For the Love of Eating

So you’re out for dinner with your girls, and as you moan and you groan over your nearly orgasmic meal (nearly), your blonde brain starts to calculate calories as you imagine yourself trying to squeeze those calves of yours into your thigh-high Michael Kors black, leather boots. It’s in that moment that you realize you Must. Put. The Fork. Down. And as you gab, and gossip and ever-so-subtly eye your unfinished plate like none other (has someone seen the server?) you pick at it (though full) and keep on noshing to your uncontrollable minds’ delight. Seriously, has someone seen our server? And because there is no server in sight to clear the plate away (and save the day and/or your self-control), you reach for the salt shaker, and shake it all over your meal, a mechanism us women use to avoid over-eating when we know we can’t just stop on our lonesome.

If you have poured everything from ice to sugar to salt to pepper on your plate, if you’ve ever thrown out half a pan of the fresh can’t-get-enough-of-’em low fat brownies into your kitchen garbage, if you’ve ever refused a doggy bag or refuse to keep left overs around, then you damn well know what I’m talking about.

Unbeknownst to us, we are so very capable of: putting the fork down/putting the saran wrap back over the brownies where it belongs/keeping lefties in the fridge, yet ‘it feels so good when it hits our lips’ that we tell ourselves that if the food is in plain site, that we won’t win. Food: 1, Us: 0. So we resort to ruining our food to give us reason to put an end to it all.

Well, the awareness that you’re lacking control is really all you need to gain it back. Next time, when tempted by the ‘easy way out’ (ie: vinegar pours), take the foodie within you by the horns and just practice some self control. Realize you’re likely full. Realize you enjoyed your meal. And realize that you always seem to find a lack of enjoyment that accompanies overeating. If you can – in the moment – recall how you tend to feel after the fact, that in and of itself should allow you to be done like dinner.

– Jenny Jen

Photo Credit: Rolling Stone Magazine