26 January 2021

It’s midnight, and I’m scoffing a toasted bagel with jam and peanut butter.  A cinnamon & raisin bagel in that. I am not going to apologise for that, neither am I going to feel guilty, for several reason.

1 – I haven’t really had much to eat today.  It wasn’t deliberate, it was simply that I wasn’t hungry.  It appears that the food ‘regime’ I’ve been sticking to over the last 10 months of my life or so, has finally started to pay off – and that old adage of ‘your stomach shrinks if you don’t overfill’ is coming true.  I woke up – fairly early at 11am – it’s my day off after all.  Had a bagel ( I love bagels) for breakfast.  My lunch was a home made stew – and when I say lunch, it was more like tea/dinner time (depending which part of the English speaking world you come from).  There was an odd slice of cake in there somewhere – I’m sure of it.  So much so, that by 8pm I still wasn’t hungry and ready to have my usual soup dinner. 

And yes, I have my dinner/tea/supper around 8pm. I know many people will tell that that’s too late, but each to their own.  You’re not supposed to eat at least 2 hours before you go to sleep I hear.  Well – I go to bed really late, so much so that by the time I hit the pillow I’m ready for my next meal – so an 8 or 9pm dinner – no skin off my nose.  Plus lets look at my track record over the last 10 months.  8pm suppers – and I’ve still lost 10kgs.  So let’s not go there. Am I justifying my midnight snack – hmm, I think I am a bit 🙂

Anyway – by 8pm, I was still not feeling hungry enough to have my usual dinner.  By midnight however, I was starving – hence bagel with jam and peanut butter.  It was one of those Warburton’s thin bagels.  I find them less stodgy and filling, whilst still providing the padding my stomach needed.

2 – well, 2 is what I mentioned earlier – each to their own.  What works for one person, doesn’t work for another, and late suppers and midnight & snacks work for me.

3 – is this – my relationship with food has changed radically.  It is still a delicate balance, and as with my current exercise (or non-exercise), I can feel that I might slip at any moment in time.  Yet, I’ve discovered that I’m continuing to realise that I don’t think about food the same way I used to.  Oh don’t get me wrong, I still feel the same way about food – it’s joy, delicious joy and I could scoff something at every opportunity. But, and it’s a big but, I no longer think about constantly.  I used to wake up in the morning and before I even had breakfast I’d be thinking about what I’m going to have for lunch, dinner and my meals the next day.  I can’t explain what was driving these thoughts; but I think what is currently driving the lack of these thoughts is the quality of food I eat, which means I’m no longer hungry at random points of the day, trying to fill myself up on naughty snacks.  I’ve fairly rigid with my meal and snack timetable, thus providing myself an almost constant supply of proteins and nutrients to my ever-food-obsessed stomach, in such steady stream, that it has no time to think about other meals or if it’s hungry; it is basically quite content. 

4 – quality.  I look at food now – both as an enjoyment but also as fuel.  I have began to separate the two.  When I’m home, working or just going around my business – it is fuel.  It does not need to be overfilled and pampered with some unusual tastes and tantalising textures.  It just needs to be fed.  When I’m out, on holidays, at restaurant enjoying a meal with friends (as limited as that is at present) – that’s a whole different ball-game.  That’s a no calorie counting, nothing is barred situation.  Almost.

I say almost – because there are still a few things I need to work on – over-ordering and over-eating. 99% of the time I stick to sensible portions – every now and then I still go crazy, forgetting that my tummy can no longer tolerate the quantities and sometimes the qualities of food I put in it.  Take for example the whole pizza and bowl of dough-balls I consumed the other evening as a treat for regaining my pre-holiday weight.  I should have stopped after the dough-balls. I knew I should have, but I kept on snacking on the rest of the pizza and before I knew it, it was gone.  Thereby followed bloating like I can’t remember – my waist literally gained 5cm in circumference, and a spell of IBS, as well as tummy pain because of the quantity of gluten consumed.  My home-cooked diet these days is much leaner – hardly any meat, dairy reduced by about 90%, and only one thing bagel in the morning.  Well let’s compare that little thin bagel with full size pizza and dough-balls.  No wonder I was in discomfort for 2 days after.

The thing is, I know all this – I know all of this, I just seem to forget at the time of ordering the food or consuming it.  This seems to be a different part of my psychology I need to work on.  Only how?

“Midnight Snack” – Purple Cat (Spotify) – bit of chill music today :-)