I’m not on a diet. Historically I’ve been more than averagely careful about what I eat anyway. However I have noticed that of late I have become a little lazy about it and that’s had an effect on my body. So I did a bit of an audit and came to a few simple conclusions.
- Most of the food I eat is pretty healthy but I have a bit of a psychological problem with eating everything on my plate. I was therefore eating too much.
- There were a few horrors – a couple of common evening meals provided enough calories for the entire day.
- Alcohol has calories in it. Who knew?
So I’ve addressed those three things in easy simple ways.
- I put less on my plate. If I’ve cooked too much (common) I put the remainder in the fridge and eat it for lunch the next day. I just had a lovely bean curry burrito with last night’s left-overs.
- Some of the recipes were easily modified, others taken out of regular rotation so they’re now occasional treats.
- I’ve stopped drinking midweek.
One recipe particularly surprised me – a smoked salmon tagliatelle. By reducing the amount of pasta slightly, switching from double cream to single + cornflour and using a “low calorie” garlic bread I could all but halve its calorie count.
The really surprising element is that I prefer the lower calorie version of the recipe, the full fat version was always a bit sickly. It goes further than that though, I’ve fallen back in love with food. When I was a kid – in fact right up until I moved to Hull and became a sedentary office worker I used to get hungry about half an hour before a meal, then I used to really enjoy the meal. The tastes and textures were really vibrant. That’s happening again now, I’m appreciating what’s on my plate which feeds back into the care and attention I’m paying to putting it there.