Toss. It. Out!

A Bite-Size Read for Your Health and Waistline

Photo by Food Photographer | Jennifer Pallian on Unsplash

So…who else has a hard time throwing away food? Show of hands! This is a little confronting for a lot of us. It reminds me of what so many of us were told by our parents growing up: finish all the food on your plate. “There are children starving somewhere, finish your food,” or “you can’t leave the table until you’ve had everything.” It’s funny to me now, when I really think about it, eating the food on my plate has nothing to do with what is not on another person’s plate across town, across the country, or across the world. I get what they were saying to us, but the snowball effect is that now, many of us eat beyond the point of feeling satisfied, eat when we’re not hungry and are challenged by leaving food on our plates or even throwing out what’s unfinished. My clients often ask me, “What do we do now?”

What we can do is remind ourselves that the food on our plates has served its purpose and is no longer needed. Food serves to satisfy our own needs; we don’t need to (and can’t) satisfy someone else’s needs by eating more. When you’re done eating, look at the food leftover on the plate as having served its purpose; we are done eating and we can toss it out (if we’re not preserving it for another mealtime). As we embark on the season of BBQs and potentially larger group gatherings, this approach extends to those leftovers, too. I am giving you…