Hungry?

Not so much. 

(Yeah, it's another food post, bear with me)

I'm beginning to notice something different at dinnertime.  Remember, I've been doing straightforward calorie- and volume-restriction for a couple of months, practicing being hungry.   Not taking seconds at meals, having — if hungry when the time rolls around — two or three very small planned snacks.  Lots of water.  

The last few times I ate dinner, I've been noticing full.  Even before I finished my plate.  Take last night, for example.  I was having dinner at Hannah's house.  She'd served spaghetti and meatballs, with plain steamed carrots and plain steamed cabbage on the side.  The sweetness of the plain vegetables complemented the acidic tomatoes perfectly, and the meatballs were really good ones, a lovely texture from being browned in the oven, spiked with onion and filled out with good coarse wheat cracker crumbs.  I carefully filled half my small plate with cabbage and carrots, eyeballed about 3/4 of a cup of pasta, counted out four meatballs, and spooned the tomato sauce over everything.   I was satisfied that I'd dished out a reasonable-sized meal, and planned to enjoy the whole thing.

 The vegetables were so nice — really, I love plain cabbage and plain carrots — that I ate them all first before starting on the pasta dish, which tasted just great to me.  But about halfway in — I realized I had had enough.  It felt like — like — like the sensation of just finished my third plate of Thanksgiving dinner.  Not quite so intensely, more quietly persistent, but it was definitely there.  I don't remember ever feeling this sensation in my life unless I was on, like, my third plate of food (and of course, then, it feels much crummier).   There it was:  the clear signal "Time to stop."

Of course the brain rebels.  I had about three more bites fueled by "But I get to have the whole plate!  I already told myself I could!"  Somewhere in there, though, I got a handle on it and decided I wasn't going to eat any more.  I had a glass of water.  And that was it for dinner.  Afterward, the "full" sensation went on getting stronger, almost to the point of discomfort.  I kept thinking "Did I eat a few extra servings without noticing it?"  

I had another day, a little before that, when I made a pizza for the kids.  I figured I should have about a fifth of the pie, which was Canadian-bacon-and-pineapple, which would be about 250 calories, plus a generous serving of vegetables.  So I cut myself two small slices.  Well, after ONE I was full.  I had a few more bites of the second slice ("Darn it, I calculated that I should have two pieces, I'm going to have two pieces") before recovering my senses and telling myself I should put it away, and if I was hungry before bed I could have the rest of it as a bedtime snack.  (I'd say that this worked really well, except that it might only have worked because Milo ate the pizza before I could.)

The last few weeks have been weird, when it comes to hunger signals.  For a while I was having days where I wasn't hungry at all, until I forced myself to eat a planned meal or a planned snack; then, about 20 minutes after that, suddenly becoming ravenously hungry.  I waited the sensation out, reasoning that it must be some kind of illusion since, after all, I had just eaten.  It lasted a while and then went away, only to reappear after my next meal.  Bizarre!  Fortunately, that seems to have stopped.

I hope the feeling-full thing continues, because if it does, it's obviously going to help.  That is, if I can continue to resist those impulses to ignore it and keep plowing through my apparently-over-generous allotted portions.