Tempting, tasty, tantalizing treats

It's 6pm on Saturday night and you've just turned up at your friends place for dinner. After a day of cleaning, shopping and then going for an afternoon stroll at the local park you realise that you're actually pretty hungry. Dinner is a fair way off, so you begin by chatting over a pre-dinner drink. On the table sits the appetizer, just a wee little snack to get you to dinner. What do you do?

This is something I have been wondering about for months and seeing as it's the weekend, what better time to ask. Depending on where we are, the snacks vary from sweets at my in-laws, salty nuts at my parents, bruschetta with dip, cheese and crackers, those puffed up rice snacks or on the very rare occasion, chopped up veggies. Often it's food that should be eaten in moderation or something that would not cross the threshold of my house because it's too tempting.

I've noticed that when served at our house the snacks disappear very, very quickly. I watched bemusedly last weekend when over pre-dinner drinks I needed to top up the crackers repeatedly and the carrot sticks were left nearly untouched. The outcome was pretty predictable - when the call to the table was made everyone looked sheepish and mumbled that they weren't really very hungry any more.

I wouldn't see a problem if this was an occasional splurge, but if you are doing this most weekends, then up to 2 out of 7 days becomes a problem. I'm speaking from experience here - we have a full dinner with my family every weekend on top of socialising with friends. Sharing food with family and friends is very pleasurable and I like long multi course meals that start out with casual banter over a drink. So the traditional dinner becomes a tug-a-war between being conscious of what I'm eating while still enjoying the moment as well as the effort that has gone into the meal.

So what can you do as a guest? Not turn up so hungry. Yes. Use self control. Absolutely. Randomly wander around friends houses with drink in hand asking about each painting, picture or knickknack until dinner time? Sure, especially if they are renovating (Note to self: make friends with more people who are renovating).

But what about when you are the host? What I want to know is as hosts do we have a responsibility to our friends and family regarding what we serve them, particularly before dinner? Or is it up to each of us to be adults and take responsible for what we put in our mouths regardless of temptation? Do you serve pre-dinner snacks and if so what are your favourites?

Portion control

Actually, this post has nothing to do with control, because in my experience that just doesn’t work, at least not for me. I am absolutely hopeless with portion control. In fact although I eat almost no processed food, cook most things from scratch (even some types of cheese! Sorry, I’m just proud of that) and eat lots of veggies, I have never been able to control how much I eat. Eating is one of my greatest pleasures, which is why I have never risked my love for food by counting calories or analysing macro nutrient quantities (unless it was meat, because that was out for about 3 years). In fact, because of this love of food, I have felt entitled to eat as much as I pleased, even though my weight was constantly on the increase. The problem was that even if I tried to ‘trick’ myself by eating on smaller plates, I would feel deprived, especially as I watched my husband scoff down seconds and sometimes thirds (claiming he was still ‘hungry’ and sucking up by telling me how good my cooking was!)

I began practising the whole concept of intuitive eating whilst travelling through France using some of the ideas from "French Women Don’t Get Fat" after my grandfather told me that I had a weight problem and would probably struggle with it for the rest of my life. Funnily enough, despite eating baguette with butter for breakfast each morning and a selection of cheese and half a bottle of wine each night (as well as dinner) I actually lost weight. I wanted to continue when I got home, but my usual eating patterns returned as soon as the plane touched down. That’s when at the start of this year, I took the bull by the horns and decided to change my regular habits for good, without needing to rely on willpower for the rest of my life. These were the steps I took to learn to eat the ‘right’ amount.

Stage 1 – Put enough food on my plate that I acknowledge that it is too much for one sitting. Focus entirely on eating and how that feels as food enters the body and how hunger slowly diminishes. Stop when I feel satisfied and push the plate away. The rest can be eaten later if hungry or the following day for lunch or another meal. The key at this stage is to the sensations associated with not being stuffed immediately after a meal and throughout the evening or day. I found that I felt lighter, less tiered and satisfied with myself for not overeating.

Stage 2 – After a few weeks, I began to recognise what a ‘portion’ size suitable for me was so I decreased the amount on my plate to be what I thought appropriate. I still continued to be conscious, but it was less of an effort than in the first stage. At this point, I was still regularly over eating, but less than what I would have defined as stuffed in the past.

Stage 3 – I realised with shock, horror and delight that I could choose to eat less because it felt better, even when the food was on the table in front of me and my fellow eating companions were going back for seconds (and usually commenting that I didn’t eat much any more although I would be hungry again quicker than everyone else). At this point, overeating is fairly rare and when it does happen it’s not in excess.

