Portion Control

I have a hell of a time restraining myself from eating too much. Many would say that in admitting that I am just declaring what is already evident: that I am an American. Americans have an unfortunate reputation now for being mindless consumers, for growing ever more corpulent at the same time that so many wither away to nothing for want of enough to eat. All that is true, and I'd change about myself that inability to help myself, but there it is.

I always start off with the best of intentions, buying so many hash browns, so many cans of things and the materials for so many sandwiches and fully intending to make them last. I'll say to myself that the plan is to have a cup of coffee, two hash browns, a sandwich, a soda, a can of ravioli and nothing else each day. That in itself would sound like enough, or even too much. I have seldom had much luck in holding to it.

I wish I could say I had good reasons, like being hungry. That's just not so. The most reason I ever seem to have for eating another sandwich or more hash browns at night is that I'm bored. Sometimes it's not even as much as that. Have you ever found yourself in the middle of doing something with no recollection of even starting to do it, let alone why you set upon doing it? That happens to me sometimes with popcorn.

A solution does occasionally present itself, and this is that I run out of food. For that fleeting moment, being full is enough reason to keep me from going out to the store when it wouldn't have kept me from nuking something in the microwave. I've been on the straight and narrow in most respects lately, though. Perhaps I will be able to stop myself if I am able to ride the momentum of all the other stuff I have done well.