Food as Fuel - Part 1.......

I've been thinking about food and eating a lot lately.

Oh, I guess for the last .... 50 years or so. I was probably thinking about food and eating while I was still in utero.

I've come up with some ideas about food that if I could only put into practice myself, I would look like that princess chick who just married that prince dude. But at least I'm thinking about them, which is one teensy step better than only thinking about my next meal. Or candy bar. Or snack.

Disclaimer: These thoughts may sound like I have the whole eating situation completely figured out and I will never have a weight problem again. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Correction: I DO have it all figured out, I just can't figure out how to put it into practice. 

I read something a while back, and in fact I think I remember making one of my usual snide remarks about it on this very blog. The concept is that we shouldn't eat until we are full; we should eat until we aren't hungry anymore.

When I read that (and commented on it), I remember posting something sarcastic like if I could do that, we wouldn't be HAVING this little talk.

But the truth is, that one little mantra actually works.

IF I can remember to think it sometime before the next-to-last bite on my plate.

IF I can make myself stop eating even knowing that I'm not hungry anymore.

I marveled once at my principal during lunch because she was having "leftovers" that wouldn't have filled up a tablespoon. At least that's how it appeared to me. Seriously, the amount of food she had saved from the night before to have for lunch at school the next day was such a small one that I wouldn't have bothered. I would have ... eaten it, even if I were already full.

Therein lies the part of the problem.

I've always been bad (?) to eat EVERYTHING THAT WAS THERE. No matter the quantity. If the portions were small and the food disappeared, I was satisfied. If the portions were huge and there happened to be some food left, I ate MORE OF IT.

I came up with the bright idea once that it must be my mother's fault, so I asked her if she had ever made us stay at the table until our plates were clean. I'd heard that tidbit before, so I was ready to blame her for making me eat more than I needed.

Her response? "I had to push you away from the table from the time you could sit up."

Ouch.

There were seven of us when I was very young, and I distinctly remember going around the table after a meal and eating whatever anyone else left. My eldest brother called me the "human garbage disposal." I didn't even know what a garbage disposal WAS, but I had a vague idea that it wasn't a good thing to be called.

Anyway, that's one thing I'm working on. It requires that I be MINDFUL of what I'm eating, how much I'm eating, and how I feel at any given moment during a meal. I'm not there yet. But I'm gaining on it.

Wait...what?

Did I really just say "GAINING on it"?

#6 - Eat a New Type of Food......

I was hesitant at first to consider this food different enough to be worthy of marking off one of my 50 Things to Do. Then I remembered.......

My blog. My rules.

When I put #6 on my list of 50 Things to Do, I had in mind some exotic restaurant or a recipe from a far-off land that I would be courageous enough to try. I thought as a last-ditch effort, I could try sushi for the first time in my life. I had an image of me holding my nose with one hand, chopsticks with the other, as I tried to make myself chew (you do chew it, don't you?) and swallow a bite of sushi.

That won't be necessary (still not impossible, however), thanks to one of my blogging pals, Midlife Swimmer. This is an incredible woman who has lost 153 pounds. That's right, 153. She is in the water all the time, either teaching swimming lessons, training, or competing. I figure she knows a thing or two (or a thousand) about eating healthy, and she frequently writes about the foods she packs to take when she's at the pool all day.

She mentioned Greek yogurt a few times, and to be honest I didn't know if that was a brand or a type. When Hubby and I were in the grocery store last weekend, I saw some Greek yogurt on sale (it still wasn't cheap, but I bought it anyway) just to try it.

I'm not a HUGE yogurt fan, but I do go through spells of eating it. This latest spell was brought about by a visit to Cracker Barrel for breakfast, if you can believe that. I really wanted the French toast with warm maple syrup and some hashbrown casserole and fried apples and biscuits and gravy and all that jazz, but I didn't want to sabotage my diet completely on one breakfast outing. Therefore I chose fresh fruit with yogurt and granola, and it was DELICIOUS. On my next trip to the grocery store, they had granola on sale, buy-one-get-one-free, so I thought that was a sign. I tried it with fruit and yogurt, and I tried just the yogurt and granola together. All were very good, and I consider it a healthy breakfast, as long as I don't get carried away with the granola.

This week I tried the granola and fruit with the Greek yogurt. Forgive me if I'm the last person on the planet to try Greek yogurt, but it was a pleasant surprise. It tastes a little stronger, for lack of a better word, than typical grocery store yogurt, and its consistency is thicker. I bought vanilla flavor, which isn't at all overpowering, yet the yogurt taste that dominates isn't yucky at all. (I've NEVER been a fan of plain yogurt. Blech.) It does have a few more calories than the grocery store brand, probably because the container is slightly larger than the ones I typically buy. I think those are probably "good" calories, though, and I'm not going to quibble over the calories in nonfat yogurt. It also has twice the protein of regular yogurt, and I'm guessing that's a good thing too.

I may try sushi (or something else exotic) before the year is out, but I may not. If I don't, eating Greek yogurt will just have to satisfy #6.

New Year's Tradition.......

We (meaning mostly me but also Hubby and me) have never adhered to traditional traditions. We don't believe in the whole collards-and-black-eyed-peas thing for New Year's Day, mainly because neither one of us would eat a collard if our lives depended on it, and our black-eyed peas usually come from a can.

Hubby's birthday is on New Year's Day, and it's also a huge day for college football. USUALLY we have our home team to pull for, instead of watching them humiliate themselves on New Year's Eve to a Conference USA team. And that's all I have to say about that.

Therefore our traditional New Year's Day fare is what we call "football food."

Today it was chips and french onion dip, cheese and pepperoni and crackers, bacon and cream cheese crescent rolls, little smokie weenies in barbecue sauce, and a cheese ball that I made my very own self.

That's a lot of food for two people. When I start preparing the food, I have this phantom image of lots of people dropping in to wish Hubby a happy birthday and milling around, watching football and munching. I don't know WHY I have that image, because it has never happened. (Perhaps because we have never invited anyone specifically? Hmmmm..... Possible......)

Hubby's daughter and granddaughter DO drop by sometime on New Year's Day to wish Hubby a happy birthday, but they have typically just come from their aunt's house, where they have just had a huge (more traditional traditional) New Year's Day meal, so they don't help us eat any of the food. 

I hesitate to invite anybody, because all of my family members live at least an hour away, and I never know how people are going to feel on New Year's Day. I know there were several years when I just wanted to stay in bed and hope no one else could remember any more about what I did on New Year's Eve than I did.

I'm so glad those days are over. My total consumption of anything alcoholic last night was a single shot of "Hot Damn" (cinnamon Schnapps.....good stuff) that Hubby gave me to calm my nerves after the football game. Actually I think he was hoping to take my mind off the game so I wouldn't become suicidal.

We managed to stay up late. I think it was 9:00 when we went upstairs. And I'm pretty sure I fell asleep first, during the Chick-Fil-A Bowl (and it still makes me angry that they changed its name from the Peach Bowl). The New Year managed to bring itself in without us, and the neighbors even toned down the fireworks this year. Must be the economy.

The food isn't wasted, though. I usually put it out around lunch time, and we graze all afternoon, right through the time we would normally have dinner. Today I saved what I thought would still be good tomorrow (that does NOT include the crescents, which I'm guessing won't reheat very well, but Libby liked them), and we'll have snacks while we watch pro football. Unless the weather improves from today, in which case Hubby will play golf and I will try to ride my bike. (I did manage a short 10-mile bike ride yesterday before the UGA game kicked off, so December wasn't a total wash.)

I'm almost finished with my 50 Things list. I'll be sharing that with you in the next few days.

Happy New Year!