My DH and I try to plan our business travel at the same time, so it worked out that he left for a trip one night before me, leaving me alone for dinner.

I had an interesting day, eating-wise. From the start of it, I would have thought it would have been a terrible day, but I just listened to my hunger and it turned out that trusting myself and that famous “take time to think” can really pay off.

We had the in-laws over for brunch, which meant bread, butter, eggs, a pannetone (an Italian huge sweetened breakfast bread), chocolate croissants, and they even brought a galette (yes, the same cake I ate last week - yesterday it was Epiphany, and hence the “official” day for that cake, although honestly they sell them like hotcakes from Dec 26 - end of January).

I ate rather a lot this morning, 2 fried eggs, and a ton of baguette with butter. The butter that we buy from the cheese shop is seriously some of the best butter in the world, and even French food snobs (we know MANY!) admit that it’s one of the best butters they’ve ever had. We went through a lot of butter today. We had 2 baguettes for 8 people and they were gone in 15 minutes so I zipped across the street for 2 more.

I didn’t drink any juice, didn’t eat the chocolate croissants. Those are easy things for me to pass up as long as there is good tea and other stuff for breakfast. I also had no trouble turning down the galette - I had tasted one that I knew was great about a week ago, and today’s looked not as good, and I just didn’t want it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t follow my “think while you eat” stuff. No thinking was done really, just eating. I did NOT leave anything uneaten, and I did not pay particular attention, although I suppose I certainly did have pleasure.

These carb-fest brunches are not uncommon for us, but what made today different is that it didn’t spark a day-long feeding frenzy. I accepted that I had overeaten and went about my day, and didn’t get the least bit hungry until 6pm when I had one clementine. I never got it together to go for a walk, but I got a fair amount of stuff done.

The real victory was dinner - again, eating when hungry - which put me at 10pm. (I was hungry before that but working on something, so…). We had leftover roast beef, leftover celery root puree, leftover pear cobbler and A WHOLE LOAF OF FRENCH BREAD. And of course, the butter. I made myself a small plate of roast beef and celery root, and sat and ate Mindfully. Chewing, tasting, enjoying. I kept thinking about the bread and butter, and decided after eating about 1/3 of the meat to eat some bread and butter. I took the best-looking part of the bread, right from the middle (because I’ll have to throw it out regardless, I figured I should have the part I really wanted).

I sat down w my 3-inch piece of French baguette and the butter. I broke off a morsel, buttered it, ate it. Yum. In my mind, I’m calculating the calories in the uneaten roast beef, and the calories in the bread and butter, and deciding it’s a fair trade. I continue eating — no, savoring, the bread and butter and then all of a sudden, it didn’t taste as good. I’d saturated my mouth with the flavor, crunch, chewiness, salty, creamy goodness, and somehow I found that point where the next bite just didn’t taste as good.

I took one more bite, just to see… yep, confirmed, not as good. So I stopped. Half of the “reasonable” bread and butter just not eaten. Most of the meat not eaten. A very satisfied and well-fed Round.

On to dessert - I did want my pear cobbler, I was so proud to have made it. I opened a plain yogurt to go with it, and after a few bites decided I preferred the yogurt, so I abandoned the cobbler after only about 3 bites. Another few bites of the yogurt and I was done with that too.

I was SO PROUD of myself!

Maybe it’s the fact that I was all alone, no radio, no internet, no distractions. Whatever it was, I know it’s a step in the right direction. I am really hoping that with practice meals like this will become more frequent, and start to become the rule rather than the exception.

It’s a great thing to bear in mind as I head out for my week away.

I’m off today for another work meeting with very little or no internet access.

I’ll be keeping my food journals, working on leaving something uneaten every time I eat, trying to get in a bit of walking, and watching the skinnies to see what I can learn from them.

If I’m able to get net access from my hotel room (apparently not, but hope springs eternal) I might be able to blog. If not, I’ll write on my computer and post upon my return.

Hope everyone has a good week!