I've been out in the world this week and away from my blogging. I am squarely in the middle of the event planning, for the fifth year, for our local food bank fundraiser called "Empty Plate". The irony of writing a weight loss blog and working a job on either end of the plate too full and the plate too empty spectrum is not lost on me. In fact, it's helping me this year as I am consciously making a connection between my too much and the hundreds of locals who have too little every time I really, really, really want to go back to the kitchen for "just a bit more" of something delicious.
Here's a little tool I'm using to try and slap my coma eating awake again- I have made an agreement with myself to never eat anything (except single serve yogurt), out of the container it came in. If you're like me, you'll settle in to the comfy chair so you can spend an hour with Nathan Fillion on Castle every Monday night and you'll pop open a bag of something crunchy and cheesy and yummy and eat without ever looking down to see where the food is coming from or how much is left in the bag. Heck, I could have eaten a flattened cockroach for all I know. I really didn't look. Eating without looking creates the surprise when you go for another cruncher and the bag is empty. Who ate my stuff? Oh yeah. That was me.
I have some beautiful bowls that I've bought from our local potter's guild at their yearly sale. These are nice, single serve size bowls with gorgeous blues and greens and coppery colors that I've used on party buffets and the dinner table for years. I sometimes forget that they are really mine, so they sit on a shelf looking lonely most of the time, like I'm waiting for permission from some other adult to let me use them. I am taking them out now and when I want a bag of Cheddar Twists, I pour the contents out into my pretty bowl and I eat only what is in that bowl. When it's empty, I am done.
I like the way the bowl looks and feels so now I look down to admire the glaze and the color and, AMAZING!, I also look at the food when I eat it. This way I know for a fact that it was me who ate it all and not the neighbor kid wearing his cloak of invisibility.
Honor your food and honor yourself by using those bowls and cups and glasses that you usually save for company. Guess who you're entertaining tonight? The new healthy you who is here as honored guest. Mangia!
Here's a little tool I'm using to try and slap my coma eating awake again- I have made an agreement with myself to never eat anything (except single serve yogurt), out of the container it came in. If you're like me, you'll settle in to the comfy chair so you can spend an hour with Nathan Fillion on Castle every Monday night and you'll pop open a bag of something crunchy and cheesy and yummy and eat without ever looking down to see where the food is coming from or how much is left in the bag. Heck, I could have eaten a flattened cockroach for all I know. I really didn't look. Eating without looking creates the surprise when you go for another cruncher and the bag is empty. Who ate my stuff? Oh yeah. That was me.
I have some beautiful bowls that I've bought from our local potter's guild at their yearly sale. These are nice, single serve size bowls with gorgeous blues and greens and coppery colors that I've used on party buffets and the dinner table for years. I sometimes forget that they are really mine, so they sit on a shelf looking lonely most of the time, like I'm waiting for permission from some other adult to let me use them. I am taking them out now and when I want a bag of Cheddar Twists, I pour the contents out into my pretty bowl and I eat only what is in that bowl. When it's empty, I am done.
I like the way the bowl looks and feels so now I look down to admire the glaze and the color and, AMAZING!, I also look at the food when I eat it. This way I know for a fact that it was me who ate it all and not the neighbor kid wearing his cloak of invisibility.
Honor your food and honor yourself by using those bowls and cups and glasses that you usually save for company. Guess who you're entertaining tonight? The new healthy you who is here as honored guest. Mangia!
