When my son was a little guy, sometimes it was a wonder just watching him eat. As a toddler, he could put away two eggs, a piece of toast, two slices of bacon and a glass of milk. The child had two hollow legs and a hole in one foot! No kidding, he ate like a field hand.

But only when he was about to have a growth spurt.

He would carb up, chow down, get a little round in the middle, then stop eating almost completely as he shot up. During the times when he was growing and off his food, I would mix Pediasure with milk to give him chocolate milkshakes, or what he called his “nutritionals.”

As the toddler became the little boy, the little boy became the big boy, and the big boy became the young man, the volume of food ingested prior to growth spurts became almost staggering. He drank up to four gallons of milk a week and could just about eat us out of house and home. “All You Can Eat Buffet” became the priority feature when choosing a restaurant for him and I was all for it, as well.

I could eat a plate of salad, another of meat and veggies (and I use the term veggies loosely), and a final plate of dessert. I wanted to get my money’s worth, didn’t I? Of course, I did! And, boy, did I ever! Right on up to about 240 pounds. I could barely fit in the chairs. I was just one milkshake away from needing a seat belt extension when I flew. Of course, that wasn’t all from buffets, but goodness knows I enjoyed every morsel they had to offer.

Fast forward three years and few things are as effective as an All You Can Eat Buffet for getting me back on track for eating correctly.

As I mentioned yesterday, I went with some coworkers at a local breakfast buffet on Saturday morning. Nearly everything on the buffet was either bread (muffins, waffles, pancakes), animal protein (eggs, bacon, sausage, hash), carbs (hashbrowns, home fries, sawmill gravy) or sugar (canned fruit, syrup, chocolate gravy). Oatmeal was the only marginally healthy option. I say marginally because there was a film of grease over nearly everything – a film that three years ago, I wouldn’t have even noticed. Now, it makes my stomach turn.

It also makes my stomach turn to see obese diners who are like I once was – unable to fit into a single chair comfortably, going back for second and third helpings, gorging on more calories than they need to consume in two days, consuming more sodium than they need in three days, clogging their arteries, confounding their insulin production, putting stress on their organs and on their joints. And feeding their already overweight children the same way.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s a breakfast buffet or a lunch or dinner one. Lunch or dinner ones offer more “vegetables;” but, overcooked string beans, limp turnip or collard greens cooked with fat back, mushy buttered baby carrots, fried okra, corn fritters, fried squash, fried macaroni and cheese, iceberg lettuce are hardly sources of good nutrition. The nutrition has been cooked out of or negated in all the cooked veggies and the salads are mostly iceberg lettuce which is water and fiber.

Next time you find yourself at one of these buffets, rather than looking at the buffet with your stomach, look with your intellect. Is what you see offered there going to move you towards better health or is it going to sabotage your efforts? Use these tips to eat mindfully, or go on the Buffet Diet and start with a great big serving of turn around and leave.

It’s not secret that I have an unhealthy relationship with kettle corn. I think I’ve mentioned it, oh, like a bajillion times. And, just so you know, popped corn doesn’t have to be sweet for me to indulge in it. Oh, no! I also enjoy it with just butter and salt – the more butter, the better! If it’s almost soggy, I’m still good with it. When I go to the movies, I usually get some. I love it when I go with my friend David because he always remembers to ask them to alternate between layers of popcorn and drizzles of butter. That way the buttery goodness is the whole way through the bucket. That’s right. I said bucket. Bags are for amateurs. (Unless you’re at home and it’s the movie butter microwave bag. That’s totally allowed.)

So, on Saturday morning after I got off work, I stopped by Red Box and got three movies for a marathon later in the day. I was still 100% juicing that morning; so, I lamented that I would have no snacks while I watched Dallas Buyers Club, American Hustle, and About Time; but, I hadn’t had a movie marathon in quite some time and was willing to forgo snackage.

