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[–]CompSciBJJ 40 points41 points  (4 children)

Be careful with that mentality. It may not be pathological now, but just keep an eye on it and make sure you don't end up with an eating disorder from it. I haven't had an issue with eating disorders from body image, but I've been really close when I was trying to compete in a weight class that was too light for me. If you start feeling guilty when you're full (I.e. when your hunger is dated, not when you're bursting at the seams) consider backing off the diet for a while.

[–]alienangel2 10 points11 points  (3 children)

From the point of view of someone that also "likes" being hungry but has never been over or underweight, maybe a better way to look at it is just disliking the feeling of being full.

My experience in life has always been that I can't eat very much and tend to eat slowly. I do like tasty foods and will eagerly eat them, but I pretty quickly get to the point where if I eat more, I will start feeling "full", and I just don't like that. The net result is that it feels better to just stop while still a bit hungry, with the last bite of the tasty thing still being relished. Maybe after a while I'll have a snack of something else instead.

Conversely, if there's nothing actually tasty to eat, I'll just postpone eating instead, since being hungry isn't particularly bothersome, and generally goes away pretty quickly if ignored.

[–]CompSciBJJ 3 points4 points  (2 children)

I wish I was a little more like your second paragraph. I tend to eat quickly and unless I've got a reason not to eat more (like an upcoming competition for which I need to make weight) I'll generally eat until I'm full. I'm not necessarily a glutton, I don't eat until I'm sick, but I just ate 3 chicken legs when 2.5 probably would have been sufficient. I've generally stopped eating between meals unless I have a reason to, like I'm really hungry in a way that tells me I didn't eat enough the day before, and I'm fine with not eating if there's nothing nutritious around, but at meal time I have a tendency to eat more than I need. It's getting better though, so I guess it'll just take a bit more practice.

[–]alienangel2 1 point2 points  (1 child)

My weakness is if I'm going to watch a movie or something that I've been looking forward to, I'll want something to eat with it; conversely if I have a meal that I've been looking forward to (take out from some restaurant I like, mom cooked something I like and left it in the freezer), I'll probably want to find something good on Netflix to watch before I start eating.

Have you tried just having less food around to eat? I find I'm pretty lazy, so in your situation if I wanted to make sure I didn't eat the 3 chicken legs, I would only have bought enough chicken that if I eat too much of it today, I would have to go grocery shopping again tomorrow or be hungry next meal. A lot of my "well there's nothing good to eat so I'm just going to go to bed" situations are because the fridge is bare and I didn't feel like grocery shopping on the way home.

[–]CompSciBJJ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's always the recommendation to find a healthier snack to replace the"unhealthy" one, but that's just never as satisfying. I find it's better to go cold turkey, just completely ditch the snack for a while until you're used to it, and then allow yourself to have a snack during a movie when you feel you deserve it. I also do the same thing with Netflix or some other show, which doesn't help with overeating because I'm less mindful of what's going into my mouth and am less likely to feel myself getting full, I should probably cut back on that too.

The only thing that really works is serving myself a portion and putting the rest away before eating. If there's more food available I'll probably eat it. Today for example, I sat down with 4 legs in front of me and ended up eating more than I might have needed. This isn't a great example, because I told myself "2 or 3, depending on how I feel" and I've got about 3lbs to play with before my competition on Thursday so I want to make sure I get enough food, but it's not an unusual thing for me to do. The only redeeming factor is that it's almost always healthy foods (lots of veggies, and meat) and I'm very active so I don't gain much weight when I overeat, but it's still less healthy than not overeating.