lessinayear

One of my struggles in the weight-loss journey is knowing when to stop eating… I don’t eat very much unhealthy stuff at all — but I tend to overeat everything. I’m not good at listening to my body say, “Enough!” I have some CDs that are meditations on “conscious eating” that I’ve been procrastinating using — even though I need to — but it’s something that’s been on my mind a lot lately.

I’ve been proud of myself for the past few weeks about saying no to dessert. My boyfriend loves sweets, and almost every night he wants ice cream or a cookie or something like that after dinner. I had gotten in the habit of mindlessly eating with him. If he had ice cream, I had ice cream — even if I was stuffed and didn’t really want it. But lately, when he says, “Do you want a brownie?” I stop and think, and if I don’t want a brownie, I say, “No, I’m good, thanks.” (The interesting part is that he usually ends up not eating anything either — hmm…)

Anyway, now that I feel like dessert/after-dinner eating is under control, I want to work on actual meals. I grew up in a “clean your plate” household, which I know is part of my problem to this day. I feel like I HAVE to eat everything — otherwise it’s rude, or food’s being wasted, or… I don’t know! But it’s one of those deep-rooted things from childhood that I have to work through. So today, after the gym, I ordered a sandwich from a local restaurant (mmm — avocado, onion, sprouts, and cheese). I started eating. I ate half of it and paused to drink some water (another thing I’m working on — eating slowly, because I have a tendency to wolf my food down; my boyfriend is helping with this because he’s a very slow eater, so I try to pace myself with him, which is good). And then I realized — I was full.

So I wrapped up the other half and put it in the fridge. And the world didn’t end. And I’m fully satisfied. And I have lunch for tomorrow. This is going to be an ongoing battle for me, but I feel really good about making a good choice!