Thoughts for food

So far so good this week with limiting my intake. I don’t “need” to eat so much and I haven’t been dealing with hunger issues either. Sensibility is the key. But I have had several “thoughts” about food that I thought I’d send out there. I think that some of people’s problems is that they think to much about food (eating disorders) or not enough. So while I am trying to find my own healthy balance in the food realm these are some thoughts I thunk recently.

I’m pretty sure I fall into the don’t-think-about-food-enough category. 😉 I know I don’t have an eating disorder. But what brought this to mind is that yesterday while I was in town with my two little pincushions I stopped at Wendy’s for a bite after the doc’s office and shopping ordeals were over. They have the cheapest combo meals you can get ANYWHERE, seriously, and the sweet tea is simply lovely. 🙂 I’ve basically given up soda of any kind so a place with good sweet tea is a huge bonus! Anyway, as I was munching through the “natural cut fries with sea salt” I suddenly started to pay attention to what I was eating and I had to admit to myself that it wasn’t really very good. Nope, it just wasn’t. Not that the fries were bad or over fried or whatever else can happen to your fries to make them taste bad. They were perfect specimens of the french fry variety, but the truth is they don’t taste good. SO why, I now ask myself, do I wan’t to pay some place for some food that doesn’t even taste good and is in fact really bad for me??? Hmmm…. good question, self. 😉 So since that small “ah-ha” moment, I’ve decided that I need to pay MORE attention to the food I’m eating, and eat for good food, good taste, and good for ya content. Oh yeah!

Along those lines… sorta… I’ve also recently started giving myself permission to NOT eat. Okay, sounds really psychology mumbo for sure, but for me this is what it looks like. I have this HUGE dinner plate (I hate that our dishes are all so stinkin’ big!) and so I absentmindedly fill it up because it LOOKS like it needs to be full. Seriously, the plates look practically naked if you only put on proper portions! Try it! Then I also absentmindedly chow through everything on my plate because I’m a frugal person and I don’t want to waste anything. This is real, people, it goes down deep!! 😉 So then I find myself overly full and not always even satisfied because most of the eating experience has been completely mentally unengaging. Recently though, I’ve been trying to be more mentally engaged and when my brain says, “Hey, I’m not enjoying this anymore, and I really don’t think you need any more of it even though you did pile it onto your plate.” I give myself permission to just stop. Okay, so a bit went in the trash or to the dog, he doesn’t mind. Next time I’ll try to be better about taking smaller portions so I don’t HAVE to waste some, but simply eating it because it’s there is a BAD habit. Sorry oversized dinner plate, you’ll just have to look a little underdressed. 😉

On another food note, I am trying to become a better leftovers user. Even though we’re a family of five, most recipes leave us with some leftovers. In the past I/we were notoriously BAD leftover users. Now though, I even plan for leftovers! I’ve learned that most things freeze well and then make an easy dinner on days where I don’t feel like fixin’ something from scratch. I’m also learning to use them in different ways so you don’t feel like you’re having the same meal for 3 days in a row. 🙂 Last week Stu grilled us a Morton’s Tri-Tip steak. Mmmmm-mmmmm! So that night we had steak and spicy potatoes. THEN I used some of it thin sliced for a steak-n-cheese sandwich for Stu’s lunch. We still had more so I sliced it up thin, added some sweet peppers, and voila! fajitas! That was last night. There was still steak left over after all of that so I chopped it into bite sized chunks and added it to the pot with leftover beans to make some chili for dinner tonight. 🙂 That’s quite a bit of stretch for one package of steak! Makes me feel good! And it helps with my goal of cutting down our grocery costs.

So for what it’s worth those are some of my recent thoghts for food. 🙂 Hope you are all having a swell week… it’s almost over is about the best I can say for it, BUT tomorrow is my big first week weigh in. Stay tuned for that ever-so-exciting news. Ha ha ha!

Toodles!

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