Half My Plate (Day 12)

This has been an extremely weird weekend. I'm learning all about making life changes during life events! So yesterday, I was very tired as I noted at the top of my last post. I didn't go exercise in the afternoon because a nap was a more prudent and healthy decision.   Having a weird weekend meant not being in charge of a lot of my food choices. But, not exercising has made it more necessary to eat less to continue weight loss (meaning, calorie deficits).

Yesterday, I had two awesome food-related accomplishments!!!

These fireworks are meant to be inspirational.
Just imagine some moving music in the background-- feel free to shed a tear.

ACCOMPLISHMENT ONE: for lunch we went with Tarver's grandma to Culver's-- yes, home of the Butter Burger. Now, I don't eat burgers (I've never liked them) so I ordered some chicken strips and onion rings. I could have made a better food choice there, but I am sticking stalwartly to my goals of counting calories and trying to stay under 2000 on exercise days and 1500 on non-exercise days. One step at a time. I am focusing on eating less rather than eating differently for the moment. I have another fun post planned for this topic, so tune in for another post tomorrow!

When I got my chickens and onion rings, I ate two of the three of the chicken strips and two thirds of the onion rings. I gave the rest to Gma, since she loves to have leftovers. This may not sound like much, but not eating every piece of food in front of me is a huge accomplishment.

ACCOMPLISHMENT TWO: Later that day with some of our friends, we made the group decision that Tarver and Liz's kitchen was way too messy to make dinner in (don't judge) and went to a diner. Again, I ordered a slightly smaller and maybe healthier version of what I would have ordered normally. Plain oatmeal instead of toast, one egg instead of two and hashbrowns. The following is the end result of the meal:

And no, I didn't stop eating because the food was pink and radioactive.

Could I have eaten Every Single Bite of this meal? YEP. Did I? No. I ate slowly, and ate until I felt like I was done. I think it was easier today since I got a total of 4 very separate hours of sleep from Friday to Saturday, and my stomach was not feeling awesome, but I'm kind of the person who still eats a huge burrito when she has a fever (that actually happened).

Yesterday, I got to eat everything I wanted to eat. I just ate less of it. This is a big deal because not only do I usually mindlessly eat everything in front of me, I usually eat to discomfort, if possible. Actually, I look forward to eating to discomfort. I want to eat huge servings of things.

If this pasta bowl was like the size of a beach ball, I'd totally be into that.
Heyyy pasta...

  I love to go to places where they give me the hugest bowl of pasta or I can eat 9 pieces of pizza without anyone judging me. Binge eating is absolutely a shameful activity, but like any addiction, I have enjoyed it in the past.  Yesterday, I took a step toward intentional eating, and it went really well, and I felt proud of myself! Even one day of breaking a life-long pattern seems like a step in the right direction!

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about why I'm still eating chicken strips and hash browns instead of pureed spinach and Bulgar wheat. I'll give you a hint:

I'm proud to be a snail.