Relearning how to eat

I know that sounds weird but I’ve discovered it’s totally true. For the past couple days I’ve been closely monitoring how I eat.

I hadn’t realized before I started this monitoring that I tend to eat whatever food I see. If there is a bag of almonds on the kitchen counter and I go into the kitchen to get some tea, I’ll eat an almond or two without even thinking about it. Isn’t that awful???

So now that I’m trying to keep within my calorie range per day, I’m paying stricter attention to what I put in my mouth. Stopping the random grazing is not as hard as exercising self-discipline during mealtimes.

I’ve always loved the book French Women Don’t Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano because she teaches you how to be more thoughtful about eating--how to enjoy eating as pleasure without eating large portions. I had fallen out of that habit, so I started reading the book again to help me limit my portion sizes at mealtimes.

I won’t say my mealtimes have been easy, but they haven’t been horrifically difficult, either. I’ve been eating more soups even though the weather is getting hotter because I can eat a larger portion of soup with less calories.

I’ve also been consciously eating much slower, and drinking water in between spoonfuls. Eating the soup slowly has been helping me get over the fact I’m eating a smaller portion of food than I’m used to.

So far I’ve been doing good at keeping to my calorie range, so I hope I can keep this up!