dinner at 5 but I ate anyway and then I was too full. It’s not always convenient and I don’t always do it “perfectly” but I keep a conscious awareness of what I eat. We are all different people and Jean tells us that each of us is responsible to find out for herself how closely she must follow the guidelines.

And… “ditto” to what Annual just said.

Thanks Ladies, I appreciate your comments. I was just concerned when there have been 3-5 hours between the times I have been hungry…..

For such a seemingly “easy” program, it sure is hard to just let go and follow it.  I still feel like I’m not “doing it” right, but really think I am.  Gosh, dieting for 37 years really has gotten me second guessing my body’s wants/needs!

Noel, how long have you been NT?

I found Jean’s first book in 1990 and so I’ve been naturally thin for over 20 years. I can hardly believe it! This program is a god-send. My dieting history was not nearly as severe as yours, shanshan, so be patient with yourself. It’s not so hard to learn and do but for the diet programming that we have to undo. I admire you for your determination. We probably all thought at some point that we weren’t doing it right.

I think the most important advice I can offer is to always have enough food available to eat.  If you aren’t hungry, don’t eat it.  If you are hungry, it’s there, so eat as much of it as you want.  The trouble starts when you are hungry, and you have no food!  So avoid that situation at all costs.

I don’t worry about eating for 4, 5 hours, as long as I know food is in reach if I need it.  This could easily occur in the afternoon after I’m pretty tanked up from the morning, or at a time when my activity level is really low, or maybe I’m just not feeling well. 

Just remember that your body needs to be absolutely convinced that the famine is over.  If you were in a severe famine, it will take some time for it to be convinced, and it won’t release any weight until it is ready. 

Yes, I do get tired of having to eat all the time.  I wish I could get a lot accomplished without the interruption of preparing and eating food, it really eats up a lot of time!  But I love feeling satisfied, and my body tells me really specifically what it wants now, instead of me being unsure of what to eat.

One thing that has helped me was remembering as a child/young teen (before I started dieting and was naturally thin but didn’t know it) what fullness was like.  I never left the table if I was still a little hungry.  I can remember needing to get a spoonful of peanut butter out of the cupboard, or a hunk of longhorn cheese, after eating what I put on my plate, to reach fullness satisfaction.  I knew what my body wanted then, and I didn’t try to stop eating before I was full, because I didn’t let my mind control my eating.  I didn’t know about dieting yet.  So now, when I ask myself if I’ve had enough food, or still need more, I think about what I would have done as a child, before I knew about dieting.  Not unlike the bear who eats to the exact calorie!  I can’t remember if you mentioned when you started dieting, I seem to remember someone saying they started really young because of their mother, so in that case, maybe you don’t have any memories of fullness when you were younger and not dieting, but this is something I can look back on and say to myself, see, you can eat to fullness and not be fat!

Wow Noel, 20 years?! good for you.  You are so right about “undoing” the diet programming.  Doing NT seems to be the exact opposite of everything we have heard all our lives…..

And Swan, thanks for your post as well.  I actually was thin/normal until I was 16, then became overweight, or so I thought.  So, my dieting history began at age 16 through the next 37 years.  In all that time I was thin maybe a total of 3-4 years. 

Swan, how long have you been NT?

You ladies (and all the ladies on here for that matter) are a great inspiration and I think when I become NT (how’s that for positive thinking?) I will stick around on this website and try to inspire the “newbies”

:)

I’d say I’ve been at my NT weight over a year now, maybe a year and a half.

Thank you Noel and Swan for hanging around and helping all of us.  It’s a real inspiration.

I agree with Shan - all of the women on here are so supportive and helpful.  Thanks!

YOU WILL GET THERE SHANSHAN.  And so will I. :)

If you are persistent, you can become naturally thin. Never give up! I actually had forgotten how many years until last summer when I realized it was almost 20 years because I started right around 1st of July 1990. I used to count every year and then I forgot to keep track for a long time. By the time you have been naturally thin for 20 years, I hope this will be more mainstream.

Thanks Noel and Swan .  It’s good to know there are ladies who have gone through this process and have succeeded. And yes Beth, we will get there!!

I’ve been reading posts from the very beginning of this website and there are quite a few ladies who are no longer on here.  Even though this program seems so very easy (although it is much harder to apply) it’s sad these ladies have probably given up.  The hardest part for me so far with the NT program is the weight gain and I can see where it could get very discouraging for some to deal with that in order to become NT.  But after the initial weight gain and embarrassment of it, it’s not so bad now. I still feel uncomfortable and LARGE, but I know it’s temporary.

I’ve made many trips to the thrift stores to buy larger clothing, but will keep all my old clothes (in many different sizes!) to wear on the way down to my NT weight.

Thank you ladies again for all the postings.  I have no one to talk to about this. The few people I have mentioned it to look at me like I’m from Mars or something, and of course start in with the “eat less, exercise more.”  So this website and Jean’s books are my support!

Happy and healthy eating!

Maybe they didn’t give up…maybe they just moved on.  You know, got the life, and started living it and didn’t need to visit the forum any more.  I hope so.  I think we should hang around though Shanshan, when we get there ourselves so that we can help others who are in the beginning of their journey.

Some succeeded and moved on; some definitely gave up.  (Or at least gave up the forum.)  I’d be lost without it!!!

I can easily see how successful NT people want to move on with their lives. Remember in that video I posted awhile ago where Jean talked about her NT trainer Skip, and how Skip wanted to move on because she wanted to open her own business?  I like to hang around though because Bren was the only NT person on here, other than Jean of course, in the beginning stages for me.  It meant a lot to me to hear about Bren’s success, but she had a very busy life back then, and I’m sure it’s even busier now.

Another thing to remember is many, many people have had success with NT over the years since the books were written, but I imagine many don’t know anything about this website.  Jean’s first 2 books were written back before it was common for everyone to even have access to a computer.  I think my “Naturally Thin Kids” book has the web address in the book because it is a more recent book, but my first 2 books do not, probably because the website didn’t exist back then.  There must be a lot of people who have read the first 2 books, or whom Jean has coached, or had those old NT teaching tapes of Skip, and if they were successful with NT long ago, or even more recently, they may not know this website exists today.  Lucky for us that Noel found us after all these years, and back when I first got my books, I got the idea to search for more NT information on the web, and was delighted to find this website and forum.

And you and Noel are totally my lifeline, so thanks for being here!

For those of you newish here, a review of Swan’s old posts is very illuminating.  You can see her starting out, asking questions, not sure of herself, and then becoming more confident and finally Naturally Thin.  Reading them has been a great encouragement for me.

Annual, I think you are doing incredible. You inspire ME! I think it’s like Swan said, people finally get a life and they move on. Some may give up but once you have this information, you cannot forget about it. It will always be back there in a little corner of your mind and the more a person diets, the sooner they will “give up” and come to this forum. The ones I “worry” about are the young girls who are all gung-ho and then you never hear from them again. I always hope they are out there “doing it” and telling others.