The plan

As I said before, my weight loss plan is to eat less and exercise more.  Obviously I don't do that now.  I know that if I want to loose weight and keep it off I can just diet, but need to change the way I do and think about things relating to food and exercise.  I plan on tackling food first.

My biggest problem is that I eat things just because they are there to be eaten.  Snacks I don't need, or I'm not even hungry for, leftover food on the kids' plates that looks like it might be tasty, food in the fridge that hasn't been touched in a few days, it all goes in for no better reason that it's there.

I really need to eat when I'm hungry, and for no other reason than that.  The problem is that I've got almost 32 years of programming to go against.  I can still remember my grandfather telling me, "you put that on your plate, you eat it."  Now, I can't eat a meal without wanting to eat every last crumb off my plate.  I don't remember my parents saying anything like that, but the other day my daughter's daycare had a half a day, so my parents helped us out by picking them up.  At my daughter's daycare, the provide breakfast and lunch, but since it was a half day, we thought she was going to have a snack for lunch or nothing at all, so we told my parents that she would need lunch.  Well they did end up having full lunch at daycare, and when my daughter got back to my parents house, she told them so.  (She's almost 4 and very articulate).  My mother didn't care.  We told her that my daughter would need a lunch, so she fed her second lunch...whether my daughter wanted it or not.

I'm not blaming my mother or my grandfather for me being fat; they haven't forced food on me in 25 years or more.  But now that I know why I think the way I do, maybe I can change it.  You don't *have* to eat all available food.  It's OK not to eat, and even throw food away.