When Would You Stop Eating?

When would you stop eating?

I had an odd thought yesterday. Suppose you had a large plate of your favorite food and you began eating. But after a few bites, you noticed that the amount of food on your plate remained the same as when you first started eating. No matter how much you ate, the same amount of food was left on your plate. You really couldn't measure how much you had eaten. There was no way of knowing when you had finished your meal by the plate being empty, because it just kept replenishing itself. Would you know when to stop? If there were no way to measure or calculate how much food you were eating, how full would you want your stomach to get before you stopped?

Try this little mental exercise while you are eating sometime: Pretend that the amount of food will remain the same no matter how much you eat. How will you know when to stop if the plate is never clean or partially empty? Can you use your hunger index or full index to determine when you have had enough? Can you feel how full your stomach is? With no external clues, can you listen to your body to know when it has been properly refueled and has actually had enough?

Try it! Test your ability to trust yourself and intuitively tell yourself when you have eaten enough. Your body knows; you just have to learn to listen.

If you want to learn more about W.H.I. (What is your Hunger Index), logon to TotellWellness.com for more information.

Emotional Eating Quiz: Are you an Emotional Eater?

Emotional Eating Quiz: Are you an Emotional Eater?

Emotional Eating Tips 1-2-3

Emotional Eating Tips 1-2-3

Eating Tip

While researching and studying emotional eating, I have often run across the emotional eating tip: “Eat from a smaller plate.” The idea behind the tip is that it will trick you into thinking you are eating more, and you won’t feel so deprived, thereby empowering you to continue to diet. I’m not convinced our minds are that simple, but I would like to offer a modified tip: “Eat from a plate.” That’s it! Simply try to eat from a plate. Ask yourself how often do you eat from a fast food sack, a paper covered tray, a cellophane wrapper in the car, or standing in the kitchen while eating right from the dish the food was prepared in? It’s a little crazy to think we are soooo busy that we can’t get a plate out, dish up a meal, and sit down to actually nourish our bodies with food. We have minimized taking care of ourselves and nourishing ourselves to a rushed activity with nothing more than our food served in paper or anything else that is convenient and fast.

I think you will find that eating from a plate makes the food so much more enjoyable, and you actually notice THAT you are eating and WHAT you are eating. Eating is your most basic need. Let’s treat eating right. Let’s eat from a plate, and actually pause while we nourish ourselves!