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The Pause

For much of my life, I have had a really large appetite. I never really intended for this to happen, but it just did. In fact, people around me would occasionally notice the amount of food that I ate, and there would inevitably be some good-natured ribbing about it. It was just one of those random tidbits that was true about me, sort of like the color of my hair or which of my hands is my dominant hand.

However, that started to change as I got older. I'm not geriatric, but I wrote over a decade ago that my appetite was starting to look more like the average person's (also, it's more than a little crazy to me that I can reference something I wrote 10+ years ago. That seems like a lifetime ago). Time and age have definitely changed that particular fact about me.

What's more, as it's become more of the norm for me to eat less, I have started to feel uncomfortable if I eat too much. It's not even a matter of comparing how much I eat now versus what I used to eat; whatever the absolute amount of food I can consume, I now feel the consequences of trying to stray past that limit. I feel actual discomfort if I try to eat more than my stomach requires, and I've noticed the feeling more prominently as the years have gone by.

Well, as I am wont to say, pain is a great teacher. I simply don't want to feel uncomfortable like that, so I try to avoid overeating. There are still occasions when I'm hungry and I eat a lot, but when I feel full, I stop eating. It's not about the actual amount I eat, it's about knowing when to stop.

However, this brings up a new, secondary dilemma. What if the first portion I serve myself isn't enough food? Am I still actually hungry? How much more should I serve myself? I don't want to go hungry, but I also don't want to feel uncomfortable because I ate too much. There's definitely a Goldilocks zone of how much more I can eat, and the trick is making sure to find it.

In an effort to make sure I stay within this zone, I have taken to pausing for five minutes or so after that first serving. I have read that sometimes your stomach doesn't provide the signals to your brain quickly enough (and/or that you ate too quickly), so my solution is to try inject an artificial pause to ensure that I'm not in this situation. If I'm still hungry after that quick break, I should continue to eat. If I find that I'm "suddenly" full, then I can stop eating.

Interestingly enough, I find that most of the time, I am, indeed, still hungry after the pause, but there have been a few times where it's saved me from myself. So, even though I'm mostly certain that I should grab a second serving, I'm going to keep doing this to make sure I do avoid that discomfort where possible. If anything, I find that it also helps calibrate the size of my second serving. All in all, I think it's been helpful.

Still, even though it's really useful, I can't help but laugh at myself. It's like a longer, self-imposed version of the five second rule (courtesy of this useful post). I've definitely chuckled at my own expense during the pause, and I'm not sure it's going to stop anytime soon.
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