I was a good bit over my calorie target today.  I’m not sure why, but I had extra tea, then snacked around 4PM and again after dinner.  Maybe I’m still not completely over a recent illness.  I did everything right today food wise, including rewarding myself with a Big Greek Cafe Wednesday $5 Gyro sandwich.  

Maybe people don’t know about those sandwiches.  Gyro is a Greek sandwich with Turkish roots.  The meat is shaved in thin slices off of a loaf made of of pressed and spiced lamb and beef trimmings, which is rotated while it roasts, like in a rotisserie oven.  The idea is Turkish, but is popular throughout the Near East.  In Turkey the sandwich might be called a kebab (roasted meat) but in Greece it is called gyros.  Anyway, the roasted and shaved meat is piled on a toasted flat bread and then the whole thing is topped with tzatziki sauce (yogurt, cucumber, garlic, dill) and diced raw tomatoes and onions.  Fold it and eat it!  I like it a lot and look forward to eating it every week.  

The mystery of why thin people eat got a little clue today.  Let me explain.  One of the mysterious differences between people who stay thin and people who become more and more overweight (like me, up till recently) is the goal of eating seems to be different.  When I was gaining weight, my desire was to eat until I was completely full.  If you eat at every meal until you are stuffed, you will gain weight.  You’re never completely full for long, either.  Now that I am trying to lose weight (with some success), I have turned my focus to hunger.  I don’t want to be stuffed full for every meal, I want to be suitably hungry just in time for the next meal.  But what about people who stay thin through their lives?  What is their goal when they eat?  How can they tell when to stop?  

Being thin and staying that way takes constant effort.  I was watching a video today (where I got my clue) where a young couple were eating chips at a Mexican restaurant.  They were both quite thin.  The man commented that he was in danger of filling up on chips.  The woman’s comment was very interesting – she said that when the entrees finally came out, she would be able to eat about three bites before she would need a box for the rest.  So, that’s my clue.  I think she is saying that instead of stuffed full, she is attuned to the slightest hint that she is getting full.  Perhaps she has trained herself to notice how her stomach feels just at the moment of the transition from “enough” to “too much”.  Maybe the eating goal of a thin person is to eat Just Enough.  

I find that point (Just Enough Food) through calorie counting.  I can’t tell when I have had Just Enough just from how I feel, but maybe I can start paying attention to that feeling. This might be interesting!  How do you know when you he had enough?  What is your clue?  

-The Doctor