Breakthrough! Clean your plate...

[Jennifer]

Okay, so last night I went to hot yoga. One thing you do before hot yoga is you make sure you have eaten a good meal but don't eat 2-3 hours before yoga - or else you get sick.

So the class starts at 6PM and ends at 7:30. When I'm done I am like a super wet dog, exhausted and last night - not hungry.

I go home and shower (a must because you are dripping wet) and guess what? I eat dinner. I wasn't hungry. I even told myself tonight I'm not going to eat because, well, I'm not hungry.

I can't believe that I totally ate dinner - anyway. I always have that mantra - eat after 8 then gain weight. So I found myself rushing to get out of the shower so I could eat before 8 pm.

Then guess what? I heard my mother's voice - you better eat dinner. Eat Dinner. It's time to eat dinner. Clean your plate! Only - I really heard this after I hat eaten.

Conditioning. Classic Pavlov conditioning. You have to eat dinner - even if you are not hungry. Clean your plate - your are lucky to get this food.

My mother came from the days of depression where you rationed food but were glad to get your hands on anything. So when raising us we were never allowed to leave the table unless we cleaned our plate. Missing a meal was considered foolish - since we were so fortunate to have food today. Who knew if we would have food tomorrow.

Time for some new conditioning. I guess the first step is recognizing our patterns.

So eat your veggies, but you don't have to clean your plate and only eat if you are hungry!

I would love to hear your breakthroughs. There is probably another thread out there on this - but oh well - bringing it up again here.

[Wendy]

Jenn ~~~

I have gone through this 100%.

I have had to recondition my way of thinking, for I came from a home where my Mum escaped the Nazi prison camps by a mere thread. Every single drop of food was to be cherished, thanked for, and never to be wasted.

Growing up in my generation, in North America, it is much different of course. But I am constantly preserving and saving all food that I can, and never waste a drop, due to old teachings. And now I find that there is too much (not that I am complaining :) ).

Since beginning Raw Fu last year, I have had to teach myself the exact things you are speaking of, which are normal & not tradition:

Eat when you're hungry.
Eat until you are satiated. You don't have to finish your plate that someone else dished up for you, or even you for that matter :)

Cheers

[Nicole]

I have also definitely felt the effects of this kind of conditioning. It's noon, I should eat lunch. It's 5pm I should eat dinner. The conditioning completely over rules the actual physical needs because we were never really taught to pay attention to our physical needs.
This also ties in with what we're eating too. Conditioning says I need something hot and filling to eat in winter so I use that as an excuse to not eat raw. But is that really what my body wants? Unlikely!

[kimberly]

I agree. I'm the same way. I'm trying not to eat by the clock anymore. But I have a husband and two boys ages 8 and 9. So they want food, all the time. :-). I tell myself well I've eatten late so I won't eat dinner. I'm not hungry. But what do I do 9 out of 10 X? I eat dinner. Not only that, dinner is the biggest meal of the day. When did that happen? After a full day out in the feilds? Not anymore. We don't do the work that they did way back when. Now dinner should be non existant or very small. No need to go to bed with any food left in our stomach. I am not real good at this. I talk a good talk but my walk sucks! I'm hoping to get better as time goes on. I haven't given up on raw or finding out more information about raw. Last challenge I quit during the 1st quarter. This time I'm still here. I may not have had a full day raw yet but with the new dehydrator I'm going to try to aleveate the problem. Now If I can just stop eating when I'm not hungry.

[Jennifer]

This was great - pay attention to your physical needs! Great advice. I'll add that to my mantra!

Nicole said:

I have also definitely felt the effects of this kind of conditioning. It's noon, I should eat lunch. It's 5pm I should eat dinner. The conditioning completely over rules the actual physical needs because we were never really taught to pay attention to our physical needs.
This also ties in with what we're eating too. Conditioning says I need something hot and filling to eat in winter so I use that as an excuse to not eat raw. But is that really what my body wants? Unlikely!

[Jennifer]

Our mothers have such a strong power over us - even as adults. I'm definitley going to start thinking about this and how I raise my son - who is 13!

Wendy said:

Jenn ~~~

I have gone through this 100%.

I have had to recondition my way of thinking, for I came from a home where my Mum escaped the Nazi prison camps by a mere thread. Every single drop of food was to be cherished, thanked for, and never to be wasted.

Growing up in my generation, in North America, it is much different of course. But I am constantly preserving and saving all food that I can, and never waste a drop, due to old teachings. And now I find that there is too much (not that I am complaining :) ).

