Forget About "Cleaning Your Plate"

As I woke up bleary eyed this morning I went to make myself some oatmeal. Mmmm oatmeal. Homely, delicious  healthy. However without morning Joe to kickstart my brain I found myself dumping 1 cup of oats into 1 c of boiling water...meaning I made twice as much oatmeal as I usually would for breakfast.

Ooops.

As you start losing weight on weight watchers you'll notice your 'daily points' goes down ever 5-10lbs. It makes sense, because when there's less of you, you should need less calories. However, it does take some adjusting at times. You realize that you can't eat exactly the same the whole time because eventually you're going to have to eat less to lose more.

Something we have to hurdle over is an idea implanted in our head from the time we are young. "Clean your plate." "There are starving children in Africa/China." However, we need to take a moment to think about why our elders told us such things. When you're young, you're finicky. Kids don't want to eat half a cup of broccoli just because it's healthy. It's yucky. So we're guilted into eating it so our parents don't have to worry about treating us for nutrient deficiencies later on.

Now that we're older, wiser, and trying to eat healthy, we have to think about what we really need in our bodies. When you're at a restaurant and they give you enough rice to feed a small army, don't eat it all. If your friends make you a meal and they give you tons of bread, eat what you know is right for you, then say you're satisfied.

We don't have to eat until we're bloated. It's that kind of thinking that got you to where ever you don't want to be now. So, forget about cleaning your plate. Recycle that food. Start a household compost bin. Ask someone else if they're hungry still. Just don't think that starving children in Africa will suffer more because you didn't finish your oatmeal. Honestly, would they have ever gotten a chance to eat YOUR oatmeal anyway?

Next stop: compost bin.