By the time I sat down to watch the movies, I’d already nearly face-planted twice in the hallway and had decided to add some solid foods to the juice. Still, I wasn’t going to eat popcorn which really has no nutritional value whatsoever. I couldn’t think what I could snack on that would be acceptable. The answer came to me when I was at Tractor Supply Company buying food for my horde. Right there next to the door was a big display of salted, roasted peanuts…in the shell!

Perfect!

Peanuts in a can are just a hazard. I can dip my hand in there and just keep on eating until my reasonable snack has become a 2000 calorie monster. But, peanuts in the shell are different – they have a built in governor…the shell! I have take the time to shell them, which makes me slow down. Sure, they’re messy; but, I have a vacuum and I’m not afraid to use it.

By eating peanuts in the shell, I get the saltiness that I want (which also helps raise my blood pressure a little bit). I also get oil to help my chapped lips, and I get protein from the legume. All kinds of winning going on there.

My dad has called me a movie hound for years since I watch so many of them. And, I’ll admit it: I am pretty wild about the movies. Or, I was. From now on, I’ll be nuts about them.

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
 Looking for fun and feelin’ groovy.

-The 59th Street Bridge Song, Simon & Garfunkel

(I never think of that song without thinking of my AP History teacher, Mr. Paterson. He used to quote songs and every time he quoted this one, he’d say “Feelin’ groovy – whoever she is.” 30 years later and I still think of him every time I hear the song.)

Over the past few weeks, I’ve spent more time than usual with my dad (as you might imagine). One night, he commented on how fast I eat. I looked at my plate (which was empty) and at his (which was still half full). Hmm. He opined that I probably ate that fast because of short mealtimes work. When he was a young man fighting forest fires for the summer in Riverside, CA, he said that they ate fast because, if they didn’t, they might not get to finish the meal.

I’m not a firefighter. I have a 30-minute lunch break.

It takes about 20 minutes for the stomach to notify the brain that it’s full. It makes sense then, that if I eat too fast, I can easily overfill my stomach. (I can shovel a lot of food into my gob into 20 minutes.) During The Great Reduction, I made a conscious effort to make my meals last, to make them an event for my senses of sight, smell, feel and taste. I presented my food in an attractive manner, on a real plate, at the table. I didn’t eat out of a plastic container while sitting on the couch, standing over the sink or driving in the car. I took a moment to enjoy the aromas of my food before I ate it. I made sure that I included foods with a variety of textures, as well as colors. And, finally, I used a variety of different herbs and spices (although little salt) to flavor my food. To ensure that I ate more slowly, I put my fork or spoon down between bites and I put my hands in my lap. And you know what?

I slowed down, enjoyed a better meal and a less stressful mealtime, and I lost weight! I must contribute some of the loss to simply slowing down, giving my body time to communicate with itself, and listening to what it said. When my stomach said that it was full, I did something shocking. I. Stopped. Eating. Believe it or not, that was a real struggle.

For a few of my early school years, I attended Catholic school. Yep. “Eat all of that tuna sandwich. There are starving children in Africa.” I’m not saying that there aren’t starving children all over the world; however, I am saying that my over-eating and subsequent obesity did not help them in any way. At all. Like ever. A hungry toddler in the Sudan doesn’t give a rat’s patoot if I finish my tuna salad at lunch or if I save some and eat it for dinner. That child would, no doubt, be horrified to know that I threw it out; but, the location of my tuna salad affects that child’s hunger in no way.

And, yet, I felt (and still feel) guilty.

Friends, it’s time to let that go! I’ve got real transgressions I can feel guilty for – stuff that is WAY better than wasted tuna sandwiches. Stuff you couldn’t get me to confess to without a bottle of tequila! That stuff, I’ll feel guilty for; but, I’m not going to feel guilty about eating slowly enough to feel full before my food is gone. It’s time to get the greed and gluttony back in check. It’s time to slow down, stop moving so fast. I’ve got to make my meals last.

I may not feel groovy like the song says, but I’ll feel healthier and that’s close enough for me.

Whoops.

Last Thursday morning after work, I wrote Grief-eater. Then, I wrote It’s Easy to Feel Your Pain. That piece had been banging around inside my head for several days and I needed to get it out. Now, in Grief-eater, I talked about having good food choices on-hand to get through the times of stress eating. I kinda congratulated myself on doing so well thus far. Then I wrote the other piece.

