The Importance of "Enough"

I don't know how it's working for me in terms of weight loss (I guess I'll find out tomorrow), but I've got to say that in terms of the way I feel, I'm clearly on the right track. Looking back at what I've been eating over the last week, the vast majority of it is healthy, REAL food. The exceptions are the occasional Coke, one serving of potato chips that I ate on Monday, and the ice cream I've been treating myself to as a dessert.

So I'm eating more Real Food, and I'm definitely feeling better for it. I've got more energy (and I'm pretty sure I'd have even more if I were getting more sleep), I'm not feeling as hungry, and I'm not thinking about food as much. And by "thinking about food", I just mean wanting to eat even when I'm not hungry. That feeling that I just want a little snack. Something tasty, but not necessarily filling.

But when I do think about food, I'm trying to actually stop and listen to it. Like yesterday, I felt an urge for some bacon and eggs, but I'd already had breakfast, and it wasn't quite lunch time. So I waited until lunch, and then made a delicious BLT and a couple of fried eggs for lunch, then had a bowl of veggie soup as a sort of second lunch a couple of hours later. And that worked great. My urge was satisfied, but I still had a good, healthy meal, and I didn't get hungry again until around 8 last night.

The key here, I think, is that the urge was satisfied. I wanted some bacon and eggs. I had two small pieces of bacon (on a sandwich with tomatoes and baby spinach) and two eggs, and that was enough. A year ago, I might've easily had three or even four eggs, a half a pig's ass worth of bacon, a couple of slices of buttered (margarine, not real butter) toast, two cups of heavily-sugared coffee, and then I'd be back in the kitchen looking for more food a couple of hours later. Because while I could eat enough to feel full, I rarely felt satisfied. No matter how much I ate, it wasn't enough. Because too much of what I was eating was crap.