Joined an Online Support Group

I just joined the fitness goal support group on daily strength.  Just to have a little extra accountability and motivation toward my goal. 

Currently, with regard to my eating, I am trying the mindful eating approach.  This is part eat while not distracted and part taste what you are actually eating (to fully satisfy your senses) and part recognizing when you are full so you don't overeat.  This is a hard one for me because I HATE not doing something while eating - whether it's reading, playing with my phone, watching tv, having a conversation, anything so I don't feel bored.  Which is kinda weird, when I think about it, because why would eating be boring while also being all I think about? 

So, I sat down undistracted to eat my dinner last night of black beans, rice, cilantro and spinach.  It was okay.  The rice was a bit underdone and the beans (canned and seasoned) were too salty, but otherwise it was alright.  I didn't feel hungry when I was done, nor did I want any more.  In fact, I didn't eat again last night which was awesome.  (I also didn't watch TV.)

This morning I had my coffee while on my computer, but still paused enough to notice that I had over-sweetened it.  At one time I was able to drink coffee unsweetened but over time I started adding some sugar back in until now I'm back up to where I started.  Too sweet!!  Now I need to start going back the other way again.

I then ate my breakfast sitting on my bed, with no distractions.  First, a Dannon Light Greek Yogurt, Raspberry flavored.  This is one of those yogurts with artificial sweetener to keep the calories low.  It was...gross!  I can't believe I've been eating this crap and never noticed how artificial and chemically it tastes!  I could not finish it.  I just threw the rest away.  I've obviously really been distracting myself from the taste of this stuff, because otherwise how have I been able to eat it??  Next was a low-fat cheese stick.  I'm trying to eat lots of protein because I read that protein reduces the amount of ghrelin in your system (which is the hormone that makes us feel hungry - to read more about it go here:    http://www.raysahelian.com/ghrelin.html).  The cheese stick was okay and definitely eatable.  It was a little rubbery and the taste was a bit flat, possibly because of the processing for reducing fat content.  Lastly, I ate a banana.  It was actually too sweet as well.  Normally I eat a multi-grain English muffin with 1 tbsp. of natural peanut butter and a sliced apple.  I think the apple is much less sweet than a banana.  This banana was already pretty ripe and I actually prefer the greener bananas so maybe that's why, because they do taste sweeter with age.  I've always thought of myself as a major sweet-aholic but maybe that isn't necessarily the case?

I'm actually interested in how my next meal goes - I feel like I'm starting to learn what I actually do and do not like to eat, which is weird because I always thought I knew.  Could just be on this particular morning this is what I want or don't want.  I guess I'll have to keep this practice up to see.