From: jbyrd@chpc.utexas.edu (Jan Byrd)
Subject: Re: When Food Is Love
Organization: Center for High Performance Computing, Univ. of Texas System
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 14:38:47 GMT

In article <BxzxC5.DDv@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>, molnar@Bisco.CAnet.CA (Tom Molnar) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov19.222828.24636@inmet.camb.inmet.com> mazur@inmet.camb.inmet.com (Beth Mazur) writes:
|> # In article <17526@pitt.UUCP> geb@cs.pitt.edu (Gordon Banks) writes:
|> # > robertsl@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Laurie Roberts) writes:
|> # >>She suggested that we really enjoy eating
|> # >>Eat in a calm place without distractions
|> # >>Eat anything you want      
|> # >>Eat until satisfied
|> # 
|> # >That's exactly what I did for the first 25 years of my life.
|> # >At the end of that time I weighed 335 lbs and was gaining at
|> # >the rate of 1 pound per month.  Just how long was I supposed
|> # >to continue trying this method?
|> # 
|> # Laurie missed a key piece.  We are supposed to eat for hunger reasons
|> # only.  No more stuffing our face because food is there or because we're
|> # anxious or sad or happy. 
|> 
|> Yes, in another book, Roth briefly mentions that you have to listen to
|> a tiny, timid, inner voice that says "I think you can stop eating
|> now".  She says that you have to learn to hear and recognize this
|> voice, because it is very hard to hear.  It usually always occurs
|> before you finish eating what's on your plate, so you have to learn to
|> leave food, unfinished, on the plate.  I've begun to hear the voice,
|> but it's hard to listen to it, especially when I tell myself "look,
|> I've gotta eat this portion, I've measured it out, it's within the
|> daily allowance!".  Strangely enough, I usally don't *have* to clean my
|> plate to appease my hunger.  I guess it's another way of looking at
|> food and eating.
|> [...]

My experience seems to be that if I stop eating half-way through my plate
(ESPECIALLY if what's on my plate consists of meat vapor, 2 cups of vege-
tables and a dry whole grain roll), then I'm going to be ravenous 1 hour
later, and no telling what I might do then.

If I can bring up what might seem to some to be an irrelevant analogy....
consider the suckling babe.  If your baby nurses only long enough to take
the edge off his/her appetite, you're going to be hearing from that baby
again in half an hour.  This means you will be feeding your baby almost
continuously, day and night (any mothers out there know what I'm talking
about?).  On the other hand, since babies generally like to suck just for
the pleasure it, even after they've eaten "enough" (do you see the analogy 
to OUR eating now?), nursing mothers are instructed to time their babies' 
nursing - say, 10 minutes on each side - and then intervene.  In other 
words, we're setting their portion size for them.  

I think that's what we need to do for ourselves as adults.  We need to
decide what's healthy for us to eat and, based on our gender, age, 
activity level, etc, decide HOW MUCH of it we should eat.  Then we stock
those good things in our kitchen, we cook them, put the appropriate portion 
on our plates, we eat that, and the meal is over.
 
This seems much LESS complicated to me than trying to isolate some "small
voice" which is trying to tell me when I've eaten enough.  I've got another
"voice" (and it's not particularly "small") that sometimes tells me I 
should make a cheesecake or a pan of fudge and eat it all myself.

Jan