When trying to control your weight, almost everything flows from your mentality, your psychology. What is your reason for eating? If you can answer that question, you are a long way towards understanding your own psychology of eating. My desired answer to that question is, “I am eating so that I can be properly hungry for my next meal.” When I was gaining weight, the answer was “I am eating enough so that I get the comfort of feeling full.” In both cases, the answer was the same. “I am eating until I feel satisfied.” So the key component is, what would satisfy you? Are you aiming high or low?
Recently my head has been in the wrong place. When I started asking myself why I was eating this month, the answer was back to “I am eating for the comfort of feeling full, but not too full.” It was the worst of both worlds. My goal was low (full belly) and I wasn’t meeting it all the way (not too full!). That’s terrible. Eating the same controlled amounts of the foods I found satisfying in 2019 – with a higher goal of eating – didn’t satisfy me when my goal was the feeling of a full stomach.
My food intake and calorie count
Breakfast – BLT wraps (400)
- 400 calories
Lunch – red lentil stew and rice (350)
- 350 calories
Dinner – Aldi pizza half (585); extra pizza (100);
- 685 calories
Snacking – tea with half and half (120); Reese’s peanut butter cups (160)
- 240 calories
Total for the day: 1715 calories (limit 1800 + 500 bonus from swimming, total 2300)
It's Your Head, You Fix It
Nobody will fix your weight (or your head) for you. But it is possible to figure out where your head is. Just answer the question – what is the goal of your eating? Why do you stop? Why do you start? For some people, eating is routine and by the clock. For others, hunger calls them. But when you are gaining weight, you often are eating just because you have room, because the goal is an emotion rather than physical hunger.
Pay attention to your physical, rather than emotional, hunger. Try to aim high in your goal of eating. What is a high goal? Quality over quantity, and increasing the joy and satisfaction that comes from eating a food that you are really looking forward to. You increase that joy and satisfaction by being prepared, by letting yourself get hungry for it at just the right time. You have to pay attention to your body. When your head is in the right place, you get real joy from eating a controlled quantity of your favorite food, at just the right time.
When your head is in the wrong place, you will eat an entire package of your favorite food. It starts to all taste the same after the first serving, though. And where’s the satisfaction in that?
-The Doctor