So Far So Good

Week one is done and dusted as they say and it's been pretty good so far. I'm following the rules set forth by Paul McKenna's book and it hasn't been too bad. I'm solely concentrating on listening for signs from my body for physical hunger and that has been eye opening to say the least. Still, I do feel guilty for eating what I want, but since I've been off the chocolate for a week I find I crave other things like salads and sandwiches and of course, my juice. Dieting or not, I always juice, I love it too much not to. Only once did I eat when I wasn't hungry- I had a yummy cucumber, red pepper and cream cheese sandwich- but I didn't beat myself up over it. After that, I didn't eat again until my stomach growled.

I should point out that I don't wait until I'm ravenous-weak with the hunger-on the verge of passing out hungry as that would do more harm than good. No, I wait until I feel the hunger in my stomach and once I hear two growls, I'm off to the kitchen.

The next thing I want to concentrate on is stopping when I'm full. This is very difficult for me for two reasons. One, I really enjoy food and two, I'm a life time member of the Clean Your Plate club. I can agonize over food left behind on a plate when my stomach is rumbling much later in the middle of the night. To prevent this angst, I eat everything on the plate. But I have a plan for that. To tackle my leftover-food-on-a-plate phobia, I'm going to wrap it up and save the remainder for later when my stomach growls again. The bigger problem will be putting the fork down and pushing myself away from the table.

But slowing down and enjoying my food will be my biggest problem of all. If speed eating were an Olympic sport, I could medal in it. I serve dinner in our house at 5:30 prompt. Kids first and then husband. Before I sit down, I wash all the pots. Then I sit down and shovel it all into my mouth in a matter of minutes. I'm finished before everyone else, even though I started last. I then finish the dishes and still, my oldest son is still eating. He laments that he's sooooo slow at eating (he is- it takes him an hour) but I tell him he's fine and he'll never have digestive problems. I come from a family of speedy eaters and we managed to talk as we were piling it in like we hadn't had a meal in a weeks. The 7 of us sat down for dinner at 5pm and we were all finished by 5:10. My mother was the only one who left anything on her plate. Now wonder we all have varying degree of stomach problems.

But as Jen says, progress not perfection.