are these diet secrets?

                                

Eat food which you love

Last night I had dinner with 2 friends at an Indian restaurant...yum, yum, my favourite food. I have to have consultations with the staff whenever I eat out due to a full-on tomato allergy. I found 5 dishes there so definitely will be going back. Often. Plus the restaurant is local, & does takeaway, so for $10 I can get 2 meals out of 1 dish...a bonus! I shall be doing this too.

I can still taste it, so delicious, it's the following morning & I'm still not hungry. Maybe this is one of the secrets of successful diet....eat yummy foods where the taste & memory linger long after.

                              
                                  

Eat slowly

I ate slowly & savoured it, I savoured it because of it's deliciousness, & I wanted to make the taste last, which I know is one of the secrets of being a good weight, as is eating in a convivial atmosphere which it certainly was, laughter was abounding. I'm sure that this creates a happy stomach & thereby helps with digestion.

I even left quite a bit as I got full, & these were not gargantuan portions, so I surmise that when food is delicious, perhaps we are satisfied earlier than when the food is not so nice. 

Eat foods which satisfy

I have been eating a lot of "should" foods, for decades, & it is totally unsatisfying, so that the craving to fulfil the taste buds...it lingers. Of course that maintains hunger.

Why have I been doing this? Because I felt that I "should"? Sadly, yes.

I have had a few eating out days recently. Yum char at a family birthday lunch.....I only ate what I wanted, & again, slowly...(the delicious factor again). I couldn't eat till the next morning, not because I was stuffed, but because I was satisfied.

Then another lunch, just a delicious egg thing with vegetables...again...it fulfilled so many inherent requirements that I could not eat dinner.

Eat just until we have had sufficient

None of these 3 meals out were big...but they were sufficient. I often don't eat out, because of the tomato "thing", because I think I'll put on even more weight, & also because I usually don't enjoy the food, but I can see I've been choosing food incorrectly (eating "should" foods again!).

  
                                   

  (wheat germ, the nutritious heart of the wheat kernel)

My new routine

So I've started a new regime....find some yummy food that satisfies, & I've started with a muesli from the 1970s, by a chef. It has wheat germ, bran & lecithin in it, 3 of my favourite tastes. Some nuts & seeds, coconut, a bit of dried fruit. When I last made it, I loved it, surprisingly I only needed a small amount for a serving, & it filled me up for hours. I also found that in winter I seem to need a small breakfast so am going with this for the time being.

It has been a long time since my diet was made up largely of foods that I enjoyed. Over the 3 days that I ate out, & ate differently, my weight has gone down 500 grams. Food for thought......