Enjoying My Food + a Note on Shin Splints

Something that diaryofanaspiringloser has mentioned in a post or two of hers is that once she is physically full, she has noticed that she stops enjoying the food she’s eating.  I thought this was interesting, but that was about all I thought about it before I forgot about it.  Until a week or so after reading it, that is. 

The Saturday before last I took myself out for some Chinese food at a little bistro restaurant I like to go to.  I love their sweet and sour combo (chicken, pork and shrimp all together), so of course that’s what I got.  They brought me out my egg drop soup and crispy sweetened wontons with sweet and sour sauce to dip them in.  Those all tasted good and I enjoyed them.  Then, the waitress brought out my main course.  I ate it, but it wasn’t as good as I remember it being for starters.  For another, about three quarters of the way into eating it, it dawned on me that I was no longer enjoying eating it.  I ended up finishing the food on my plate because there wasn’t more than a few pieces left, but I was full.  I didn’t even eat the fortune cookie and I love the fortune cookies! 

I like this little development in my eating habits.  It sort of happened this past Saturday when I took myself for BBQ.  The BBQ was okay.  It wasn’t fantastically delicious (my favorite place to get BBQ is about an hour’s drive away, this place was only about 15 minutes), but it was enjoyable.  The banana pudding was okay.  It was nothing when compared to my co-worker Keith’s wife’s banana pudding (she uses Paula Dean’s banana pudding recipe…to. die. for.), but it was good.  But, when I got done eating, it was nice to realized that I had eaten the perfect amount of food and felt satisfied.  I hadn’t eaten too much because I didn’t feel FULL nor stuffed, just satisfied.  And it was nice.

On a side note, I found an article about how to "banish" shin splints.  The exercise it tells you to do is easy to do and seems like it would be really effective.