2010 and "Control"...

Hello and welcome to the “future”,

For our first HomeWork of 2010 (is it a new decade or not...?) we will not
talk about resolutions, but rather gaining control of your life, health,
and/or fitness.  In fact, this will be the undercurrent for all HomeWork of
2010 – taking control of your life, health, and/or fitness.

The first way in which we are going to do this is to be the one who decides
how much you eat.  We want to be in control of how much and what we put into
our body.  Not be a victim of someone else’s whims, measuring cups, or
marketing ideas.  If you want to overeat, you should decide that.  If you
want to under-eat, you should decide that.  If you want to eat healthy, you
should decide that.  If you want to eat like crap, you should decide that.
You get the idea.
When going out to dinner, the portion size is completely arbitrary...
It is not designed for you.  It is a random amount that the chef decided to
plop onto your plate.
And, why the 1/4 Pounder?!?!?  Why not the 3/8 Pounder?  Or the 5/8 Pounder?
The spelt and cornmeal pizza crust that I buy to make homemade wheat free
dairy free pizza is a certain size based upon packaging and marketing.
There is no relationship to how much Michael Ross wants or needs to eat.
This, and, many other portion sizes are dispensed in the same quantity
regardless of who is ordering them.  At 198 lbs (and burning 4000 cal per
day) it would make sense that I might receive a different size portion than
Debbie, in the office, who probably weighs under 120 lbs (and burning about
2000 cal per day).

So, the HomeWork for this week (and perhaps beyond) is to purposefully
finish your meals with a small amount of what ever portion you have received
on your plate.
Regardless of whether you are eating at McDonalds, Canlis, or at home.
Leave about a half a cup or so...
If after 15 min you are still hungry, then you can eat more, order more, or
go get your leftovers out of the refrigerator.
This will bother those of us who feel a certain need ‘to clean our plate’.
Get over it.  Your health is more important than appeasing some ghost of
parents or grandparents threatening to make us sit at the table until our
brussel sprouts are all gone.  And if it really bothers you that much, I
would be glad to package it up and send it to some starving little kid in
some far away 3rd world country.
For some of us, this might help lose a pound or two that we needed to lose.
For the rest of us, it will give us an even better appreciation for how much
we actually ‘need’ to eat.
Either way we will decide how much we put into our body, and not be subject
to someone else’s idea of how much we should eat.

Happy New Year!