2007-06-15
progress
I don't know about anyone else, but weekends are the hardest for me with eating. Apparently as dull as my job can be, it must be interesting enough to keep me from snacking all the time.
Ok, to be honest, my weekend snacking is more like tossing in a few extra meal times. A snack implies a small amount of food, not a three course meal. It's truly when my toddler brain takes over.
I've mentioned the toddler brain before. I seriously have a brain that when it comes to food either throws a fit that it wants something or is memorized by what it sees. It's the "oooo cookie .... " syndrome. Really, I hear the 2 year old in my head whining and crying and most often I shut that brat up with what it wants. The only things missing are the crocodile tears and snotty nose, but believe me they are there on the inside!
My goal this weekend is to get my food brain up to about a 9 or 10-year-old level. You know, the point where they can be reasoned with to a point. While I'd like it to be a mature rational adult food brain, I know myself far better than that. Plus no matter how far I come, I'll still have a food brain that can argue with all the passion of a know-it-all 13-year-old.
I will also admit I suffer from serious denial of reality when it comes to handling food. I can, in a nanosecond, argue for and against eating chips, making a deal with myself that I will just eat a few, and then sit down and consume half the bag. Very much the Homer with donut motion. Mmmmm donuts...
That's my weekend goal. My goal is to use more common sense then not. I want to keep up what I've been doing all week and not backslide.
Oh wait, you guys don't know what I've been doing all week. Well, shitting a lot for one. But that is literally a byproduct of my eating this week. As you know I've been frustrated with my friend who had the surgery o' stomach banding. I am well versed in what she is suppose to do and frankly a lot of it would be very beneficial to me. So my big girl brain kicked in and I've been chewing my food slowly, putting my fork/spoon/spork/hand down between bites, and stopping the food intake when I'm satisfied.
Key there is satisfied, not full. I don't need to be full, I need to be not hungry. That's hard to locate some times since I've been a devote follower of the eat it all religion for most of my life. I've told myself that I can have anything I want, so long as I stop when I'm satisfied. So what if I'm hungry a half hour later? Amazingly I've learned something that I think is a highly guarded government secret: there is always more food and time to eat it!!!
I'm stopping when I'm satisfied and putting what I'm eating away. If I want more in a half hour, then I have more. It took a while for my inner genious to get out, but when it did I realized that I'm pretty much always thinking I'm hungry a half hour later. If I ate until I was roly-poly I might not be having an urge for an hour, hour and a half. Inner genious pointed out that if I'm going to want to eat again in a while any how, why not just continue with what I was satisfied with before?
Inner genious is smart that way eh?
It is working. Really working. Scarily working. So much that I feel like I've been given the keys to the kingdom. I've been hesitant to share because I don't want this to be like the previous 400 "this time I got it!" episodes (available on dvd in August ...)
Small bites
food arm rested
chew chew chew
swallow
access satifaction of hunger
repeat
Simple really, if you can make yourself do it!
Even toddler brains can learn right?