More adventures in Intuitive Eating.

I wasn't craving anything particular (other than a salad but I have no veggies) this morning and the hubs wanted eggs and pancakes. Pancakes sounded good, so I made some. But I did a little experiment while making them. I like to cook things in butter for flavor, so I went ahead and did that. But I used two different butters - cheap salted butter and organic extra fancy expensive unsalted European style butter.

I found that I like the pancake cooked in the cheap salted butter better and I didn't need to add any more butter once I sat down to eat. The fancy-pants butter didn't do anything for me in the taste category and I found myself adding a little salted butter to that pancake. And I'm still not a huge fan of pancake syrup. Down here in Texas we have to pay a good amount more for the real stuff, and I'll invest in it once we move out of my mom's house and I restock my kitchen. But for now it's Aunt Jemima Butter Lite. Which tastes okay, but I never need anywhere close to even 1 Tbsp.

Also, I made myself 3 pancakes, 2 in salted butter and 1 in unsalted butter. I only ate a couple of bites each of the unsalted one and a salted one, and a whole salted one. So I guess that's only 2 pancakes (3-4 in diameter). I guessed that 3 pancakes that size were not going to be enough for me before I sat down to eat, and I contemplated making an egg as well. I decided that I would wait to make the egg for after I finished the pancakes if I was still hungry. Good thing!

I'm finding it very interesting that now that I'm thinking about what I'm eating and really paying attention to what I LIKE, that I don't need to wolf down as much food to feel satisfied. I'm taking the time to taste my food because I'm allowing myself to eat it unconditionally. This is key for me because I love food in general so much. I don't feel like I need to punish myself or sentence myself to only eating "healthy" foods later because I had a "heavy" breakfast.

And now when we go to Denny's I can feel confident that I'm not going to feel deprived of pancakes when I make my decision to have hash browns instead. As of right now, I believe I like hash browns better. But in the past I'd get nervous that I'd make the wrong decision (that sounds so funny now!) and I'd order BOTH and eat BOTH. I think pancakes taste good, but hash browns taste better. The decision should be very easy from now on. Very interesting indeed.

You can purchase your copy of Intuitive Eating here, or at least check it out from your library. Whether you think you're on a diet or not, there are some really eye opening things discussed in this book.

What is your relationship with food like?