Beach Patrol, LOL!!! I'm with you.

It has occurred to me that I really can eat LESS than the daily alloted calories. Just because I'm "supposed" to have X, and I am "allowed" to have X, doesn't mean I "have" to eat all of the X! Especially if I'm already feeling full. Sometimes I clean my plate completely, but sometimes I don't because I've had enough.

Also, full happens sooner than it used to. I just don't have the capacity I did a few months ago. This is a good thing, and I hope to keep it this way!

It helps me to keep in mind that all the food kinda gets recycled--if I don't eat it, and no one else does, the little bacteria and molds will eat it. After all, I can't send it to starving kids... and it won't help them for me to store it on my body...

Jay

I do the same, in fact often I think I do it MORE now because I already figured out how much I was having for fitday and dont want to figure out how much I left behind.

At restaurants I usually cut everything in half before I take the first bite and push half to the side to take home.

I ALWAYS clean my plate. Growing up there used to be huge rows at the dinner table when my sister didn't, and my dad would smack her if he left food. I didn't want that sort of confrontation, so always finished everything. Guess which of us ended up fatter?

To be honest, now I do clean my plate but it's very rare that I'm doing it when I'm not hungry. If I cook something and it says it makes a certain number of portions I make sure I divide it up into the right number of portions before sitting down to eat. It usually leaves me satisfied but not stuffed, so I don't need to feel guilty about eating it all.

I almost never eat out, so on the rare occasions I do, I like to enjoy it. I don't think our portions are as quite as big over here as in the states, and it only tends to be when I order more than one course that i start to struggle and feel like i'm eating because it's there rather than because I want it.

I have come to terms with the fact I was brought up to clean my plate (at home anyway- restaurant size portions are larger and different) and I've stopped feeling guilty about it. I just make sure the plate is smaller and filled with salad or veggies with a normal size portions.

And then I remind myself it's not the normal portion size meals of healthy food that I've eaten that stop me losing weight... it's the snacks and the junk food that sometime slips in round them!! (For me anyway)

Ok, here is my dilema.

My daughter, 7yo, doesn't usually leave her plate clean. I want to promote healthy eating and fill up on veggies and good food. Not snacks. If I allow her to leave her plate with food on it, she is hungry for stuff that isnt good for you. If I encorage her to finish her plate, I dont want to create habits that I am trying to break. Where is the middle ground?

That's true for me as well. Proves that the stomach is shrinking just a bit. Plus, I like to use "little plates" when I'm at home. Helps keep things in prospective, ya know! When I go out to eat, I end up either taking half of the meal home, or just leaving it. Plus, I'm working really hard on recognizing when I'm truly hungry, & not just bored or whatever.

Every little bit helps, eh?

Vegas babe -- I have a 7 year old son the same way. We very rarely have dessert for that reason, and when we do it's grapes or applesauce, etc. I have tried to teach him to listen to his body and I try to take his word for it. If he is hungry later and didn't completely finish his dinner, I offer him a boring snack -- a few crackers, fruit, etc., no junk. I was forced to clean my plate as a kid, food was tightly monitored, etc. which partially caused my eating disorder. I make sure he eats slowly, tries everything but if he doesn't clean his plate, I don't care too much.

I know this sounds strange but lately when I eat dinner I bring salt with me and set it next to my plate.. The very moment I feel I'm full I salt the **** out of the food so I'm not tempted to eat any more of it. Extreme, but it works for me. :P

I'm another that really does clean my plate, every time. Of course, I eat at home 99% of the time, and the food I cook is on-plan, delicious, and I don't have any guilt about it. When I do go out, I'm super-careful with my ordering so I can be likewise on plan, and usually take half or more home.

I never make enough that I am stuffed, though, just satisfied. The only times I don't clean my plate are when i'm sick.

If your plate is full of good, healthy, clean, accounted-for food, and you're not stuffing yourself to the point of being uncomfortable, I see no problem eating until the plate is empty.