Since beginning Raw Fu last year, I have had to teach myself the exact things you are speaking of, which are normal & not tradition:

Eat when you're hungry.
Eat until you are satiated. You don't have to finish your plate that someone else dished up for you, or even you for that matter :)

Cheers

[Debra]

Great post. Since you mentioned struggling w/weight gain this could be a factor...

Don't have any parental conditioning except my grandma told us we were spoiled so I have this paranoia about being viewed as well off or self-indulgent. This translates into making sure everyone knows I bought my clothes at the thrift and obsessing over the fact that I blew over a grand on my 'raw remake' (can't let anyone know I didn't scrimp and save for months to buy that Vitamix).

I also have this thing about waste - I hate wasting food but w/the vitamix, rabbits and compost it's a lot easier to recycle stuff. You also have the pressure to 'be green' and not create extra trash but sometimes it kind of makes me crazy.

[Debra]

I'll bet she has some amazing stories to tell...there is prosperity in our country but that isn't a guarantee so it's always good to know how to be thrifty...just not to the point where it becomes an obsession I guess...

Wendy said:

Jenn ~~~

I have gone through this 100%.

I have had to recondition my way of thinking, for I came from a home where my Mum escaped the Nazi prison camps by a mere thread. Every single drop of food was to be cherished, thanked for, and never to be wasted.

Growing up in my generation, in North America, it is much different of course. But I am constantly preserving and saving all food that I can, and never waste a drop, due to old teachings.

[Lisa Viger]

My 23 yo daughter is a size 0, even after having two kids. She eats anything she wants (she's open to being vegan though!) and she eats with total abandon. She doesn't exercise.

What she does do is stop eating *exactly* at the moment she's full and no longer hungry. I've watched her. She just stops eating. She may clean a plate, or leave 1 bite or 20 bites ... but she stops and then she doesn't eat again until she's hungry again.

That seems so simple to do. But it's not for me ... I probably eat when I'm not even hungry about 85% of the time. It's hard to change and it's not so much habit for me but appetite ... like my brain says "eat" when my body says it's full.

[Alice]

This is one of my issues, I eat when it's time to eat whether I'm hungry or not. I'm slowly getting better at it but somedays it's two steps forward three steps back. I just ate a bowl of beans and mushrooms because it's getting late and I thought I should eat something, was I hungry.....noooooo.....sigh. I'm trying to be more aware and I'm trying to stay busy, keep my hands occupied. I know my background has something to do with it. We came here from Poland when I was three years old and while there was always food in the house there was no thought of wasting it, you ate it, you cleaned your plate and that was that. I wish I could look at food as the fuel that my body needs and not try not to have it fill so many other needs.

[Bunny Berry]

I'm not sure I even knew what being hungry FELT like until I went raw. And I certainly never thought, "Oh, I'll just grab a banana. That'll take care of it."

Everything we see tells us to eat WAY more than we need. But like Lisa's daugther, most kids don't do this. Even if they have a plate of their favorite food in front of them, they will eat until they are full, and then stop eating.

Of course, I'm not exactly sure what hormones/chemicals make that switch go off. I'm going to look into that tomorrow, and do my video about it. Maybe that switch is stronger in some people than others. Maybe it's a deficiency in some. Very interesting topic.

Now, of course there is the concept of conditioning. Basil nags at Beckett over every bite of food. I want to strangle him through most meals, and am constantly giving him the evil eye to get him to just stop obsessing over every bite of food.

I don't obsess over every bite. I just eat it! ;)

[Debra]

I've heard LEPTIN is a key hormone. Gillian Michaels has a lot of good info in her Master Your Metabolism book.

Also eating late at night suppresses the production of Human Growth Hormone, which has something to do with your weight.

30% of my eating is out of boredom but unless I start gaining weight I guess I won't worry about it:)

Bunny Berry said:

I'm not sure I even knew what being hungry FELT like until I went raw. And I certainly never thought, "Oh, I'll just grab a banana. That'll take care of it."

Everything we see tells us to eat WAY more than we need. But like Lisa's daugther, most kids don't do this. Even if they have a plate of their favorite food in front of them, they will eat until they are full, and then stop eating.

Of course, I'm not exactly sure what hormones/chemicals make that switch go off. I'm going to look into that tomorrow, and do my video about it. Maybe that switch is stronger in some people than others. Maybe it's a deficiency in some. Very interesting topic.

Now, of course there is the concept of conditioning. Basil nags at Beckett over every bite of food. I want to strangle him through most meals, and am constantly giving him the evil eye to get him to just stop obsessing over every bite of food.

I don't obsess over every bite. I just eat it! ;)

[Jentree]

This is sooo great! And very important with kids...I think we get their systems out of wack by forcing them to eat when they aren't hungry. Children won't starve themselves. When they get hungry, they will eat what is set before them.... a bit off the topic!