Goal: Listen to Hunger Signals

This kind of follows the mentality of "eat to live, not live to eat." I am trying to just eat when I'm hungry. And in order to do this and not overeat, it is important to follow the last goal I talked about, eat whole foods more often. Because, if I am eating granola bars, crackers, or 100-calorie packs of cookies whenever I'm hungry, I'll be hungry a lot and be consuming way more calories than necessary. However, if I eat a good breakfast (a smoothie or some oatmeal, for example), I can go for hours before feeling hungry. At the end of a day, if I sit down and make an estimate of the calories I've eaten (because I scarily know how many calories are in a lot of things) I have a eaten the right amount.

You may have heard that instead of eating 3 meals a day, you should eat 6 small meals. This is a big thing in dieting, but I've made my own rules. I just eat small amounts when I'm hungry. Sometimes the only "meal" I have in a day is breakfast, and sometimes I have a small supper if I'm in the mood to cook. But really, what does it matter if you have a meal, as long as you are eating right and getting enough food and nutrients.

Now, when it comes to other things, like eating out, alcohol, snacks (such as for movies), I need to do all that in moderation and cut back a little. I don't go out to eat much already, and when I do, I eat half my meal and save the rest for the next day because you always get huge portions at restaurants. I don't drink alcohol much,  but sometimes, when I do, I drink far too much. I have cut back, but I want to cut back even further. Sometimes this involves tricking people into thinking that you have alcohol because they'll tease you or pressure you as to why you're not drinking. This is easy because you cannot tell the difference between 7 Up and vodka to just 7 Up, for example. As for movies, I love popcorn, and since 1/4 cup of kernels = 8 cups of popcorn and if I ate all that it'd be about 250 calories!

I just ate a large bowl of oatmeal (about 200 calories) and am FULL. I probably won't have to eat for a while and when I go to see Bridesmaids later, I will sneak in my own large bag of popcorn! :D