Not cleaning your plate doesn't equate to wasting food. Simply store it and have it if you get hungry later for a snack, or have it as part of tomorrow's lunch. But eating when we're not hungry is something we need to resist.

snacks should be just as healthy as meals....the other stuff is occasional food that you only offer once in a while. I try to be as random as possible with treat food so there is no "reward" for eating or being good, just today happens to be a day when we have treats.

if my dd has eaten a reasonable amount (tried most of the stuff on her plate -not cleaned it) and later is hungry, I give her a choice of healthy snacks. - occasionally the conversation goes

"you may have an apple or grapes"

"i want something else" (something else is her code for treat)

"you may have apple, grapes or nothing"

"nothing"

At dinner, when she is most prone to refuse to eat what is offered, we don't dump her plate til she goes to bed, if she is hungry later the plate comes back out.

Also for the most part I try to offer her healthy food and let her control the portions.

On the rare occasions she DOES clean her plate, I usually try to offer healthy something elses if she says she is still hungry. fruit, hummus, crackers, cheese, nuts.

I used to get an appetizer, a large meal with a starter salad, AND a dessert...eat every drop plus tackle most of the rolls or bread that was brought out. Sometimes I'd unbutton my pants after eating just to feel comfortable. ICK! Haven't done that in years now.

I've been looking for some really nice smaller plates to replace my dishes with. Most of the salad plates are too small. I have a few that are a great size from an old old set of dishes.

Then again, I don't think I've gotten to "stuffed" once on this journey except on my "planned off-plan" meal (once a month or so, something comes up and I just decide to not be as regimented that day. It works for me). I cook just enough to be satisfied, and fill in any differences in hunger level that day with snacks.

For example, Monday (the holiday) I wasn't that hungry. I ate my entire dinner and lunch, but none of my snacks. Today I have my personal trainer, which always means a hungry evening, so I've added in an extra snack this evening. So it may be that I'm not really eating past the "full" point because I plan my meals and snack sizes according to the level of hunger I have or predict I'll have.

Actually, lots of plans that people on the board have had success with advocate eating every couple of hours, a smaller amount, so that you never really GET hungry. I don't know that "eating when not hungry" is a viable thing to resist in a blanket sort of way - there are so many unknowns and other factors. Eating to a point of uncomfortable fullness probably should be avoided as much as possible, but just not eating if you aren't hungry harms planning! Say you're not quite hungry yet, but you are about to get trapped in a meeting where you can't be eating for the next three hours (this happens SO often to me with the nature of my job) - way better to eat when you're not hungry than to be ravenous 3 hours later and not make good choices. Or if you're at HOME now and can have your healthy snack, but will be out in an hour when you're actually hungry and not able to bring it with you, better to make a healthy choice and eat when not hungry than to wait until you're hungry and make an unhealthy choice.

Sometimes I think that obese and formerly obese people are really disconnected with those feelings of fullness and hunger, and while an EVENTUAL goal should be to get back in contact with those feelings, it can help to have a more regimented plan (ie - I get x amount of food at y time and then a amount of food at b time) and just FOLLOW it until you get more of a sense of how your own body works. This is what I've done - started with just eating set amounts at set times, then moved toward adjusting those times/meal plans toward my day's activity and hunger level. It still works.

This is pretty much how it is in our house too. I fill my kids plate the way I do mine, 50% veggies, 25% meat or protien source and 25% pasta, brown rice or bread or whatever the side is. Dinner is followed by grapes, an orange or an apple. If they choose not to finish their food, which considering they're 18 mos and 3, thats fine, we still allow them the fruit dessert. I don't see any sense in withholding fruit simply because they didn't eat all their pasta or rice. My kids eat veggies like it's their job, doesn't matter how I make them, they eat them, and we really could move to Japan tomorrow, and they'd never know, considering their dad is half Japanese, we eat alot of fish, brown rice, steamed veggies, start meals with a broth style soup, usually I do low sodium broth and toss some egg whites and veggies in there, they eat that up too, so if they don't finish, no biggie.