And I promptly ate four candy bars.

In a row.

Within fifteen minutes.

And they were frozen.

The second piece was very hard to write down – not the words, they seemed to come on their own, but the feelings were very difficult to put out there. That was an incredibly difficult time for me and to relive it was no picnic, either. Or, maybe it was a picnic and the only thing on the menu was Lion bars.

Then, there was the weekend….and the funeral.

In spite of having lived in other areas of the country, I’m a Southern woman. I don’t know how y’all do it out West or in the North; but, in the South, we eat at funerals. We eat a lot. And at Leah’s funeral, we ate…a lot. Over the course of the weekend, I ate more meat than I’ve eaten in months – more cake, more pie, more bread…well, just more. And you know what? I’m okay with that. (Well, mentally, I’m okay with it. Physically, I feel greasy, bloated and yick.)

Today is a new day and I am back in my groove, eating healthfully. For me, that means lots and lots of vegetables, a good amount of fruit, little to no dairy and very little animal protein. For me to feel my best, that’s my menu.

At the funeral, we talked about how Leah had taken care of herself. She ate good things. She took an aspirin a day, all that kind of thing. But, you can’t guard against everything. A roving clot killed her. But, here’s the thing: she was in good shape and took care of herself. She was able to enjoy her life right up to the very end. As a matter of fact, she was packing her car to go on a trip when she had the stroke that killed her! She was living, I tell ya!

That’s the whole point of making healthful dietary and exercise choices! It’s not about living forever. It’s about being able to enjoy the time I have.

And enjoying that time means that sometimes I have a plateful of barbecue with friends and family, laughing and remembering that time when…..

Of course you know the old joke of the tourist who asks the musician how to get to Carnegie Hall. The musician replies, “Practice, practice, practice!” For the musician, preparation is key.  The same thing is true of your own personal Carnegie Hall, whether that’s losing weight, feeling better, or being healthier – prepare, prepare, prepare!

Yesterday, I shared some veggie photos and some of the habits that helped me be successful losing 94 pounds two years ago. Like I do, I got lazy, though, and strayed from those habits. As a result, I’ve gained a little bit of weight – around seven pounds – and I feel a lot more “gummed up.”

Now, if you’re anything like I was at the start of my personal journey, you just read “seven pounds” and said, “girl, pleeze!” Here’s an interesting thing I discovered on the healthier end of the weight scale and on the smaller end of the clothing scale: smaller numbers matter. When I was a size 20, I could gain seven pounds and barely feel it. My clothes still fit and I didn’t feel any worse than before since I already felt pretty crappy. At a size six, seven pounds make an enormous difference. Those pounds put me into an eight or even a ten for some items. And I feel every single pound. I feel bloated, puffy, uncomfortable, and, yes, fat.

That’s another thing, whether it’s seven ounces, seven pounds, or seventy pounds – when you feel fat, you feel fat. The feeling is exactly the same. That was truly a surprise for me.

Anyway, back to my point: the biggest habit to develop for yourself is to prepare. If I have peppers, tomatoes, and squash already cut up sitting there, I’m more likely to reach for them when I want something to go in my hummus; thus, I’m more likely to eat both the veggies and the hummus than I am to run to the store for chips. If I already have peppers and onions sautéed, I’m more likely to eat that roasted Portobello or that grilled, lean chicken breast – both of which are also already prepared. Those are at the ready and just need to be heated; so, why make the trek to Wendy’s? No need.

As a culture, we are all about easy and quick. Well, I’m sorry to break it to you, but eating right isn’t really all that easy or quick. However, it can be easier. It can be quicker. When we take a few hours, one day a week to plan and do some basic prep work for our meals for the whole week, we give ourselves a much greater chance of success.

You’re too busy? It costs too much?

What? You’re not worth the investment of a few hours of your own time? So fast food, diabetes and illness are less expensive than eating healthfully?

Girl, pleeze!