Thursday, January 25, 2007 8:40 AM
Le French Woman, Part Deux
By Heather
Last week, I mentioned that I'm reading French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret of Eating for Pleasure. Thanks to all of you who responded, and as requested, I'm back to write an update on how the last week went!
I'm still in the phase where you just write down what you eat, when, and what you were doing. You're supposed to do this for three weeks, but I already see the problems and the patterns so I'm ready to move on to the next step. Here are some of the things I have problems with:
- I am constantly eating while doing something else, whether it is working or watching TV.
- I feel very guilty about wasting food, so I often eat way past the point of being full in order to "clean my plate".
- I eat out a lot instead of preparing food at home.
- I don't eat enough good foods during the day to keep my energy up, so when I get home I end up pigging out.
Writing it all down has forced me to pay more attention to what I'm eating. I've also found a ton of great info on The Nest, including this gem on foods to eat when you need energy. In the past week I've taken some small corrective actions including:
- I am making an attempt to not eat in front of the TV and sit at the dining room table.
- When eating out, I immediately divide the portion in half and take half home for leftovers.
- I am paying more attention to when I'm full and putting the fork down.
- I'm eating a mid-day snack in order to curb the pig-out fest when I get home.
These small changes have resulted in some progress already. I stepped on that dreaded scale this morning and I lost a pound without really changing anything drastic! The next phase of this gets a little tougher -- I'll save that for next week.
Got any other tips to share? Any other small changes I can try? Let me know!