I got home around 10pm last night and am very happy to be back in my own bed, and happy to have more control over my schedule again.  I’m also happy to no longer be eating in that hotel, but I must say I am grateful for the experience.

I spent the whole week “thinking-while-I-ate” and had pretty good results.  I left something on my plate almost all the time (I forgot to during one lunch).  I did a pretty good job of listening to my hunger and drank all the water.  Except for champagne the last “gala dinner” night, I didn’t drink.  Where I saw the biggest impact was in paying attention to the pleasure from my food - which in this case was more the LACK of real pleasure in the giant buffet.

The truth is I am like you - I usually wolf down whatever is around, good or not good, out of habit.  I fully credit my nearly miraculous ability to eat reasonably this week on the several weeks of training I’ve had in paying attention to the pleasure in my food.

In my food diary is a column where I mark how much pleasure a particular food has given me.  I choose to rate it on a scale of (-) for negative, (=) for neutral, and then (+) or (++) or (+++).  I am not 100% on keeping the food diary, but do it more days than not, and so that’s lots of foods rated and evaluated over the past 2 months or so.

The ratings force an awareness, an evaluation, and a realization that some foods taste better than others, some things satisfy more in certain conditions.

I am still in my infancy in this approach, but for the first time in my life, this week I was able to face a buffet table of pasta in sauces and a huge dessert spread without the slightest hesitation or panic.  I overate nothing.  I often put stuff on my plate that only made ONE trip into my mouth, quickly deciding that it wasn’t GOOD ENOUGH TO EAT.

Nothing was BAD, mind you.  Everyone else was happy with the food, and they’re all French and as such, relatively demanding in terms of quality.  But big buffet meals served out of warming trays can only reach a certain level of refinement (and this place didn’t even hit that standard).  By the end of the week I’d learned which foods the resort did best, and I’d learned to eat a pretty hearty breakfast knowing that lunch for me was always a light affair.

I’m extremely pleased with myself for having shown an ability to have a markedly different relationship w food in two situations that are usually very difficult for me (buffets and work meetings).

I’m hoping this is really the beginning of the new eating habits I’m working on in Low Stress Weight Loss becoming deeply ingrained and my overall, daily, new “NORMAL”.