The Food Will Still Be There When You Get Back
Seriously, it’s not going anywhere. It’s not gonna disappear off your plate if you don’t eat it right now. You can box it up for later, take it home, and put it in the fridge.
Sure, it won’t taste quite as good, and the textures will be different, but is cleaning your plate honestly worth the discomfort from being too full? Is it worth the nausea and fatigue that follows? Is it worth cancelling plans with friends or heading home early because you no longer feel well?
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I’ve been on a journey this year, a personal one. It’s been messy and it’s been painful. A year of reading through dieting books and anti-dieting books. It’s only now that I’m realizing something that toddlers know innately: the body knows what it needs.
I didn’t realize how much I was forcing myself to finish every plate of food, every sip of soda, every bite of a sandwich. I didn’t realize that that was why I so often felt so bad after I finished eating.
It wasn’t the chicken tenders and French fries. It wasn’t the milkshakes either. I spent so much time worrying about what was on my plate that I never realized how I was eating. Somehow, a giant plate of vegetables and lentil pasta didn’t change how I felt.
In truth, I lacked mindfulness. I didn’t honor my hunger or respect my fullness. I wasn’t using CBT. Whatever term you want to use, I didn’t have it. I’d never thought to question how I ate, and how it made me feel. Emotionally, or physically.
Worrying about “wasting food” was part of what distracted me from understanding when I felt full. It made me eat myself sick. All because I didn’t want to waste it, didn’t want to leave it on the plate. I didn’t want it to get thrown out. Not in the “save the trees” kind of way, but in a way that was more tacit. It was faulty programming hidden underneath many other lines of code. I’m not sure where I learned it from.
So yeah, the food can come home with you. You can put it in the fridge for later. You can pull it out at midnight and eat it cold if you want to. I’ve done it and found pleasure in it. But, it’s also okay to leave it right there on that plate. Maybe you don’t want to take it home, and that’s fine too. Is it really wasted food if you had no intention to eat it later?
Of course, if you want to take it home for later, if it helps you to respect your fullness, then you should do what feels right and take it home.
The bottom line is that it’s okay to not eat everything on your plate. It’s not like that food was gonna be given to those “starving kids in Africa” anyway. It’s okay to be done. It’s okay to just walk away from a meal, half eaten, because you don’t want the rest. Our bodies know what’s best for us, all we have to do is learn how to listen.
Some resources for reconnecting with your body:
Unapologetic Eating — Alissa Rumsey
This Body is Not an Apology — Sonya Renee Taylor
Intuitive Eating — Evelyn Tribole and Elise Resch
