If I'm going to be successful at losing weight, I know I need to change my habits. And that's pretty challenging, because these bad habits have had a hold of me for a long time. One of the worst is my membership in the "Clean Plate Club."
As a child, I was always expected to eat everything on my plate, so I usually did. As an adult, I keep eating until my plate is clean. Often, I've past full by then. This is a lesson I have to unlearn. So recently I've been trying to be more mindful when I eat, thinking about whether I've had enough once I'm about half finished. I also eat way too fast, but am working at slowing down.
Food waste is something that really bothers me, so I'm trying to be mindful of what I put on my plate, but if I feel full, I don't feel guilty about leaving a few bites. I don't really leave more than that. I had a turkey sandwich for lunch, with lettuce, and I was full before I was finished. It helps a lot to not like cheese or mayo; many people can't believe I like dry sandwiches, but the lettuce makes it less so.
For dinner I made low-fat meatballs and spaghetti tonight, and had a big salad to start. Lately I've been buying Barillla Protein Plus, which is much more filling than regular pasta, but it tastes really good too. I put two meatballs on my plate; they weren't small, and I took a much smaller serving of pasta than usual. After the first meatball I was content, and didn't finish my pasta either. We have a lot of leftover meatballs and sauce, which I'll freeze and use when I don't have time to cook.
While I'm trying to unlearn a bad childhood habit, I'm trying to acquire one I should have learned. When my daughter was small and going to daycare, she'd often repeat some of the things she learned. "If you are eating you must be sitting!" was something she was fond of saying. And I find myself noshing while I cook, and at random times, wandering into the kitchen, grabbing something, and finishing it before I get out of the room. So I'm working on only eating something if I'm sitting down. Tuning in and being more mindful of what I'm doing is necessary.
Overall, today was a pretty good day. I didn't get in any exercise, because I stupidly ran out of my asthma inhaler. I have my emergency one but I don't want to take a chance. If I didn't like my doctor so much, I'd go somewhere else, but I think good doctor-patient relationships can be tough to come by. On Monday I'll call and get a refill, and start exercising ASAP. Not being able to do it is making me more eager to do it, which isn't a bad thing.