Articles
No Finger Foods
by: Caryl Ehrlich
If you're really convinced that you're hungry, it's time to eat. This
means
food on a plate to be eaten with utensils (knife, fork, spoon,
chopsticks),
not fingers. What a radical thought. When I was losing
weight, a friend
called me at work: Did you have lunch? Franklin
asked. No. I just grabbed
a hot dog on the corner, I said. To me,
the words just, grabbed, and on
the corner meant it didn't count
because, a) it was only a hot dog, a small amount of food, b) I could
hold it in my hands, so it was too insignificant
to count, and, c)
it was eaten on the corner with fresh air and sunshine.
How could
it be bad? I thought that eating food sold on a street corner
wasn't
really a meal. It was . . . well, that's the point. It didn't fit
any
category. So I ended up having a second lunch with my friend.
Another
friend and I were walking down First Avenue in Manhattan around
5 p.m.
as Paula spied Ray's Pizza. She said: Let's have a slice.
Knowing it was a visual stimulus that had pushed her salivating button,
I asked: Are you hungry? Oh yes, she replied. I'm starving. Okay? I said. Then let's have
a slice of pizza which we can eat
with a knife and fork, and order a salad,
too. It'll be dinner.? I'm
not that hungry, she said. What she really wanted was to have a slice
of pizza and eat dinner, too. How frequently do you
eat finger food
and think it didn't somehow count? When I talk about
putting food
on a plate and eating it with a knife and fork, I mean
committing
to the structure of a meal. If you eat slowly and thoughtfully, cutting,
spearing, chewing, sipping, and swallowing, you are present at mealtime.
You experience the feelings of satiation and enjoyment. The
meal registers.
Then, an hour or two later, if you're thinking of eating
again because
you see or smell something tempting, you know you
couldn't possibly
be hungry. You just had this terrific breakfast, lunch,
or dinner
two hours ago. You remember it. When eating finger foods,
the reverse
happens. Even a few minutes after consuming a finger food
you think:
I can eat again because I didn't really eat. I only had a bagel
chip,
some black coffee, one rice cake, a low-fat pretzel, and a carrot
stick. It was nothing. It doesn't really count towards my daily food
consumption because it was so small, or so low in calories, or so
insignificant. It couldn't possibly count. By rushing through the
eating experience, by shoving food into your mouth, by not savoring
your food,
you numbly fill up your body, without satisfying it. One
cracker may
contain only 11 calories. That's not the point. The question
is: How many crackers are in the box and how many boxes have you knocked
off already and it's only Tuesday in the middle of February, May,
September, or
whenever? An apple a day becomes bushels at the end
of the year. Do
you eat bread so often you could count it in loaves?
How much of your food enters your mouth without your seeing it so
you think none of it counts?
It all adds up. How often do you mindlessly
put your fingers into a box,
bag, or basket of something and put the
contents into your mouth without
thinking about it? Do you wonder
every morning why the scale remains
where it was the day before, or,
more depressingly, goes up? Are
sandwiches, bagels, muffins, and hors
d'oeuvres at parties a part of
your life? Is a bag of popcorn your
appetizer? Are nachos a main course?
How many chicken wings make a
meal? Hard to count. Hard to know.
Now think: Are you hungry enough
to commit to a real meal with food
on a plate to be eaten with a knife
and fork? Or are you not that hungry?
* * * * * ? I finally understand
about food on a plate, eating with utensils. Any bite on the run,
even a raw carrot, is totally mindless ? I'm not even aware of what
I'm doing. And that goes for all sorts of Finger Food whether it's
pretzels and popcorn or canap, it just finds it's way to my stomach
magically. Joseph K Every meal was a special event, even if I was
only
eating Oatmeal. It broke me of my eating-on-the run,
eating-on-the-street,
and eating-in-the-car habits. Karen C
About The Author This article is an excerpt from the book Conquer
Your Food Addiction published by Simon and Schuster. Caryl Ehrlich,
the
author, also teaches The Caryl Ehrlich Program, a one-on-one behavioral
approach to weight loss in New York City. Visit her at http://www.ConquerFood.com
to know more about weight loss and
keep it off without diet, deprivation,
props, or pills.
Caryl@ConquerFood.com
articles compliments of: http://www.ArticleCity.com
Nutrition Today
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