All you can eat

The good thing about the Slimming World plan is that you never need to go hungry. Some diets let you have a set amount of food or points worth of food. Some limit your calorific intake. This plan is good because there is always free food to eat or snack on.

After writing the HALT post about thinking about why you are eating, my wife suggested I post about my eating habits on this plan.

Probably the biggest difference from my fellow slimmers in group, is that I have gotten back in to the habit of only eating when I am hungry, rather than at set meal times. This means that some days I don't eat for several hours after waking and some days, which I call hungry days, I eat every couple of hours. The advantage of only eating when I actually feel hungry is that I find I eat less food.

Not eating at set times is a little strange at first, you see lunchtime roll round on the clock, but I have a drink, wait a few minutes and figure out if I feel hungry or if I just feel like eating. Usually it was just the habit of eating that made me think of food.

I know there are a lot of people who say skipping meals, especially breakfast, is all kinds of wrong, but I'm betting that as my body is the product of millions of years of evolution, it has a better idea of when I need to eat than a clock does. The other factor in my favour is that I'm not going to starve to death any time soon. One pound of fat contains 3500 calories worth of energy and my basal metabolic rate is somewhere around 3200 - 3700, which gives me in excess of 200 days worth of fuel stored in my wobbly bits.

The second thing I do differently when eating is stop when I feel full. It's not unusual for me to leave food on my plate. I can hear my gran giving me earache for wasting food. I just box up the leftovers and reheat it later when I get hungry, or use it as a snack the next day. To try to counter this problem I have switched to using smaller plates, I know I can go back for seconds if I am still hungry.

I try where possible to avoid social eating in the same way alcoholics avoid pubs until they get their heads around their problems. Even when your friends and families know you are trying to lose weight, they can sabotage your will power without realising it. Imagine the situation where you are eating in a restaurant, with friends and you feel full after half the meal. You know you will get comments like 'Is there something wrong with your food?' or 'It's so nice, it's a shame to waste it.' We have been brought up to be polite, leaving food or causing a scene is not worth the bother over half a plate of food, so you just eat it.

I don't completely avoid social eating, but I make sure before I go, the people I'm with know that I might not eat much, I might leave food, or ask for a doggie bag. I also suggest places I know will provide food that is compatible with the plan. I also limit my Syns on the day before and day after so as to minimise the impact of the restaurant's chef's love of adding oil and sugar to make food taste that little bit better. 

I know this kind of eating won't work for everyone, especially for the more sociable folks out there, but the tips can be tweaked to work for you. Think about when you eat, try to wait until you are hungry then only eat enough food to satisfy your hunger. Remember that every forkful of food you eat after you feel full is another 10 minutes on the dreaded cross trainer.