More is Less!

Anyone that really knows me, knows that I LOVE food. It's pretty much the axis of my universe. I eat when I'm happy, sad, lonely, excited, nervous, celebrating, depressed, you name it. And I don't just love to eat, I love everything about food. I like to find new ways to cook it, I love to watch cooking shows, and I collect cookbooks. Nothing makes me happier then fluffing my pillow late at night and "reading" a new cookbook.

Needless to say, I have a weight problem! I wouldn't consider myself obese, but according my my own standards, I could stand to lose a few pounds. Being one that has been dieting off and on for about twelve years now, I've learned a few things. Most of them involve the fact that I will most likely NOT ever be a size four. And that's okay. At this point in my life, where I have a sweet family who I love so much, I just want to be healthy. I want to be healthy, but I also don't want to give up one of my biggest hobbies, cooking and baking. It's a balance I'm slowly learning to accomplish. And I have been losing weight. I'm thinner then I was since I had Jayda, and I feel pretty good about that.

So I had an epiphany last night. I was making sliders for dinner, thanks to the recommendation of a good friend of mine. If you don't know what those are, they are delicious, melt-in-your-mouth, mini hamburgers. Kind of like what you would buy at White Castle, if we had one. I made quite a few of them because a little goes a long way when you're making mini burgers.

Now, any dietitian, nutritionist, or just normal person with regular eating habits would look at something like a slider and think "wow, for less calories you can eat one hamburger and be satisfied that you got your portions of meat, carbs, blah, blah, blah." They would then probably shoot their mouths off about how you can supplement the rest of your meal with a salad or something.

BUT, if you're not one of those people. If you are a compulsive over-eater, food lover, binger, or a chubby girl, trapped in a well, chubby girl's body, your thought process is a little different. You're thinking "those burgers are so tiny, that I can have ten or twelve for less calories since they are the size of my palm! Heaven's be praised for knowing what I desire most, tiny food to make the guilt less palpable!" That was the point that I jumped in, head first, and couldn't hear anymore of my own thoughts because they were being drowned out by all the happy chemicals my brain was releasing from the taste of the fourth slider.

You know those stupid 100 calorie packs, and they're supposed to allow you to eat cookies, without overdoing it on calories? All they allow me to do is eat five of them, and still be unsatisfied because all along I HAVEN'T BEEN EATING REAL COOKIES! And yet I'm still 500 calories in the hole.

We're all different people. We all dance to the beat of our own drum to some degree. But I realized last night what MY solutions needs to be. BIG portions. HUGE portions. I love to eat, but I still have my limits. I once got a super burrito at one of those wonderfully delicious hole-in-the-wall Mexican Restaurants. This thing was practically served to me in a dolly. The moment I laid eyes on it, I knew for a fact, that unless I planned on being hospitalized that day, I was not going to be able to finish it. So do you know what I did? I ate about a fifth of it, right up until I was satisfied, wrapped the rest up and took it home! I didn't gorge, I didn't binge, I felt like one of those cheerleader types who eat like birds and then complain of being fat all day. I ate LESS because I was given SO MUCH! I know that it goes against everything you hear as a chronic dieter, but I really believe that it's what your brain wants to believe, rather then your body.

There's is nothing worse to a person like me, then to sit down to a plate of "small portions." It freaks us out! Immediately my brain is convinced that I'm not going to get full, before even eating it. Give me a huge plate of food and I feel safe, I feel warm, and then I feel satisfied. And I've always got enough left over for lunch the next day. It's not so much what my stomach is saying, but what my brain is saying, and my brain is hungry!