Why do I think this has worked for me? Positive reinforcement. Every time I didn’t overeat I would think to myself how nice it felt to eat just the right amount rather than commenting that I couldn’t move, or feeling sleepy because my body was so busy digesting it was shutting down none essential functions – like my brain! Slowly but surely, I began being able to make the choice to eat less, because there was something that could weigh up against seconds – feeling good. What made it work was that it wasn’t external thoughts like ‘I shouldn’t eat any more because I’ll get fat’ or ‘Everyone is looking at you fatty, do you really need another piece?’ or ‘you’re going to eat HOW much…you’re trying to lose weight…no wonder you ALWAYS fail….you MORON’. These days, the internal dialogue goes more like:

Stomach: I think I’m full.
Brain: What already?!? You’ve only eaten half of what’s on your plate, are you sure you’re full, I think that the tastebuds are really having fun tonight.
Stomach: I know, but I’m definitely full. If I change my mind you can have more later.
Brain: I just have one thing to say to you stomach – you’re eating like a girl!
Stomach: Ahh brain, you and I are a girl! And you will be the first to complain that you feel so sleepy if you keep shoving food in me.
Brain: I know, I know you have reminded me 3 times a day for the last two months!
Stomach: And do you FEEL better when you aren’t drowsy because you didn’t eat too much and you can go and do fun things because of it? Besides in a few hours you will be complaining that I’m ALWAYS hungry!
Brain: Hey who do you think you are stomach!?! The brain or something!?! I know what’s good for me and I say you are full. Dinner’s over, but I’ll be back!

And my friends wonder why I occasionally space out during dinner! In case you are wondering, the only part of my body other than my brain that talks is my stomach! So that is how I have succeeded in reducing my portion sizes. For me, this is has been the only long term option that I can take anywhere because it is determined solely by the capacity of the stomach and doesn’t involve any tricks or willpower to make me eat less, just a warm satisfied feeling when I know I will feel good!

So I wonder, what are your strategies for reducing how much you eat? What about if you have never had to think about it because you just ‘know’ you’ve had enough and can stop? Any other suggestions for how this could work when there are chocolate coated macadamia nuts in front of me (intuitive eating doesn’t work then)? Do any of your body parts talk to you?

Sugar and spice and all things nice

I must confess, it was a bit of a rough weekend on my body. Unfortunately, I was still recovering from it today. I kept up the exercise as promised to myself almost too well. My thighs are aching from an itsy bitsy bushwalk that was only 2 kilometres one way, but vertically straight up. After dangling from tree branches and rocks on the way down, even my arms were aching.

But no, it wasn’t the walk that was bad for my body, it was food (as usual). We had a very social weekend with three dinners and a morning tea. I loved catching up with friends I hadn’t seen for a while, but I wasn’t prepared for all the eating. The problem with having listened to my body lately has been that it just doesn’t need as much as I have always given it. So after an appetizer and entree I was pretty satisfied. It was awesome food too – mud crab from far northern Australia caught my friends. Yum.

Soon after the mains was served, already plated up in the kitchen. The portions were huge and as mentioned, I was already full. What to do? As previously said, I am a plate cleaner and I assume that if you like what’s served you eat until you are stuffed. It is after all only one meal and it would offend the hosts if you only ate half of it say. To me not eating implies that you don’t really like what they have cooked. But what do you do when you when you don’t have any control over how much is put on your plate? How do you avoid offending your friends without eating what they think is a serving?

Well, that’s not the reason why I am recovering either, but it did get me thinking since I will be dinning at friends places again this weekend and I would appreciate any advice for how to deal with oversized portions.

Apart from lavish desserts for 3 days in a row, the final straw came at morning tea on Monday. Some friends caught up over coffee and a platter of delicious sweets. As we chatted for hours, we each reached for the platter of treats many times. I lost count to be honest, but by the time I left, the plate was pretty empty. It was mindless eating at it’s best and my body told me all about it and still is for that matter.

On the way home, I started to feel a bit unwell in the stomach, which I reasoned was fair considering the amount of sweets I had consumed. Apart from the sweets, I hadn’t eaten lunch, but at that point I definitely didn’t feel like any, figuring that I would get hungry at some point later. Gradually the nausea got worse until dinner time came around and I still couldn’t stomach any food. Eventually, I made a vegetable broth just to eat something healthy and maybe settle my stomach. It didn’t work, even though I was hungry and even this morning I woke feeling lethargic, nauseous and puffy eyed. I had never heard of a sugar hangover, but it would seem I had one. Needless to say, I won’t be touching sugar again for a while and if anyone asks next weekend I have a great topic of conversation. Have you ever had a sugar hangover?