Feeeeeed Me!

One of the things that I have always found hardest to deal with is trying to make good decisions when I’m hungry.  Not a bit hungry, but really-freaking-starving, got-the-shakes hungry.

My natural inclination is always instant gratification, and preferably in the sweetest but sugar-laden form I can find.  I literally crave sugar when I hit that level of hunger, and it is so difficult to think clearly at that stage.  As I’ve mentioned before, I also suffer from a massive case of eyes-bigger-than-stomach when I’m really hungry too.  I want it all, and I want it now, damnit!!!!

Conquering myself when I’m in that situation is literally an effort of willpower – a conscious decision to fight it, and try and make the best decision I can at that time.

For me, that was this evening.  I was so hungry when I got home from work, that I was literally prowling round the kitchen looking for what would hit the spot.  Cereal straight from the box?  Tempting.  Cake decorations from the cupboard?  I kid you not – it crossed my mind.  How about decision no. 2?  Something more sensible to hold me over like a banana.  Zero points and it’ll probably take the edge off for a bit.

Or here’s a thought:  why not just suck it up like a big girl, and just get on with cooking the damn dinner????  My planned dinner was pasta with a tomato and vegetable sauce – even cooked fresh from scratch (it’s still one of my favourite meals as it’s so colourful and tasty and chunky and wholesome, and just all-round guilt-free!) it takes a little over 10 mins.  Surely, I could hold out that long???

I probably cooked a few more veggies than I strictly needed in a normal-sized portion – a whole red pepper, half an onion, some garlic, a couple of small carrots, half a courgette and 3 large-ish closed cup mushrooms, but given that was pretty much all of dinner, with just the addition of half a can of tomatoes and a 60g portion of pasta, I don’t think I need to worry too much.

So a small win for me.

Another fight for me, is taking the time after a meal to sit and relax and allow my stomach to say “hey matey, I’m full now, ta”.  Which it did after 20 mins or so, meaning I could stop obsessing over pudding and think a bit more clearly.  Sometimes I wonder why it should be so hard to just get the small things right, that other people do without even thinking.

Post-dinner / feeding frenzy, I’ve been thinking about this plan for the weekend, and the required strategising I mentioned earlier.Here’s the problem with me – in order for me to actually lose weight, I have to approach this eating / moving malarkey with something akin to military precision.  And discipline.  And let’s face it – neither of those is a natural state of affairs for me.  If I just roll with it, 9 times out of 10, I do enough to maintain but no more.  But it did occur to me earlier, that completely accidentally, I’ve picked up the organising of food and drink for our barge this weekend, which puts me in some kind of control.  More than that, I already know what’s been planned for Friday night’s dinner, and I’ve had to pre-order my food for Saturday.  So, I have more than control – I have the ability to pre-plan and pre-track a lot of my food over the next couple of days, and retain a total awareness of what remaining points I have to play with this weekend.  Wooohoooo – could this the plan of success????

I hate that having to be so conscious of my diet / exercise in order to have any success causes me to dread weekends away like this.  But I reckon with a little bit of forethought, I can have my cake and eat it (or in this case: crème brulee on Saturday night).

So I guess I’m off to scare myself with how many points this weekend is likely to consume if I’m not careful.  Better now than afterwards though!