Your Body's Not a Garbage Can

I was so proud! Last night, my younger son started singing the words above, and then told me he got them from me. He listens! Yay! Then, her morphed them into a rap, and those words are not fit to print (he wants you to know that it's a rap, so the words were perfectly acceptable in the genre). Still, I was proud of the creativity (and that he listens to me! Yay!). Until again, it was pointed out that the words are so close to John Mayer's song "Your Body is a
Wonderland" as to not be all that creative after all.

However, if you know Mayer's song, try singing these words along to the melody. It might help you remember them. I think they're good to remember because too many of us, do in fact, put much in our bodies we should just be throwing in the trash.

The biggest culprits of this might be mothers of small children. I know I was one. Little kids are notorious for not finishing what we put on their plates (unless they finish it by dumping it over their heads). We, the people who spent money and time providing that food, and are often bored and distracted during the serving so we eat what our children won't rather than throwing it out. Think about it: what purpose does this serve? It may be decent parenting because teaching kids to finish what's on their plates teaches them to ignore their bodies and overeat rather teaching them to be aware of their hunger and satiety and eat according to that (which they'll do naturally if we don't intefere). However, it's poor self-care: why should we eat what we're not hungry for - we, too, should eat to satiety and stop. I wrote that it's decent parenting, not good parenting, because ultimately, our children will do as we do - so if we eat just to clean a plate, most likely our children will start doing so as well.

The next group of people who eat what should be tossed is many of the rest of us. We sometimes overeat because:
1. we bought it/spent good money on it/it would be wasteful to throw it out.
2. we spent time cooking it/it would be a waste of time to not have it eaten.

Again, if you're not hungry for it, you're not saving money or time by eating it. Either way the money and time is gone. There's no getting it back, but that doesn't mean you have to gain extra pounds and risk the fallout from that because you don't like wasting food. How much do you spend on doctor's appointments, medication, the gym, weight loss books, etc., etc. because you're eating too much or eating unhealthy foods?

What can you do? Two things come to mind:
1. if you can't stand to part with leftovers, put any amount in the 'fridge for tomorrow. Even a bite of this or that may be a nice snack - or you might be able to add it to another meal. I added some sauteed vegetables to a pilaf this morning. It was only about 1/2 cup's worth, not enough for much, but enough to flavor the pilaf and add a bit more nutrition to it.
2. accept that there's a certain amount of waste that comes with life. Look at all the packaging materials you throw out (of course, I'd advocate for reducing this, but for most of us, at least some is unavoidable). You live here, you impact the earth, just your being here is wasteful: accept it!
3. throw it out and forget about it.

And just in case you've forgotten, here's another gentle reminder that's on point: there's no such thing as junk food: there's junk and there's food. Try to keep the junk out of your body.