Clean Your Plate

I am tired of feeling guilty about not being able to eat everything on my plate or should I say my teeny, tiny saucer.   I am sitting here after eating, my pouch is showing me who is boss by karate chopping my stomach, and since I left food on my plate I feel guilty.  Wrapped it up and put it away yet STILL feel guilty.

Try putting a WHOLE lot less on your plate. GL

It's time to resign from the clean plate club.  That's the club our moms put us in when we were kids and we've been loyal to it ever since.  Perhaps you think you're being wasteful, there are starving kids in Africa...blah blah blah. All those old tapes that play in our head.  Listen to your stomach instead of your head.

It is definitely wasteful if you eat so much that you throw it back up. Put tiny amounts on your plate. You can always go back for seconds. No need to try to eat it all at one sitting either. For the longest time I was full after only two or three bites. So we just started only putting three bites on my plate. Now i'm three years out and I can eat a normal portion. Not my old normal but the normal amount for the average sized person. i eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dinner #2. Sometimes a snack before bed but that is mostly because of meds I take. They work better on a full stomach, for me at least.

Bottom line is don't feel guilty. There is no need to finish your plate. If you feel like you must then put a whole lot less on your plate and go back for seconds if you need it.

It's a tough one to shake, for sure.  My husband can fix my plate for me better than I do for amounts, so I often let him do it for me.

I agree with RosyCat - it is wasteful to eat past your body's needs. Someone on here one time said something that hit me like a ton of bricks: "You can either waste your food in the garbage, or waste it as unwanted fat on your body. I choose the garbage."

Put things in a whole new perspective for me...

For the longest time, I ate out of measuring cups. Now I just use cute little dessert plates. When I go out to eat, I either order something al a carte or from the appetizer menu. It is hard to be "wasteful".... But count your blessings! You had surgery! Lots of people wish they were in your shoes!

I have about a million containers-I stick my leftovers in there and have meals that transport or I can eat quickly.  Nothing to feel guilty about there.

Oh and if you think that you won't be able to eat it before it goes bad-it goes in the freezer.  I have tons of "Mom" meals in my freezer.