Think first, eat later

It is not by journalling alone that I will get rid of that excess baggage. This simple fact has been dawning on me fast since I acquired the ability to record my food consumption in real time, so to speak. Picking up my tablet, opening that journalling app and recording what I just ate takes less than a minute, in contrast to doing it on my old PC that took ages just to boot and besides, stayed in the living room while a lot of impromptu eating is done in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, recording my intake after the fact might have given me some insights about why I was plateauing or regaining on a given day, but those insights did not use up the excess calories already consumed.
My tablet is, by now, a constant companion in the kitchen, recording what I consume.
And for the first time, I'm doing trial runs before scarfing down something. You know, actually calculating what I want to eat, before I eat it.
That's a big DUH, I know. But preplanning my meals was always something that scared me.
At my first bout with binge eating, I tried to keep myself from bingeing by not buying food to keep at home. Of course, that just led to my becoming a regular at the local drive-thru, going there and pretending the food I was buying was supposed to feed a family. Of at least four.
Recovery, for me, meant stopping to try to keep myself from eating anything at all. Only when I allowed myself a well-stocked pantry was I able to stop bingeing. But planning my meals farther in advance than for today has still been too close to that overcontrolling mindset to me, so I didn't.With most of my pantry consisting of frozen or dry goods, I didn't have to. There is always something I can put together from my stores.
But this is the first time I have been actually, you know, thinking first and eating later. During the better part of my weight loss, I stuck to a very limited number of staples so as to not have to make too many food decisions. That worked, sort of.
But this is better.


Julia