still dawning on me

I have this thing about food and drink that has been opened. Who the hell invented wine stoppers? Why would one need them? An open bottle of wine is an empty one. A loaf of bread started is a loaf of bread finished. Boxes of chocolate or cookies do not often make it into the house but if they do, they do not have the pleasure of my company for very long - they need to be destroyed! And I am the worlds bestes finisher of what is on my plate.

What is that all about? Some is definitely a hang over from childhood. 'Finish your plate, there are starving children in Africa' and we were actually not allowed to get up from the table until we finished our plate. But also a healthy respect for the cost of food (we were 5 children and my father a factory worker). So the good that came out of it is, that I can make a mean meal of any combination of left overs. The not so good that I still have a strong urge to finish my plate and all my trials to leave some on every plate I eat have failed miserably so far - I simply forget that I wanted to do that and my long practised habit to clear the plate kicks in.

In the last couple of weeks I have seen subtle changes. I am just leaving food on my plate when I have had enough without having to think about it (I am surprised every time). Instead I am now offering the left overs on my plate to Gary (I am compensating, ok!). He is trying very hard not to have second helpings and I am not helping with my new tactic. Gotta stop that.

I have tried not to have bread in the house for years and to make it the devils work in my mind (remember the spittoon?). That had the effect that when I bread is in the house, there is no stopping me. I will eat and eat and eat until it is gone. Not a good relationship. So I baked some bread, cut it up into slices and put them in the freezer. Yesterday I bought some butter as well. Now I have the ingredients of my 'last death row meal' in the house. Warm bread with butter. I had one slice yesterday and it was heaven. This is my training for the next couple of weeks. To have s o m e, now and then. Not shovelling it into me like there is going to be a world shortage any time soon (mind you - listening to Gary talking about the price of wheat.............)

On top of it all I have PMT. Proof was the dessert I conjured up for us after dinner and that box of Jaffa cakes that had made it into my shopping basket. I admit (slightly ashamed) that I opened the box of Jaffa cakes late last night and normally that would have meant an empty box. But they were not very nice (not something that would have bothered me a couple of weeks ago) the base was dry, the orange topping to small and not smooth enough and the chocolate yucky. I ate three, realised that they were crap and the rest of the box went into the bin (it is still there and will not be retrieved either!)

It is hard to be brutally honest with myself in public. I think any overweight person is also a master at kidding themselves.