Listen To Your Body
It’s time to start listening to your body. When you are hungry, eat. You have been eating when you are not hungry. Forget about what time meal time is supposed to be. You don’t need to eat as soon as you wake up. You need to start eating when you are hungry.
Every time, you go to grab something to eat, consult your stomach. Are you hungry? Habit is what is making you overweight. You are in the habit of eating at specific times, such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and probably snacks in between. Also another bad habit is movie time…popcorn, chips and pop at night.
You can eat practically anything you want. You can eat meat, vegetables, dairy products, fruits, grains….anything. But you must eat only when you are hungry. It will surprise, as it did me, that the first few days, I didn’t hardly feel hungry at all. I kept thinking, “I should be eating by now.” I wanted to eat.
And sometimes I would accidentally eat out of habit and would catch myself. At first, I would just finish the meal, but now, I have learned if I catch myself eating when I am not hungry, I stop right then and there.
Another important thing you should know is that you need to stop eating when you are satisfied. You should never feel full again. If you do feel full, it means that you have grossly over eaten. It takes 20 minutes for your stomach to signal your brain that you are satisfied. After each bit, consult your stomach. If you are still hungry, then eat. If you are satisfied, stop.
Don’t worry about food left on your plate. We have been conditioned to eat everything on our plate, or it is considered wasting. So we continue to gobble down the food until the plate is empty. Even if we are satisfied or full. We just don’t want to be wasteful.
Forget about that way of thinking. Most of our parents used to make us sit at the table until our plate was empty, or insist that we have 5 more bites. We were born knowing when to stop eating. Unfortunately, that changes.
I’ve caught myself doing this to my daughter. Now, if she doesn’t want to eat it, that was fine. But she could not ask for anything to eat until the next meal time. I know I told you to forget meal time, but now, at my house, we eat five times a day. The reason is that we eat small meals that satisfy us and now we have gotten to the point that we are hungry every two to three hours. I don’t have set times for our meals. Typically, we wake up hungry between 6:30 and 7:00. Our next meals are at about 9:30, 12:00, 2:30, and 5:00. Because we choose the eat small meals and stop we when are satisfied.
One of the tricks I used to help control my overeating was the “half factor.” Well, that’s what I call it anyways. When I make my meal, I put it on my plate as I normally would. I then take half back off. It kinda sounds like double dipping, since it was already on my plate, but to me it’s worth it. I don’t do this in public of course. This helps me remember to eat less. I’m not starving myself. If I am hungry later, I will eat again.
I tried just putting half on my plate in the beginning, but I would slowly put a little more, and a little more. And next thing I knew I was eating the same amount. You can develop your own method or use mine. Whatever works for you.
Now that you have finish, why don’t you give some other techniques a try.
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