Are you obsessed with food? Is losing or gaining weight always an issue? Forget fad diets--the key to taking it off and keeping it off is eating intuitively. This involves changing the way you think about food. Follow these guidelines and begin to eat to live, rather than live to eat.

Wait until you are hungry to eat. This means physical hunger, not emotional hunger. Ask yourself, does that look good because I need more fuel? Or do I want it to soothe stress, anger or boredom? You will need to learn to recognize the physical sensations of hunger so that you can eat before you are starving. Rate your hunger from 1 to 10, with 10 being famished, and try to seek sustenance when you are at a 5 or 6. Waiting too long will lead to poor food choices and overeating.

Say goodbye to obsessing over every morsel that enters your mouth and eat whatever you desire. Stop examining all food labels for endless amounts of time, then flogging yourself for eating something that is 'bad' for you (i.e., chocolate cake, ice cream, chicken wings). Choosing a food that is low fat, low carb, high protein or rich in antioxidants may actually lead to feelings of deprivation. By lifting the ban on forbidden foods, you will learn to eat only what you want, rather than gorge as if it is the last supper. Evelyn Tribole, an expert and author in the field, who wrote the 2009 article, "Intuitive Eating: Can You Be Healthy and Eat Anything?," believes you can do just that. She cites a Brigham Young University research study from 2006 that shows intuitive eaters have both better emotional and physical health as they learn to appreciate a wider variety of food choices.

Stop eating when you are physically satisfied. Are you used to eating until your stomach hurts? Or, worse yet, do you need to unbutton your pants after a big meal? If so, you are eating more than is necessary to sustain you. Eat slowly, and stop from time to time throughout your meal to check in on your level of fullness. Stop eating if you are no longer enjoying it or your feelings of hunger are no longer present.

Don't space out while you are eating. Have you ever started eating popcorn at the beginning of a movie and, before you know what happened, your fingers are hitting the bottom of the bucket? This is because you dissociate or tune out of the present moment while continuing to eat. As a result, you miss your body's cues that physical hunger has been satisfied.

If you fall off the wagon, don't waste time beating yourself up. This is a lifestyle change and, according to Evelyn Tribole, requires practice to get right. There will be times you let yourself get too hungry and overeat as a result. Or stress gets the best of you and you overindulge in multiple chocolate chip cookies. Success lies in resuming intuitive eating rather than using the slip as an excuse to binge some more.