Natural Balance?

Funny thing is happening. Most days I eat about 3200-3275 calories with hardly no pain (nice English) - as far as I can recall, I only went over ove 3300 once and that's when a friend came over for dinner with lobster and strawberry shortcake. Many days I actually eat less than 3000.

What's odd here is that I recently recalculated my target weight at Nutrition.com.sg based on a healthy BMI of 24, I came up with a target weight of 206 pounds, and a daily calorie intake of 3358 calories at a moderate exercise level. Moderate exercise is defined as walking 10.5 to 17.5 miles a week. I'm walking 16 to 21 miles a week [except one week when we were about flooded out and I only got in 14 miles] - anyway, I am well with in the moderate parameters.

So the question is - have I already stabilized my eating? I think it's possible as long as I maintain my calorie book [in which I write down every calorie all day long]. I need the book because otherwise I wouldn't be able to compensate for the odd crazy day like last Friday when I ate two bagels and an entire can of spam amongst other things. I salavged the day by just eating a large salad for dinner, but I am certain that without my calorie log I would have over eaten.

So what I think is this: while I must still use the artifical feedback of the calorie log to control [limit] my eating, my body is happy with the calorie intake it is receiving and finds no hardship with a sane diet. So I am thinking that if my body is happy, maybe I will eventually become more sensitive to its signals and learn to eat the right amount without my log.

This is not so far fetched. When I was growing up, I was not allowed to eat between meals, and there was, of course, a finite amount of food served at meals to be shared with my parents and siblings. While I was hardly starving, I was growing like a weed, and I adapted by eating everything that was available whenever it was available. To this day, I hate to throw away food, or even have leftovers, with the obvious results. As this diet progresses, I am slowly beginning to believe that I learned to override my body's "full signals" when I was younger, and that these signals actually exist, and that I can regain the natural ability to listen to them. It seems to me that my body being content with the appropriate calorie intake is an important first step.